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This is Planet Money from NPR.
People go to incredible lengths to pay the smallest amount of taxes.
Sometimes in legal ways, sometimes in less than legal ways, in the shadows.
And it's not always clear which is which.
Figuring that out, that used to be the job of Carolyn Shank.
She spent nearly two decades at the IRS.
And she says the way the IRS uncovered the newest, hottest tax crimes ran the gamut.
Surveillance, wiretaps, old school trash pulls, which is obviously a phenomenal source of information.
Yeah.
Kind of dirty, but, you know, could be very fruitful.
I'm shocked y'all still do that.
That's incredible.
Then, of course, there are the times when people reach out to them and say,
"I've got information. I'd like to whistleblow." We've seen people come forward and sit with, you know,
in a dark room or a bag on their head, and they've gone through the most intricate banking details.
Have you been in one of those interviews?
"Not with a bag over my head." She says the bag thing is just a term of art.