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IRS to Hire 3,700 Agents to Audit Wealthy Tax Dodgers

By Melanie Waddell

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The Internal Revenue Service said that it plans to hire more than 3,700 compliance personnel to help crack down on complex partnerships and large corporations.

The agency said Friday that the positions will be open in more than 250 locations nationwide and is part of a larger effort “to add fairness to the tax system and expand tax enforcement involving areas of concern with high-income earners, partnerships, large corporations and promoters.”

The hiring will be for “higher-graded revenue agents, which are specialized technical positions that generally focus on audits,” officially called Internal Revenue Agents, the agency said, with an annual salary of about $125,000.

On Sept. 8, the IRS said that it was shifting its attention to wealthy taxpayers, partnerships and other high earners “that have seen sharp drops in audit rates” during the past decade.

The new compliance initiative, funded by the Inflation Reduction Act, “will be driven with the help of improved technology as well as Artificial Intelligence that will help IRS compliance teams better detect tax cheating, identify emerging compliance threats and improve case selection tools to avoid burdening taxpayers with needless ‘no-change’ audits,” the agency explained.

The first wave of hiring focused on taxpayer service positions to help improve the IRS’ phone and in-person assistance.

“This next wave of hiring will help the IRS add key talent like tax accountants to help reverse a decade-long decline of audits for the wealthy as well as complex partnerships and corporations,” IRS Commissioner Danny Werferl said in a statement. “These new employees will be focused on higher-income and complex tax areas like partnerships, not average taxpayers making less than $400,000.”

People working in financial services frequently have the relevant education, experience and skills to apply, the agency said.

Melanie Waddell

@Think_MelanieW

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