Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH) is investigating what he calls a “bizarre” and “highly concerning” alleged incident in which an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agent used a fake name to target an Ohio taxpayer at her personal residence.
Jordan sent a letter about the incident to IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel in which he requested additional information as part of his investigation.
This is a summary of the incident as detailed in Jordan’s letter.
On April 25, 2023, an IRS agent who identified himself as “Bill Haus” of the IRS Criminal Division went to a woman’s home in Marion, OH. He said he was there to discuss issues about an estate of which she was a fiduciary. He said that she did not properly complete the filings for the estate and owed the IRS “a substantial amount.”
After “Haus” gave the woman details only the IRS would know, she let him into her home. The taxpayer told him that the estate was resolved in January 2023 and all taxes had been properly paid.
“Haus” then told her that the real purpose of his visit was not about a problem with the estate but because the decedent had several delinquent tax return filings. He then provided several documents for her to fill out which included sensitive information about the decedent.
At this point, the taxpayer called her attorney who told “Haus” to get out of her home. He responded aggressively, insisting, “I am an IRS agent, I can be at and go into anyone’s house at any time I want to be.”
Before he finally left, “Haus” said he would mail paperwork to her and issued another threat in which he stated that he would freeze all of her assets and put a lien on her house if she did not satisfy the remaining balance owed within one week.
The taxpayer called the police to determine if all of this was a scam. The Marion, Ohio Police Department (MPD) ran the license plate on the car that Agent “Haus” was driving to identify him, and he admitted that he had used an alias when he identified himself to the Ohio taxpayer. The MPD believed that he was trying to scam the taxpayer and told him not to go to her home again or he would be arrested.
At this point, “Haus” filed a complaint with the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) against the police department. The MPD learned that “Haus” was, in fact, a legitimate IRS agent when they contacted TIGTA to respond to the complaint.
On May 4, 2023, the taxpayer spoke to the supervisor of Agent “Haus” who clarified that nothing was owed on the estate. The supervisor even admitted to the taxpayer that “things never should have gotten this far.”
However, on May 5, 2023, the taxpayer received the first and only letter from the IRS which stated that the decedent was delinquent on several 1040 tax filings.
On May 15, 2023, the taxpayer again spoke to the supervisor who reiterated that nothing was owed.
Finally, on May 30, 2023, the taxpayer received a letter from the IRS saying that the case was closed.
Jordan called the situation “highly concerning” in his letter, stating, “This behavior from an IRS agent to an American taxpayer—providing an alias, using deception to secure entry into the taxpayer’s home, and then filing an Inspector General complaint against a police officer examining that matter—is highly concerning.”
He noted also that the incident follows a similar situation in which an IRS agent visited journalist Matt Taibbi’s home the same day that he testified to Congress about the “Twitter Files.”
Jordan described the incident as follows in a letter sent on March 27, 2023, to IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel:
The Committee has learned that while Mr. Taibbi was describing his findings of government abuse and civil liberties violations, an IRS revenue officer appeared at Mr. Taibbi’s personal residence in New Jersey—leaving a note for Mr. Taibbi to call the IRS four days later. When Mr. Taibbi called the IRS, the IRS informed him that the reason for the visit was because his electronic 2018 and 2021 tax return filings had been rejected due to concerns of identity theft. According to Mr. Taibbi, the IRS notified his accountant that the IRS had accepted his 2018 filing, and in the four-and-a-half years since then, the IRS has never notified Mr. Taibbi or his accountant of any issue with this return—until the day he was testifying before Congress. With respect to his 2021 return, the IRS rejected Mr. Taibbi’s electronic filing twice, even after his accountant filed with an IRS-provided pin number. In both cases, the IRS informed Mr. Taibbi after the agency visited his home that the problems were not “monetary”; in fact, the IRS apparently owed Mr. Taibbi a “considerable” tax return.
The circumstances surrounding the IRS’s unannounced and unprompted visit to Mr. Taibbi’s home, at the exact time that he was testifying to Congress about “the most serious” government abuse he has witnessed in his career as a journalist, are incredible. The IRS’s visit is all the more concerning in light of Mr. Taibbi’s assertions that the IRS informed him the problems were not “monetary” and he had never received any prior indication of any issues with his 2018 return. These facts demand a careful examination by the Committee to determine whether the visit was a thinly-veiled attempt to influence or intimidate a witness before Congress.
