IRS Seeks to Bypass TikTok Ban to Fight Tax Scams, Fallacies

The IRS is trying to find a workaround so some of its employees can use TikTok to crack down on misinformation campaigns on the platform.

Disrupting scams and schemes has become a centerpiece in IRS messaging over the last year, with the agency recently announcing a partnership with state agencies and the tax industry to combat such scams. But a law that banned TikTok on government devices is complicating the IRS’s ability to combat bad actors on the platform.

Congress enacted a ban on the social media platform in the fiscal 2023 spending bill over concerns on security risks associated with its Chinese ownership. The IRS has accounts on Facebook, Instagram, X, YouTube, and LinkedIn.

Agencies can seek an exemption from the ban for some of activities, including for law enforcement, national security interests, and security research. The Department of Treasury must grant the exception for the IRS.

“That process has not yet been resolved,” IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said in a recent interview. “We are working through it.”

While the IRS took several steps to comply with the law banning TikTok use, a few divisions still had access to the platform, according to a Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration report in December. TIGTA said it notified the IRS that close to two dozen devices in its communications division had access to TikTok, which the agency resolved.

The IRS’s Criminal Investigations division also was found to have access to the platform. TIGTA said more than 2,800 mobile devices used by the CI Division could access TikTok and about 900 CI employees could use their computers to access the platform through a third-party software. IRS management recommended the CI division move those mobile devices to software that can block TikTok access.

IRS CI officials said in the report that the agency doesn’t plan to request an exception for the employees who are accessing TikTok on their computers through the third-party software.

“We had what I thought were very productive discussions with TIGTA about the conflict,” Werfel said.