People Are Still Getting Off on Scaring the Bajeezus Out of IRS Employees

Posted on by Caleb Newquist

In what amounts to either coordinated efforts by some lunatics or a giant coincidence, envelopes with white powder were sent to eight federal buildings including an IRS office in Bellevue, Washington yesterday. CNN reports that the building in Bellevue was evacuated after "an employee opened a letter and the white powder 'poofed out.' " Other envelopes were sent to FBI buildings in Seattle, Spokane, Salt Lake City, Pocatello and Coeur d'Alene, Idaho as well as U.S. Attorney's offices in Boise and Coeur d'Alene. While this latest IRS powder package incident seems to have caused no harm, one has to wonder what the motivation is behind such spineless actions. Does someone out there a major beef with the IRS and have a Hazmat fetish? Has that been diagnosed yet?

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IRS Commish: Gird Your Loins, Offshore Bank Havens

Yesterday we mentioned that the IRS’s new Global High Wealth Industry Group was putting the screws to the rich via “Audits from Hell.” Today, the Service announced that they were withdrawing the federal court summons against UBS since the Swiss Bank provide 4,000 more names of American clients who had parked funds offshore.

With the announcement, IRS Commish Doug Shulman put those 4k lucky ducks on notice that they should prepare for their personal audit inferno:

The IRS on Tuesday withdrew its Miami federal court summons seeking identities of suspected U.S. tax dodgers at UBS after receiving more than 4,000 names as required under an August 2009 agreement that also included the Swiss government. Each of those people expect what Shulman called a “full-blown audit” and many are likely to be charged criminally.

But that’s not all! Clearly, not satisfied with the example made of UBS, the Commish made a promise to everyone that the Service’s offshore bank raids were just getting started.

This is the close of what I call the first chapter,” IRS chief Doug Shulman told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. “We are actively pursuing a number of other banks and promoters and advisers.”

Shulman declined to get into specifics about ongoing offshore tax investigations, but said: “It’s not just about Switzerland, this is about multiple countries and multiple institutions.”