A Potentially dangerous taxpayer (PDT) is a designation assigned to taxpayers of the United States of America who have demonstrated a capacity for violence against employees of the Internal Revenue Service

Internal Revenue Service

The Internal Revenue Service is the revenue service of the United States federal government. The agency is a bureau of the Department of the Treasury, and is under the immediate direction of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue...

 (IRS) or other government agencies, contractors or their families. Suspected PDT cases are handled by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

Criteria

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

1. Taxpayers who have committed acts of violence against IRS employees, contractors and/or their families;
   
2. 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
   Stalking is a term commonly used to refer to unwanted and obsessive attention by an individual or group to another person. Stalking behaviors are related to harassment and intimidation and may include following the victim in person and/or monitoring them via the internet...
   
   ;
   
3. Taxpayers who are actively involved in groups which promote violence against IRS or other government employees;
   
4. 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
   
5. 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:

A. Threat of physical harm that is less severe or immediate than necessary to satisfy PDT [potentially dangerous taxpayer] criteria;

B. Suicide threat by the taxpayer; or

C. 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 an office of the IRS at Austin, Texas, by Andrew Joseph Stack that resulted in the death of Stack and an IRS employee, an IRS spokesperson indicated that the IRS does not disclose how many taxpayers are designated as potentially dangerous taxpayers. The IRS also declined to state whether Stack had been designated as a PDT. Mark Pitcavage

Mark Pitcavage

Mark Pitcavage is a historian and critic of far right wing groups and a player of the boardgame Advanced Squad Leader . He works with the Anti-Defamation League and was the creator of the now archived Militia Watchdog website...

 of the Anti-Defamation League

Anti-Defamation League

The Anti-Defamation League is an international non-governmental organization based in the United States. Describing itself as "the nation's premier civil rights/human relations agency", the ADL states that it "fights anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry, defends democratic ideals and protects...

 called Stack a lone-wolf "homegrown, self-taught extremist" with possible ties to the Tax Protest Movement.

In 2009, Randy Nowak of Mulberry, Florida

Mulberry, Florida

Mulberry is a city in Polk County, Florida, United States. The population was 3,230 at the 2000 census. As of 2004, the population estimated by the U.S. Census Bureau is 3,228 . Mulberry is home to Badcock Home Furniture. It is part of the Lakeland–Winter Haven Metropolitan Statistical...

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

Hitman

A hitman is a person hired to kill another person.- Hitmen in organized crime :Hitmen are largely linked to the world of organized crime. Hitmen are hired people who kill people for money. Notable examples include Murder, Inc., Mafia hitmen and Richard Kuklinski.- Other cases involving hitmen...

 to murder the IRS agent doing his audit.

In other cases, disgruntled taxpayers have enclosed foreign objects with their return.

See also

• Gordon Kahl
  Gordon Kahl
  Gordon Wendell Kahl is best known for his involvement in two fatal shootouts with law enforcement officers in the United States in 1983....
  
  
• Edward and Elaine Brown
  Edward and Elaine Brown
  Edward Lewis Brown and his wife, Elaine Alice Brown , residents of the state of New Hampshire, gained national news media attention in early 2007 for not paying the U.S. federal income tax and refusing to surrender to federal government agents after having been convicted of tax crimes...