The IRS was so steamed at Twitter Files journalist Matt Taibbi that they opened up an audit of his 2018 tax return last Christmas eve. That fell on a Saturday, so must have been a really special day for the revenooers. Three weeks earlier he had first “exposed sensitive documents about censorship at Twitter.” The timing gets even more suspicious.
IRS intimidation on display
The IRS apparently tried to intimidate Matt Taibbi into silence. It didn’t work and blew up in their faces. Along with the whistleblower retaliation claims they’ve been up against for the past week, you can bet there will be some congressional committee hearings on this incident in the near future.
In fact, it’s guaranteed because “the House Judiciary Committee released a letter on Wednesday that sought more information from the government following revelations a tax agent visited Taibbi’s home” on March 9, 2022 — “the same day he testified to Congress about the ‘Twitter Files.‘”
The letter written by chairman Jim Jordan notes that documents already handed over by the IRS “raise more questions than they answer.” That’s why he’s demanding that Commissioner Daniel Werfel cough up more records and fill them in on the rest of the story.
The IRS opened a case on me on a Saturday, Christmas Eve 2022, which just happened to coincide with a major Twitter Files report on FBI/intelligence community ties to tech platforms.
This is revealed in a new letter to the IRS Commissioner by House Judiciary Chair @Jim_Jordan: pic.twitter.com/WnbouNJMdQ— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) May 24, 2023
To cover the wrongdoing, the tax collectors “told the committee it was trying to ensure the reporter wasn’t the victim of identity fraud.” That’s a load of crap, Jordan pushed back.
The IRS claims they sent Taibbi a letter in 2019 which “explained the discrepancy.” The big problem with that in Taibbi never got it, neither did his accountant or lawyer.
They opened a second file on him this past Christmas. They were diving into his 2018 tax return “on December 24, 2022 — a Saturday.” He was writing for Rolling Stone at the time and “did not owe taxes.”
Two missing letters
After doing a deep dive of Taibbi’s tax return for 2018, the IRS “determined it owed him a refund and closed the case on March 23.” They may not be trying to get money out of him but they’re lying through their teeth about attempts at making contact before showing up at his house to intimidate him.
The tax officials “asserted to the Committee that it sent a letter to Mr. Taibbi on October 24, 2019 — nine days after Mr. Taibbi filed his 2018 tax return — asking Mr. Taibbi to verify his return because it met identity theft criteria and could not be processed until he confirmed.”
Then, they claim, “the IRS alleged that it sent a second letter to Mr. Taibbi on March 23, 2020.” There’s a little problem with that.
Abolish the IRS.https://t.co/jGxKBhNQLt
— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) May 25, 2023
“However, according to Mr. Taibbi, neither he nor his accountant received either of these letters or any other notification that there was an issue with his 2018 tax return — that is, until the IRS conducted a field visit at Mr. Taibbi’s home three years later.”
Once he became aware of the alleged letters, Taibbi asked to see them. Sorry, he was told. That makes it seem like they never existed in the first place. “The IRS also failed to produce these purported letters to the Committee.”
Jordan also makes a big deal out of the fact that besides opening the investigation on Christmas Eve and three weeks after the first Twitter Files drop, it was “the same day that Mr. Taibbi published the ninth segment of the Twitter Files, detailing how federal government agencies ‘from the State Department to the Pentagon to the CIA‘ coordinated to censor and coerce speech on various social media platforms.” That seems a lot like retaliation. The tax collectors are getting accused of that a lot, lately.
