Fact check: Do viral Facebook photos show 'an IRS agent training class'?

Ciara O'Rourke, PolitiFact.com

Viral Facebook post: Photos show "an IRS agent training class."

PolitiFact's ruling: False

Here's why: You may have seen the online images showing people wearing protective vests and wielding fake handguns.

"IRS CID POLICE" say the white letters emblazoned across their vests.

"These are actual photos of an IRS agent training class," one Facebook post said of four such photos. Another post showed a video clip of some of the same people in the photos, describing it as a "new video and photos of agents training." These kinds of claims were further fueled by U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who tweeted the images and said: "These are not auditions for the next Police Academy sequel. This is an actual IRS recruiting program."

These posts are being shared online amid misinformation about IRS plans to increase its staffing and enforcement. And they were flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed.

The four photos and video don’t show IRS agents. They show accounting students at Stockton University and the University of Alaska Anchorage. The students are participating in a simulation of a mock criminal investigation, playing the role of IRS criminal investigations special agents.

"Accountants don’t typically carry guns," a 2017 press release from Stockton University says about what it called a "hands-on lesson in IRS criminal investigations." "But, as 24 accounting students at Stockton University learned, being a special agent for IRS Criminal Investigations means you might uncover a money laundering operation for terrorists, resulting in an armed raid."

The students reviewed bank statements, invoices and tax returns. They surveilled and interrogated witnesses. They requested arrest and search warrants.

The simulation was part of what’s called the "Adrian Project," an IRS program that visits college and university campuses "to provide students with a firsthand look at what it’s like for IRS special agents to carry out an investigation, tracking illicit money from the crime to the criminal," according to the agency.

Stockton professors have said they brought the program there to expose students to different types of careers in accounting.IRS Criminal Investigation is a division of the IRS, and its agents have been armed for more than a century. These federal employees also aren’t the typical auditors that Americans facing routine audits will encounter. The notorious gangster Al Capone, for example, was investigated by the division, then called the Intelligence Unit, and later convicted on tax evasion charges. More recently, criminal investigation agents have been part of a task force tracking down the assets of Russian oligarchs.

We rate claims that these photos show an IRS agent training class False.

Our Sources

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: PolitiFact: Viral photos do not show an IRS training class

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