Sherry Jackson, Former IRS Agent: Pocket Commissions

There's another little secret that the I.R.S agents don't know that are out there right now, and that I didn't know. It's about the Pocket Commission. The thing that we carried and flipped out to people to show our supposed authority. Pocket Commissions are either categorized as enforcement or non-enforcement.

Enforcement commissions may be issued only to special agents, which is the criminal investigation division or inspectors which is the internal security division.

The non-enforcement Pocket Commission are those issued to all other authorized employees. Now I had a non-enforcement commission. Now I and other internal revenue agents and officers carry non-enforcement commissions. This commission has a picture of the agent with United States Department of Treasury internal revenue service at the top. At the bottom it has the name of the agent, the signature of the agent, and a statement. It says the name of the agent whose signature and picture appear above is duly commissioned as an internal revenue agent or internal revenue officer, and has authority to perform all duties conferred upon such officers under all laws and regulations administered by the internal revenue service including the authority to investigate and to require and receive information as to all matters related to such laws and regulations.

The difference between the non-enforcement commission and the enforcement commission is a serial number that ends in A or E. If the serial number ends in E that is an enforcement commission, such as the one criminal investigation carries and they have certain enforcement authority. The internal revenue agents and officers have commissions that end in A. Now that's the non-enforcement commission.

What does it mean to carry a non-enforcement commission? To me it means that I didn't have any enforcement authority. So I was out on the front lines with no authority whatsoever, flippin' this little badge around in businesses and in front of individuals and to banks with no authority, and I believe that is so wrong. So these people really don't know they have no idea of what's going on.

So here the agents are carrying these badges and they're not even aware of what an A or an E means. That's not part of the education when they're employed. Is that correct?

That is correct. That is not part of the education. We were just told that this badge gives us the authority to go out and ask for these records and people don't know it either. So they were giving it to us. So they had no idea.