On Thursday, July 14, Tax Revolution Institute (TRI) Executive Director Dan Johnson appeared on Robin Koerner’s Blue Republican Radio to share more details on TRI’s initiative to conduct the first-ever independent audit of the IRS.

“We’re going to audit the people who audit you,” Johnson told Koerner from the convention hall of FreedomFest 2016 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

But the idea goes further than simply giving the IRS “a taste of their own medicine.” The purpose of the audit, as Johnson explains in the interview, is to shed light on an agency that has done all it can to remain in the shadows.

The secrecy that shrouds the Internal Revenue Services rivals that of any other three-letter federal agency, and a multipronged approach will be required to pull back the curtain.

Johnson noted that TRI will engage in both legal and university-level research, file Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, and even initiate litigation to get the information from the IRS that the American people deserve.

The institute is also actively seeking information from individuals who have had personal experiences with the IRS — good, bad, or ugly. Johnson says that within hours of the audit’s launch people from around the country had already begun sharing their stories, both in person during the FreedomFest and the Netroots conferences and on AuditIRS.com.

“Even I didn’t know how far the IRS was going until I talked to people at this convention,” he said. Johnson clarified, however, that the influx of personal accounts from IRS victims has been bittersweet.

“It’s difficult to call it a fantastic reception, because you don’t want to hear these stories. You don’t want to hear about people being thrown in federal prison, or people who got the shock of their lives when the IRS said they are taking their house.” Nevertheless, Johnson said he is encouraged by the fact that these stories will help “show the American people how the IRS is acting. You’re seeing ways you can expose what the IRS has been doing.”

For example, Johnson shared a story of a woman whose name and reputation were dragged through the mud by the IRS before she was ever able to have her day in court. He said the IRS put out a press release about the woman announcing “huge criminal charges” against her, and yet, during the trial, it was revealed that the prosecutor had targeted her because she was Jewish. The woman was eventually cleared of any wrongdoing, but the damage had already been done.

“We’re going to be looking through the IRS’s policies…. Exactly how does the IRS choose to write a press release about someone who hasn’t been convicted yet?” Johnson questioned. “They do this all the time. They put someone in the news and say, ‘We’re brining these huge criminal charges against this person who hasn’t been convicted.’ How does the IRS choose to basically convict someone in the court of public opinion before they are convicted in the actual courts?”

In this vein, Johnson also highlighted the need to reveal the human cost of the IRS’s lack of transparency and accountability. “We have finally agreed as a society that transparency in government is the most important thing we can have. We abhor secrets in governance, especially governance that affects most of us. What we need to understand is: how does the IRS affect most of us?”

The Tax Revolution Institute’s executive director said that in order to change the IRS’s policies, we must “show the people.” In other words, we must show the “human face” of IRS policy. A review of recent political history suggests, in fact, that public-policy changes are largely driven by strong personal narratives, especially those which demonstrate the adverse effects of government policy. “Our goal is to show exactly how the IRS affects people,” he said.

Johnson also called on supporters of the Internal Revenue Service, including the agency’s own employees, to assist TRI in its effort to conduct an independent audit. “IRS employees should really be thinking about what this audit could mean for their agency. If you really believe that the IRS should be an organization of integrity … [that it] should be accountable and neutral, then you really should help with this audit … so people can see what’s going on with the agency.”

Indeed, there is perhaps no other government agency that the public fears more than the IRS. The evidence of this is plainly seen in how effective IRS-impersonation schemes work on the many thousands of “confused, overwhelmed, and frightened” victims.

Johnson says TRI’s audit aims to put an end to this fear. “We have a very strong principle at the Tax Revolution Institute: No one should fear the IRS if they’ve done nothing wrong.”