The Department of Government Efficiency’s interest in auditing the IRS should be welcome news. The agency is not above scrutiny; it deserves an audit, just like the ones it pushes on taxpayers. What they may not know about the IRS, however, is that it is heavily and inappropriately armed. DOGE is mandated not just to audit but to disarm an agency that has been figuratively and literally weaponized.
My organization, Open the Books, found the IRS has spent more than $35 million on guns, ammunition, and military-style weaponry since 2006. That sped up after 2020, as the agency spent $10 million over just three years on purchases, including $2.5 million on ballistic shields and related tactical gear, more than $500,000 on ballistic helmets and body armor, and nearly $1 million on Smith & Wesson rifles and Berretta tactical shotguns.
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Before that recent spending spree, the IRS was already sitting on a cache of five million rounds of ammo and 4,500 guns, including 15 submachine guns, all to outfit 2,159 special agents at the time, more officers than police departments in cities such as Boston, San Francisco, and Nashville.
What is this pencil-pushing agency doing sitting on such a stockpile? A sample job posting from 2022 tells the tale. A special agent position requires a willingness to use “deadly force” to enforce the tax code. After setting off a storm of controversy, the agency removed the language, only for it to later reappear in job postings.
The literal militarization of the IRS comes on the heels of its figurative weaponization. Journalist Kim Strassel documented the IRS’s targeted and political harassment of conservative groups during the Obama years. Lois Lerner, former director of the IRS division overseeing tax-exempt groups, infamously had to apologize when her office, which handled filings for nonprofit organizations, was found to be systematically targeting conservative organizations using keywords such as “tea party.”
The militarization of the federal agencies needs to stop immediately. There are almost as many federal agents and contractors with arrest and firearm authority as United States Marines. Armed bureaucrats from various regulatory agencies should not be rolling up to our doorsteps to set us straight. If a violation needs to be addressed, agencies such as the IRS should partner with local law enforcement, who are familiar with residents in their community, to ensure conflicts do not escalate.
To that end, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) introduced the Why Does the IRS Need Guns Act during the last session of Congress. It would have prohibited the agency from buying weapons in the future and required the IRS to turn the current stockpile over for public auction. Lawmakers should send a similar bill to President Donald Trump’s desk this session.
To address the less tangible weaponry the IRS can wield, DOGE should investigate how other appropriated funds are being spent. Are specific taxpayers or businesses still singled out for investigation? Are good-faith actors being intimidated by aberrant, in-person house calls? And are the IRS’s own agents current on their taxes?
Liberals, who seem to believe that under-taxation is a bigger problem than overspending, are preemptively accusing DOGE of violating taxpayer privacy. I would wager taxpayers are far more concerned about the IRS’s police powers violating their freedom. DOGE should not only show taxpayers the numbers but seize and spread out the IRS’s weapons in a cartel-style raid — and then let taxpayers decide if they approve of 87,000 new agents being protected by a paramilitary branch of government.
John Hart is the CEO of Open the Books and the former communications director for former Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK).