Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday said that he and his wife were targeted in an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tax audit and posted a document stating he owed the agency more than $33,000.
The document, in part, says that the IRS is “auditing your federal income tax return and Form 1040” and that he owes a balance of $33,558.16 before directing him to respond. It was directed to “Peter B & Jennifer A Hegseth.” Jennifer Hegseth is the Pentagon chief’s wife.
“The party of ‘norms’ and ‘decency’ strikes again,“ Hegseth wrote. ”We will never back down.”
Hegseth did not provide any other details about the audit, and the IRS has not publicly commented on his claims.
The Epoch Times contacted the tax agency for comment on Tuesday.
Also unclear is whether the IRS initiated the audit over the Hegseths’ tax filings or routine. Hegseth also did not indicate when the IRS sent him the audit document but suggested it occurred when he became the “incoming” secretary of defense.
Elon Musk, who is involved in the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), responded to Hegseth’s X post by saying, “They love the low blows.”
DOGE has started accounts on X for the IRS and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), both of which are overseen by the U.S. Department of Treasury, to look for “insights on finding and fixing waste, fraud and abuse” inside the two agencies. On X, which Musk owns, he reposted messages from DOGE’s IRS and SEC accounts.
Last week, after he was asked about a report about a Musk aide arriving at the IRS to focus on the agency’s operations, Trump told reporters that he believes DOGE “is doing a great job” and that no federal agency would escape its scrutiny.
