Anybody that knows anything about emails knows that this whole “my hard drive crashed” thing is a blatant excuse, at the same level of credibility as “the dog ate my homework” except that we all know that dogs CAN sometimes eat homework...and we also know that there are so many redundant copies of any email that what they are claiming is virtually impossible.
Like claiming that the dog at the homework that was on the laptop.
How about if my dog eats my laptop??
MOST email systems are based on a central server anyhow. If it is Microsoft Outlook, you can log in from any place and get your messages.
Normally the IRS would have a fierce interest in keeping everything in the event they are hauled into tax court. They can show that they had a “reason” to go after this taxpayer or that one for an alleged tax debt.
They are looking for outgoing messages to different agencies. If no one was copied internally, then those types message have a better chance of eventually disappearing.
we had a IT expert on a local radio show. He said he could find them easily and restore them.
This entire, “my hard drive crashed” is a bunch of crap. In the last 25 years of computer ownership I can count the number of hard drive crashes on ZERO fingers.