IRS Worried by Violence Against Agents : $60,000 Study Looks for Warning Signals That Precede Assaults

The Internal Revenue Service, concerned about violence and threats by taxpayers against its agents and officers, is sponsoring a $60,000 study to uncover possible warning signals in its contacts with the public.

The main goal is to train employees “to recognize the types of situations that could lead to violence . . . so they can gracefully exit the scene,” said Steve Marica, chief of the operations analysis branch of the IRS internal security division.

Information compiled on threats and assaults over the last few years will be analyzed by Research Management Associates, an Alexandria, Va., consulting firm, Marica said.

Research Management will look for patterns in “the types of persons that have done the threats and assaults, and the circumstances, any extenuating problems, things like that,” said Tom McEwen, president of the firm.

Researchers may also interview employees who have been assaulted or threatened, McEwen said.

The IRS has investigated about 1,000 cases of threats and violence in the last year, Marica said. About 60 or 70 cases involved assaults, usually by pushing or striking, he said.

A vast majority of investigated cases involved agents doing audits in the field and officers who collect delinquent taxes, he said.

Last year’s violence included a shotgun blast from a woman in South Carolina, Marica said. It missed, but in 1983, an irate taxpayer killed an IRS officer in New York.

Michael Dillon, 61, became the first IRS revenue officer to be slain in the line of duty when he was shot three times with an M-1 rifle while sitting at a kitchen table, trying to collect a $332 tax bill from a Cheektowaga, N.Y., resident.

The same year, another officer was paralyzed after being shot in his office in Ohio, Marica said. And a district director in Oklahoma City was held hostage in his office for two hours by a gun-wielding taxpayer.