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> Zupkus said, adding that the IRS wants "to extract as much as possible from the taxpayer."

The IRS doesn't want your tax dollars, they are just the mechanism by which the federal government enforces tax collection according to the law.

I've gotten refunded by the IRS for taxes they found that I overpaid years ago. Neither I nor my accountant did anything to initiate that. I'm not alone in getting an unprompted refund.

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I've met people who thought that the IRS makes money from collecting taxes - like that employees there get a cut.

Maybe they were talking about the program where you report tax evasion and then once the missing money is collected you get up to 30% of it? That exists.

According to https://www.irs.gov/compliance/whistleblower-office the whistleblower reward program is not available to employees of Department of the Treasury.

Sure. But during a casual chat maybe somebody mentioned that reporting tax fraud can earn you money, and then somebody else assumed that they were talking about IRS employees even though they were not.

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