Hunter Biden sued the Internal Revenue Service on Monday, claiming that two agents publicly alleging tax-probe interference wrongly shared his personal information, a case that comes amid escalating legal and political struggles as the 2024 election looms.

The agents “targeted and sought to embarrass Mr. Biden” with the sharing of confidential tax information in press interviews and testimony before Congress, the suit said. His lawyers argue that whistleblower protections don’t apply, but a lawyer for one agent said any confidential information released came under whistleblower authorization and called the suit a “frivolous smear.”

The lawsuit marks the latest legal pushback from Biden as a long-running federal investigation into him unfolds against a sharply political backdrop. That includes an impeachment inquiry aimed at his father, President Joe Biden, seeking to tie him to his son’s business dealings.

“Mr. Biden is the son of the President of the United States. He has all the same responsibilities as any other American citizen, and the IRS can and should make certain that he abides by those responsibilities,” the suit states. “Similarly, Mr. Biden has no fewer or lesser rights than any other American citizen, and no government agency or government agent” has free rein to violate his rights simply because of who he is.

The suit says the IRS hasn’t done enough to halt the airing of his personal information. It seeks to “force compliance with federal tax and privacy laws” and damages of $1,000 for every unauthorized disclosure.

IRS supervisory special agent Greg Shapley, and a second agent, Joe Ziegler, have claimed there was a pattern of “slow-walking investigative steps” into Hunter Biden in testimony before Congress. They alleged that the prosecutor overseeing the investigation, Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss, didn’t have full authority to bring charges in other jurisdictions. Weiss and the Justice Department have denied that.

Shapley’s lawyer called the lawsuit a “frivolous smear” that sought to “intimidate any current and future whistleblowers.” He didn’t release confidential tax information except through legal whistleblower disclosures, his attorney said. “Once Congress released that testimony, like every American citizen, he has a right to discuss that public information.”

The IRS is showcasing its new capability to aggressively audit high-income tax dodgers as it makes the case for sustained funding and tries to avert budget cuts sought by Republicans who want to gut the agency.

IRS leaders said they collected $38 million in delinquent taxes from more than 175 high-income taxpayers in the past few months.

In one case, an individual had used money owed to the government to buy a Maserati and a Bentley, and roughly 100 high-income people tried to get favorable tax treatment through Puerto Rico without meeting certain tax requirements. Many of those cases are expected to face criminal investigation.

“It just shows you how much money is out there in delinquent taxes, and there are so many more cases for us to tackle,” said new IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel, just four months into the job. “There’s just a significant opportunity there.”

No comparable figures exist for how those high-dollar tax collections compared with previous years, said Jodie Reynolds, speaking for the agency. Rather, the new data reflect an initiative that started after the agency received a new funding stream through the Inflation Reduction Act passed in August by Democrats.

The new data collection “is an example of work we expect to continue to focus on with IRA funding,” she said.

Werfel, in a call with reporters on Thursday, also cited the federal tax collector’s enhanced ability to identify tax delinquents from resources provided by the Inflation Reduction Act.

The agency was in line for an $80 billion infusion under the law but that money is vulnerable to potential cutbacks. House Republicans built a $1.4 billion reduction to the IRS into the debt ceiling and budget cuts package passed by Congress this summer. The White House said the debt deal also has a separate agreement to take $20 billion from the IRS over the next two years and divert that money to other non-defense programs.

A Wisconsin taxpayers group that unsuccessfully brought a lawsuit seeking to block President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness program is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene.

The Brown County Taxpayers Association on Wednesday asked the high court to put the program on hold and consider the group’s appeal. Federal officials have not responded to the filing, WLUK-TV reported.

The suit filed by the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty on behalf of the taxpayers group argued it was an overextension of executive power that improperly sidestepped Congress.

The complaint was thrown out by a federal judge in Wisconsin and then rejected by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago. U.S. District Judge William C. Griesbach also nixed an emergency motion for injunction.

The debt relief plan began accepting applications on Monday.

Biden enacted the program under the HEROES Act, which was passed after the Sept. 11 attacks sparked an American-led military campaign aimed at terrorism. The act gave the executive branch authority to forgive student loan debt in association with military operations or national emergencies.

An appellate court judge has upheld Seattle’s payroll tax, affirming a decision made in King County Superior Court last year.

In an opinion published Tuesday, the Division I Court of Appeals deemed Seattle’s JumpStart tax lawful, The Seattle Times reported.

“Engaging in business is a substantial privilege on which the city may properly levy taxes,” the opinion reads. “And the use of a business’s payroll expense is an appropriate measure of that taxable incident.”

