ST. LOUIS — The St. Louis Internal Revenue Service Office needs your help!
Its Criminal Investigation Unit, which is the branch responsible for examining crimes like money laundering and identity theft, is looking to hire more special agents.
Assistant Special Agent in Charge, Melissa McFadden, and Public Affairs Officer Trish Freeland joined Today in St. Louis, Weekend Edition to discuss the need.
McFadden said agents would be working on assignments such as tax fraud, employment tax, financial crimes, and more.
"We look for people who have an accounting background, there's 15 hours of accounting that's required, and also nine additional hours that are required, such as finance, economics classes. We basically use that to follow the money," she said.
According to McFadden, the training is about six months long.
"It's at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Georgia. It is the Law Enforcement Academy where you learn everything from general law enforcement to the IRS specific types of investigative techniques," she said.
Freeland said benefits include a competitive salary, good health insurance and law enforcement officers get an additional 25% over what their paygrade is.
"Working for the federal government, in itself, is a benefit because you're serving your country. We get 11 federal holidays, 13 paid holidays, paid sick leave, so the standard benefits for civil service, but there's the additional law enforcement pay," she said.
The St. Louis field office, according to McFadden, covers six and a half states.
"We cover North and South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri and Southern Illinois, so it's a big, huge geographic area," she said.
Specifically, McFadden said, they are working to create a diverse workforce.
"We are working to recruit a very diverse workforce; we would really like to be representative of the communities where we work. We have also committed to 30% of our workforce, or our Special Agent training classes, being women by the year 2030," she said.
Click here, if you are interested in applying or want to learn more. Freeland said to first look at the 'Criminal Investigation' tab for more information and then go to the 'Careers' tab. She said when you see 'jobs,' pick 'Criminal Investigator.'