09.15.22

Biden Administration Keeps Promoting Their New Turbo-Charged, Audit-Obsessed IRS

Instead Of Attempting To Relieve The Pressures Of Inflation, Securing Our Border, Or Protecting Citizens From Criminals, Democrats Voted To Unleash A Horde Of IRS Agents To Audit American Families And Small Businesses

 

Democrats Keep Trying To Sell Rightly Skeptical Americans On Super-Sizing The IRS

“Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen will make her first visit to an Internal Revenue Service facility on Thursday as the Biden administration embarks on an $80 billion overhaul of the tax collection agency. Ms. Yellen plans to tour the I.R.S. offices in New Carrollton, Md., and give a speech to employees there about plans to modernize the agency, according to a Treasury official…. The visit is part of a push by Ms. Yellen and other top Biden administration officials to promote President Biden’s economic agenda ahead of the November midterm elections. As part of the so-called Inflation Reduction Act that Congress passed last month, the I.R.S. will receive $80 billion of funding over the next decade …” (“Yellen to Visit I.R.S. Facility as Biden Administration Prepares to Bolster Tax Agency,” The New York Times, 9/12/2022)

 

It’s Been Clear From The Moment Democrats’ IRS Expansion Was Unveiled That It Was Aimed At Extracting More Money From American Families

REMINDER: ‘The IRS Money, About $80 Billion Over A Decade, Would Roughly Double The Size Of The Agency And Be Aimed At Tougher Enforcement’

“The IRS money, about $80 billion over a decade, would roughly double the size of the agency and be aimed at tougher enforcement …” (“Joe Manchin Reaches Deal With Chuck Schumer on Energy, Healthcare, Tax Package,” The Wall Street Journal, 7/28/2022)

“The Treasury Department projected that the agency would hire about 87,000 new employees over the next decade …” (“Yellen Directs I.R.S. to Embark on $80 Billion Overhaul Plan,” The New York Times, 8/17/2022)

CBO: “CBO estimates that portions of the Administration’s proposal to increase funding for the IRS by $80 billion over the 2022–2031 period would increase revenues by approximately $200 billion over those 10 years.” (“The Effects of Increased Funding for the IRS,” Congressional Budget Office, 9/02/2022)

‘The Main Democratic Command Is For The Tax Agency To Bring The Hammer Down On Taxpayers’

SEN. MIKE CRAPO (R-ID), Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member: “The bill includes a staggering $80 billion infusion of mandatory funding for the IRS.  This funding—six times the agency’s current budget—will empower the agency to hire an army of auditors to squeeze $204 billion out of taxpayers of all income levels to fund Democrats’ wishful ‘green new deal’ policies. Of the $80 billion, $45.6 billion will be for enforcement, to collect Democrats’ desired $204 billion or more of federal revenue. The IRS outlined in earlier documents it would use the funding to hire 86,852 fulltime employees, and specifically referenced ‘hiring and training agents dedicated to complex enforcement activities.’” (Sen. Crapo, Op-Ed, “Democrats Hire Army Of Agents At IRS To Squeeze Honest Taxpayers For Green New Deal,” Fox News, 8/25/2022)

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL EDITORIAL BOARD: “The pact between Sen. Joe Manchin and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer includes $80 billion in new funding for the tax man. Democrats claim this ‘investment’ will yield more than $200 billion in revenue. That estimate is highly speculative, but if it’s anywhere close to right IRS auditors will soon be coming after tens of millions of Americans. The $80 billion is more than six times the current annual IRS budget of $12.6 billion. The money will be ladled out over nine years and comes with few strings attached. The main Democratic command is for the tax agency to bring the hammer down on taxpayers. The bill earmarks $45.6 billion for ‘enforcement,’ including ‘litigation,’ ‘criminal investigations,’ ‘investigative technology,’ ‘digital asset monitoring’ and a new fleet of tax-collector cars. The result will be far more audits, civil suits and criminal referrals.” (Editorial, “The IRS Is About to Go Beast Mode,” The Wall Street Journal, 8/02/2022)

 

All 50 Senate Democrats Affirmatively Voted To Support Supercharging The IRS

All 50 Senate Democrats voted against Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) amendment to strike the $80 billion in new IRS funding to expand the agency and increase audits. (S. Amdt. 5263 to S. Amdt. 5194, H.R. 5376, Roll Call Vote #309: Rejected 50-50: D 0-48; R 50-0; I 0-2, 8/07/2022)

 

