The IRS announced it was suspending surprise visits to homes and businesses Monday, beset by political backlash after a series of questionable appearances at the home and allegations of political bias by whistleblowers.

IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said he hoped to increase public “confidence” in the agency by stopping the practice of making unannounced visits to taxpayers’ homes and businesses “except in a few unique circumstances.”

Instead, the agency will send letters to schedule meetings.

“We are reviewing how the IRS works to better serve taxpayers and the nation, and making this change is a common sense step,” Werfel said in a statement.

“Changing this long-standing procedure will increase confidence in our tax administration work and improve overall security for taxpayers and IRS employees.”

Werfel, who has led the agency for four months, said he wanted to change the name of the IRS and end the public perception that the agency is going door-to-door collecting taxes.

IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said he hoped to increase public “trust” in the agency by stopping the practice of making unannounced visits to taxpayers’ homes and businesses “except in a few unique circumstances.”

Werfel also said scammers go door-to-door posing as IRS agents and confusing taxpayers, and agents have found themselves in unsafe situations when they show up at property unannounced.

Ways and Means president Jason Smith was dissatisfied with the agency change.

“There is little reason to celebrate the IRS’s recent announcement that it will supposedly ‘end’ unannounced visits by revenue officials; the agency has yet to provide a full explanation as to why it used such disruptive tactics to show up at people’s doors and invade their privacy,” Smith, whose committee is charged with oversight of the IRS, said in a statement.

‘Americans remain concerned about the agency’s political objectives and favoritism, regardless of whether they announce their visits or not. The tax enforcement that goes after families and small businesses, but puts the Biden family on notice, seems to have bigger problems in the way it investigates tax crimes.”

Republicans have long claimed that the IRS unfairly vets conservatives.

The National Union of Treasury Employees, which represents IRS agents, praised Werfel’s decision to reduce unannounced visits, claiming that agents had been subjected to “false and inflammatory rhetoric” and that such visits were sometimes unsafe.

The agency has come under political attack from Republicans after the Inflation Reduction Act gave it $80 billion to hire some 87,000 new agents.

In the recent debt ceiling deal passed by the House and Senate last month, Congress voted to bring back the funds for the IRS. Negotiators agreed to two $10 billion annual cuts in IRS funds, including an immediate rescission of $1.4 billion cut from “unencumbered balances.”

The IRS has said it will use the new funds to target high-income people, saying the audit rate will not increase on middle-income people above “historic levels,” but it hasn’t defined that benchmark.

Audit fees have been reduced to a 1 in 1,000 chance for those making less than $100,000. Those chances were seven times higher in 2010.

Monday’s policy change also comes after the IRS drew attention by sending agents to the home of journalist Matt Taibbi late last year, the same day he was due to testify before Congress about censorship of social media.

The IRS said it had been trying to verify that Taibbi was not a victim of identity fraud. Taibbi owed no money, and in fact, the agency owed her a refund. The House Judiciary Committee launched an investigation into the incident.

Under previous policy, the IRS made tens of thousands of visits to homes and businesses each year, typically to collect tax debts greater than $100,000. The visits were meant to send a message that the IRS was watching the taxpayer closely.

Now, they will only send agents in cases of subpoenas, subpoenas or asset seizures, typically less than 200 per year.

Typically, around 2,000 unarmed tax officials are tasked with making unannounced visits to discuss taxes owed or missing returns. The criminal division, which employs armed officers and makes unannounced visits when they suspect crimes of tax evasion or money laundering, will not be affected.

The investigation into Hunter Biden’s tax affairs was carried out by the criminal unit. Special Agent Joseph Ziegler, a 13-year IRS veteran, and Gary Shapley, a longtime IRS investigator, denounced violations of IRS investigative standards and said they had felt handcuffed in their investigation of Hunter Biden’s tax crimes at an Oversight Committee hearing last week.

Republicans also complained after a bizarre incident in Ohio where an IRS agent used a false name to enter a woman’s home.

The agent, who identified himself as “Bill Haus” to the agency’s criminal division, showed up unexpectedly at a taxpayer’s home in Marion, Ohio, on April 25.

The taxpayer let Haus into his home after he informed her that he was there to “discuss matters relating to an estate of which the taxpayer was the trustee.” However, he had not received any notice from the IRS prior to the visit.

Once inside, the agent revealed that the “true purpose” of his visit was not related to estate, but that he allegedly had “several delinquent tax returns.”

As a result, the Ohio woman called her attorney, who immediately told the agent to leave, but Haus responded “aggressively, insisting, ‘I’m an IRS agent, I can be and go to anybody’s house anytime I want.’

After Haus left, the woman approached the Marion Police Department to determine if the visit was a “scam,” who determined after checking her license plates that the agent was using a false name, but was a legitimate IRS agent.

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, sent Werfel a letter last month demanding an explanation of the incident.