WHY IT MATTERS: IRS

The Internal Revenue Service touches everyone, not just taxpayers but anyone who receives a government check, drives on roads made possible by tax revenue or sends a child to a school helped by Washington.

Republican Donald Trump's most explicit views about the agency have been on the personal level — he says he's been under a continuing multi-year IRS audit and that's why he won't release his tax returns, as other presidential candidates do.

With some 90,000 employees, a massive stockpile of information on citizens and powers to dig deep into the lives of those it decides to investigate, the IRS is in the face of Americans like no other agency.

During the Obama administration, the IRS has acknowledged mistreatment of tea party groups by subjecting them to excessive scrutiny in their bid for tax-exempt status.

Conservative lawmakers pressed unsuccessfully to impeach him, accusing him of lying to Congress, not answering subpoenas and overseeing an agency that destroyed documents in the tea party case.

The Libertarian Party presidential candidate, Gary Johnson, says he'd like to eliminate the IRS and any other federal agency that Congress might vote to dismantle.