Given The Opportunity To Ensure These Stepped-Up IRS Audits Would Not Fall On Americans Making $400,000 Per Year Or Less, All 50 Democrats Refused To Do So

All 50 Senate Democrats voted against Sen. Mike Crapo’s (R-ID) amendment to prevent their newly supersized IRS from going after Americans who earn less than $400,000 per year in income for the revenue Democrats want to raise. (S. Amdt. 5404, H.R. 5376, Roll Call Vote #296: Amendment Rejected 50-50: D 0-48; R 50-0; I 0-2, 8/07/2022)

 

Nonpartisan, Independent Scorekeepers Have Shown That This Tide Of Audits Will Unquestionably Wash Over Middle And Lower Income Taxpayers

CBO: “The proposed increase in spending on the IRS’s enforcement activities would result in higher audit rates than those underlying CBO’s baseline budget projections…. The proposal, by contrast, would return audit rates to the levels of about 10 years ago; the rate would rise for all taxpayers …” (“The Effects of Increased Funding for the IRS,” Congressional Budget Office, 9/02/2022)

SEN. CRAPO: “Advocates argue the enforcement funding will be used to close the tax gap—the difference between taxes owed and taxes paid—and then claim it is only about ‘wealthy tax cheats.’ Yet, the data tell a different story. Democrats’ will not achieve their desired tax revenue goals without also targeting the middle class, small businesses and taxpayers earning under $400,000 per year. As Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee, I asked the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) to estimate where most underreported income in the ‘tax gap’ lies. The JCT determined 78-90 percent of under- or misreported-income comes from those making below $200,000, while only around 4-9 percent comes from those making $500,000 or more.” (Sen. Crapo, Op-Ed, “Democrats Hire Army Of Agents At IRS To Squeeze Honest Taxpayers For Green New Deal,” Fox News, 8/25/2022)

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL EDITORIAL BOARD: “Democrats spent last week swearing that only high earners would be squeezed under their plan to beef up the Internal Revenue Service. It took only a few days for the Congressional Budget Office to put that narrative to rest. A quick analysis from the budget scorer confirms that the audit expansion will ensnare the middle class. The CBO made the point in an Aug. 12 letter to Sen. Mike Crapo, who had sought to bind Democrats to their promise to limit audits to high earners…. Mr. Crapo proposed an amendment to ensure new audits would exclude taxpayers earning less than $400,000, but Democrats voted it down 51 to 50. Mr. Crapo then asked the CBO to calculate the effect his amendment would have had. The agency found that increased scrutiny on filers earning less than $400,000 would account for $20 billion over 10 years, out of a total of about $204 billion that Democrats hope to collect through a bigger, badder IRS. In other words, the IRS expansion as it’s currently designed could collect billions in revenue from new middle-class audits.” (Editorial, “The Middle Class Won’t Escape the New IRS Audit Wave,” The Wall Street Journal, 8/14/2022)

“GOP lawmakers have sounded the alarm over the proposal, warning that it could have serious ramifications for lower-income workers. That's because the IRS disproportionately targets low-income Americans when it conducts tax audits each year. In fact, households with less than $25,000 in earnings are five times as likely to be audited by the agency than everyone else, according to a recent analysis of tax data from fiscal year 2021 by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University. The reason for that is a rise in what is known as ‘correspondence audits,’ meaning the IRS conducts reviews of tax returns via letters or phone calls rather than more complex face-to-face audits…. According to the Syracuse study, more than half of the correspondence audits initiated by the IRS last year — 54% — involved low-income workers with gross receipts of less than $25,000 who claimed the earned income tax credit, an anti-poverty measure.” (“How Democrats' Beefed-Up IRS Could Hurt Low-Income Americans,” Fox Business, 8/05/2022)

  • “[T]axpayers with a total positive income that ranged from $200,000 to $1 million had one-third the odds of being audited by the IRS compared to the lowest-income wage earners. About 9 million taxpayers reported these high-income levels in 2021, but fewer than 40,000 of their returns were audited, or roughly 4.5 out of every 1,000. That contrasts sharply with lower-income Americans, who faced an audit rate of 13 out of every 1,000.” (“How Democrats' Beefed-Up IRS Could Hurt Low-Income Americans,” Fox Business, 8/05/2022)

 

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SENATE REPUBLICAN COMMUNICATIONS CENTER

Related Issues: Senate Democrats, Taxes, IRS, Democrats' Reckless Taxing And Spending Spree, Small Business