Distraught Taxpayer Rams Car into IRS Building

A man threatening to kill himself over his finances instead rammed his car into an Internal Revenue Service building.

The 48-year-old taxpayer was taken to a hospital in Birmingham on Tuesday morning to be evaluated, but did not appear to be injured, according to the Birmingham News.

The man and his wife called the IRS office earlier that morning and made a threat. An IRS employee then called the Birmingham police, who contacted the county sheriff's office. They proceeded to his home, but his wife said he had left already. They reached him on his cell phone and he told them he was going to drive his car off a cliff. Soon after they lost contact with him, he rammed his black SUV into the IRS building, breaking two of the lower office windows. No IRS employees or visitors were in that part of the office at the time, according to spokesman Dan Boone, but one IRS employee was slightly injured after she was startled by the vehicle's impact.

The building security guard responded immediately after the crash, along with IRS Criminal Investigation special agents and a Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration agent, who were in the building at the time. The Birmingham police department and TIGTA are conducting an investigation. The office was closed for the rest of the day, but reopened the following day.

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