A House Investigation Reveals Disturbing IRS Home Visit Practices

 The most unsettling revelations involve a bizarre incident from about a month and a half after my case, on April 25, 2023. On that date, a woman was visited at her home by a man identifying himself as “Bill Haus” from the IRS’s Criminal Division. He then “informed the taxpayer he was at her home to discuss issues concerning an estate for which the taxpayer was the fiduciary,” and after sharing “details about the estate that only the IRS would know,” the taxpayer “let him into her home.”

The woman informed “Haus” that the estate issues had been resolved, and furnished documents to prove it. At this point, he informed her of his real purpose, claiming she was delinquent on several tax filings and provided “several documents to the taxpayer for her to complete.”

Hesitating, the woman offered to put him on the phone with her accountant, but when he didn’t answer the phone, she contacted an attorney, who “repeatedly told Agent ‘Haus’ to leave the taxpayer’s home since the taxpayer had not received any prior notice from the IRS of any issue.” The agent reportedly replied that he was with the IRS and could go into anyone’s house at any time, and before leaving told the taxpayer she had “exactly one week to satisfy the remaining balance or he would freeze all her assets and put a lien on her house,” as the Committee report put it.

1. IRS agents make field visits using aliases;

2. IRS agents make “pretext” visits, i.e. they announce they’re asking about one thing, when really by their own admission, they might be investigating something else;

3. The IRS makes local, covert home visits without informing local authorities.

A major at the MPD called TIGTA to ask how the citizen could file a complaint, and the MPD was told “it would be a waste of her time.” Not until May 4th was the taxpayer able to speak with “Haus’s” supervisor, who confirmed she did not, in fact, owe money. He apologized, saying “some things that were said were wrong . . . things never should have gotten this far.”

The IRS told the Committee weeks later that the case was closed, and a day after that sent a letter explaining that the alias issue was not standard procedure: