Potentially Dangerous Taxpayer (PDT) is a government designation assigned by the

Internal Revenue Service The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting U.S. federal taxes and administering the Internal Revenue Code, the main body of the federal statutory ta ...

(IRS) to taxpayers of the

United States of America The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...

whom IRS officials claim have demonstrated a capacity for violence against employees of the IRS or other government agencies, contractors or their families. Suspected PDT cases are handled by the

Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) is an office in the United States Federal government. It was established in January 1999 in accordance with the Internal Revenue Service Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998 (RRA 98) t ...

Criteria

The IRS has established the following criteria for assessing a taxpayer as a PDT, any one of which is sufficient for declaring a taxpayer a PDT:

Taxpayers who have committed acts of violence against IRS employees, contractors and/or their families;
Taxpayers who threaten or intimidate IRS employees, contractors and/or members of their family by threats of bodily harm or other intrinsically threatening behavior, such as
stalking Stalking is unwanted and/or repeated surveillance by an individual or group toward another person. Stalking behaviors are interrelated to harassment and intimidation and may include following the victim in person or monitoring them. The ter ...
;
Taxpayers who are actively involved in groups which promote violence against IRS or other government employees;
Taxpayers who have in fact committed acts of violence or intimidation against employees or contractors of other federal, state, county or local government organization; or
Taxpayers who have demonstrated a capacity for violence by commission of any of the aforementioned acts of violence in the previous five years.

The Internal Revenue Service also designates certain taxpayers as "Caution Upon Contact" taxpayers, or "CAU" taxpayers. The guidelines for the CAU designation are:

Threat of physical harm that is less severe or immediate than necessary to satisfy PDT otentially dangerous taxpayercriteria;
Suicide threat by the taxpayer; or
Filing or threatening to file a frivolous lien or a frivolous criminal or civil legal action against an IRS employee or contractor or an IRS employee's or contractor's immediate family member.

Incidents

In response to an inquiry after the February 18, 2010, suicidal attack on an office of the IRS at Austin, Texas, by Andrew Joseph Stack that resulted in his death and that of an IRS employee, an IRS spokesperson indicated that the IRS also declined to state whether Stack had been designated as a PDT.

Mark Pitcavage Mark Pitcavage is a historian and analyst of far-right wing groups. He works with the Anti-Defamation League and was the creator of the now-archived Militia Watchdog website. The site has been an archive since 2000 when Pitcavage took the position ...

of the

Anti-Defamation League The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), formerly known as the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, is an international Jewish non-governmental organization based in the United States specializing in civil rights law. It was founded in late Septe ...

called Stack a lone-wolf "homegrown, self-taught extremist" with possible ties to the Tax Protest Movement. This is a chart from an IRS report that shows data on quantities:http://www.treasury.gov/tigta/auditreports/2013reports/201340014fr.pdf ‡ 2012 is only up until July 2012 In 2009, Randy Nowak of

Mulberry, Florida Mulberry is a city in Polk County, Florida, United States. The population was 3,817 at the 2010 census. Mulberry is home to Badcock Home Furniture. It is part of the Lakeland– Winter Haven Metropolitan Statistical Area, with parts of unincorp ...

, was convicted and sentenced to 30 years in prison for attempting to hire a

hitman Contract killing is a form of murder or assassination in which one party hires another party to kill a targeted person or persons. It involves an illegal agreement which includes some form of payment, monetary or otherwise. Either party may be ...

to murder the IRS agent doing his audit. In other cases, disgruntled taxpayers have enclosed foreign objects with their returns.

References

{{Reflist, 1, refs= {{cite news , url = https://www.dallasnews.com/news/texas/2010/03/03/Hatred-toward-IRS-nothing-new-676 , title = Hatred toward IRS nothing new , last = Ball , first = Andrea , date = March 3, 2010 , access-date = 2010-03-28 , work =

The Dallas Morning News ''The Dallas Morning News'' is a daily newspaper serving the Dallas–Fort Worth area of Texas, with an average print circulation of 65,369. It was founded on October 1, 1885 by Alfred Horatio Belo as a satellite publication of the ''Galvesto ...

{{cite news, first=Susan Taylor , last=Martin, title=Some take ire for IRS too far, date=February 22, 2010, work=St. Petersburg Times, url= http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/nation/story/EA86E9188255F217862576D2000E6D6E?OpenDocument, access-date=March 3, 2010 {{cite web, title=Part 25, Chapter 4, sec. 1, Internal Revenue Manual, Internal Revenue Service, U.S. Dep't of the Treasury, url= https://www.irs.gov/irm/part25/irm_25-004-001.html, date=July 8, 2009, work=IRS.gov, access-date=March 3, 2010 {{cite news, first=Andrea, last= Ball, title= Threats, contempt come with job for IRS workers, date= March 1, 2010, work= Austin American-Statesman, url=http://www.statesman.com/news/local/threats-contempt-come-with-job-for-irs-workers-306383.html, access-date=March 3, 2010 {{cite news, title=Texas case is extreme example of how Americans hate the IRS, url=http://www.tampabay.com/news/texas-case-is-extreme-example-of-how-americans-hate-the-irs/1074697, date=February 20, 2010, access-date=March 3, 2010, last=Martin, first=Susan Taylor, work=St. Petersburg Times Internal Revenue Service Tax resistance in the United States

Criteria

Incidents

See also

References