The tax, passed by the Seattle City Council in 2020, requires businesses with at least $7 million in annual payroll to pay between 0.7%-2.4% on salaries and wages paid to Seattle employees who make at least $150,000 per year. The highest rate is applied to salaries of at least $400,000 at companies with at least $1 billion in annual payroll.

In 2021, the tax brought $231 million in revenue to the city.

The lawsuit, filed by the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce in December 2020, asked the King County Superior Court to strike down the tax, calling it illegal.

The lawsuit was dismissed by a King County Superior Court judge last summer, and the chamber appealed the decision.

The chamber in a statement Tuesday said it will review the latest decision and determine their next step with members and attorneys.

An Illinois tax agency has ruled that former President Donald Trump is due a $1 million refund on the 2011 tax bill for his downtown Chicago skyscraper, but local officials are trying to block the refund.

The Chicago Sun-Times reports that at issue is the Cook County Board of Review’s estimation of the value of the the Trump International Hotel & Tower’s rooms and retail space. In June, the Illinois Property Tax Appeal Board voted 5-0 to reduce the assessment on the building’s commercial property.

The vote means that Trump is owed $1.03 million, money that would come out of the property taxes due the city of Chicago, the Chicago Public Schools and several other government agencies. The Cook County State’s Attorney is disputing the refund and has filed a lawsuit with the Illinois Appellate Court in the hopes of blocking it.

The dispute is the latest chapter in a long-running legal battle over Trump’s tax bills that started more than 12 years ago and has led to more than $14 million in tax breaks for Trump. It also involves not only a former president who is at the middle of a host of legal battles but a Chicago alderman whose own legal troubles had been making headlines in Chicago for months.

Alderman Edward M. Burke, whose former law firm, Klafter & Burke, won the tax breaks for Trump, has been indicted on federal charges that he blocked businesses from getting city permits unless they hired the firm. He has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.

The dispute over the tax bills on the high-rise building has it’s own long history. Originally, the state agency rejected Trump’s argument that the vacant stores had no value because he could not find any tenants to lease them. A hearing officer for the state agency rejected Trump’s argument that the vacant stores at the building had no value because he couldn’t lease them. But a staff member later wrote a report that Trump was entitled to the refund.

The agency delayed acting on the case until Trump was out of office and in June voted to reduce the assessment on the building’s commercial property.

A former Washington state auditor has exhausted his appeals and now faces a 366-day federal prison sentence after the U.S. Supreme Court denied a petition for review of his case.

That denial Monday represented the last avenue of appeal for Troy Kelley, who has been fighting his 2017 conviction for possession of stolen property, tax fraud and making false statements, The Northwest News Network reported.

”It is past time for Mr. Kelley to begin his prison sentence,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Tessa Gorman in a statement.

The case against Kelley stemmed from his work in the real estate services industry before his election as state auditor in 2012.

Kelley, who previously served as a state lawmaker, was accused of keeping millions in fees that should have been refunded to escrow company customers. Later, prosecutors said, Kelley tried to hide the money by moving it through wire transfers while also creating an off-shore trust in Belize.

Kelley’s first trial in 2016 ended with the jury deadlocked on all but one count, on which he was acquitted. Federal prosecutors tried him again in 2017 and won convictions for several of the charges, but he was acquitted of money laundering.

Kelley was sentenced to a year and a day in prison and a year of supervised release, far less than prosecutors sought.

Kelley and his attorneys appealed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and, eventually, to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In their request for Supreme Court review, Kelley’s lawyers said his case raised two constitutional questions: whether someone can properly be convicted of possession of stolen property for breach of contract and whether his conviction violated the prohibition on imprisonment for debt.

The U.S. government waived its right to file a response to Kelley’s petition. That the Supreme Court declined to take his case is not unexpected.

When the U.S. Supreme Court decided this month that the presidency isn’t a shield against a New York prosecutor’s criminal investigation, the justices didn’t say whether the same goes for civil suits against the president in state courts.

That has quickly become a question in two closely watched defamation lawsuits filed by women who say President Donald Trump smeared them while denying their sexual assault allegations.

Lawyers for the women, E. Jean Carroll and Summer Zervos, are now trying to persuade New York courts that the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling  strengthens their arguments for letting the suits go forward. Trump’s attorneys are contending just the opposite.

The dispute comes with one of the cases now before New York’s highest court, which is weighing whether a sitting president is constitutionally protected from being sued in state courts.

“The answer is no” under the U.S. Supreme Court’s reasoning, Zervos attorneys Beth Wilkinson and Moira Penza wrote in a letter Friday to the top-level state Court of Appeals.