On April 6, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (MO-08) issued the following statement in response to the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) newly released “plan” that was supposed to inform Congress and the American people how the IRS will spend the $80 billion Democrats gave the agency in the Inflation Reduction Act (it doesn’t):
“Americans are rightly concerned the IRS will use its $80 billion pay raise to go after the middle class, and today’s announcement does nothing to ease those concerns. The American people deserve to know how their hard-earned taxpayer dollars are being spent. More than eight months after Democrats enacted the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, the IRS’s latest document offers no specifics for the agency over the next decade. If this is a ‘plan,’ why does it omit how many employees the agency seeks to hire over ten years, fail to identify target audit rates for taxpayers, and lack specific details about how the money will be spent beyond the next two years? The $80 billion raise is just the start. The Biden Administration had the nerve to ask Congress to give the IRS another $43 billion in its annual budget request while withholding details on how it will spend the new money. This is a punt, not a ‘plan,’ and it raises more questions than answers about how Americans’ tax dollars will be spent to go after working families and small businesses.”
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
Audits on Middle Class Families are Still Scheduled to Increase Under This “Plan”
- Secretary Yellen has misleadingly claimed audit rates won’t increase for middle class taxpayers “relative to historic levels” without explaining what that means – while Treasury and the IRS consistently refer to 2010 audit levels when talking about “historic levels” in other contexts, which is when audit rates were higher for taxpayers at every income level.
- Secretary Yellen previously confirmed to the Ways and Means Committee the total number of audits on families earning less than $400,000 will rise.
- The IRS Commissioner stated in a briefing “I hope that we can get better at forecasting” when it comes to how the $80 billion will be spent.
- This comes after the Biden Administration forecasted that spending $80 billion would bring in over $400 billion in new revenue to pay for welfare for the wealthy in costly green subsidies. How can the federal government forecast revenue collection but is unable to provide specific details on how it will spend the $80 billion?
- Demonstrating an apparent inability to forecast how the IRS will spend the infusion of $80 billion, the Biden Administration is still asking for another $43 billion for the agency.
- 91 percent of that additional $43 billion in funding is targeted toward enforcement and operations, like further increasing audits on middle-class families.
- The IRS’ “plan” notes that the agency anticipates using 100 percent of the IRA’s taxpayer service funds in less than 4 years. Why is the IRS able to provide a 4-year projection for the taxpayer service bucket of money, but only provides estimated obligations through FY 2024 for the rest of the funding?
- 2021: The Biden Administration asked Congress to give the IRS $80 billion to hire 87,000 employees.
- Today: The Biden Administration failed to state how many full-time employees it plans to have working at the IRS in ten years. The agency announced it would hire about 30,000 new employees over the next two years, nearly a third of the 87,000 number from the Administration’s own 2021 plan in just a short span of the total ten years of funding.
- The first bill passed by House Republicans this Congress would cancel IRS funding for 87,000 agents that will target middle-class families with more audits.
- All House Democrats voted against protecting working Americans and small businesses from a supercharged IRS.
Original source can be found here.