If you believe the Democrats’ tax-and-spending measure won’t enlarge the government, think again. Build Back Better would multiply the IRS’s size.
Sen. Joe Manchin and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer agreed to this behind closed doors. Democrats aim to pass it in a few days. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi once declared about some other big-government project, “We must pass the bill so you can read it.”
IRS Staffing Swells
The measure “invests” $80 billion in the IRS. Over $45.6 billion will go to policing.
Even though it allocates a huge amount of money to the IRS, the bill comprises a few pages of text. The IRS can spend the new money however it pleases.
In May last year, however, the Treasury Department revealed its “tax compliance plan,” outlining how it wished to spend this money. On page 17, it showed the IRS personnel it would recruit with the extra money.
Biden wants to hire 86,852 agents.
.@FDRLST: How @JoeBiden wants to sic over 86,000 new @IRSnews agents on American taxpayers… https://t.co/oeEgEO5YtX
— Chris Jacobs (@chrisjacobsHC) July 29, 2022
In contrast, the most current edition of the IRS Data Book reveals during the fiscal year that ended on September 30 of last year, the agency employed a total of 78,661 FTEs.
Hiring 86,852 agents would double the IRS’s size.
Government Pressure To Come
Page 39 of the bill declares that “nothing in this subsection” providing $80 billion for the IRS “is meant to increase taxation on any person with taxable earnings below $400,000.”
A one-page tax “fact sheet” makes the same allegation. The Biden administration plans to hire 86,000 more workers with bill financing.
Does anybody really assume that more than doubling the IRS (the same bureau that spent years hassling conservative organizations and still hasn’t clarified the public leak of highly classified tax return data to the liberal website ProPublica) means all those new hires will solely focus on “the rich” and won’t also target middle-class and working Americans?
The Treasury said in its May adherence agenda that auditing rates for persons with less than $400,000 in income wouldn’t hike.
The bill doesn’t restrict IRS harassment of middle-class taxpayers. The bill “intends” not to raise their taxes. It doesn’t prevent the law from having that impact or the IRS from drowning low-income families in audits and bureaucracy.
Audit Biden
Focusing on IRS “enforcement” is ironic.
Many tax experts, notably one from the leftist Tax Policy Center, believe Biden violated the law on his 2017 and 2018 returns by paying himself an unreasonably low income to evade Medicare and Obamacare levies.
Democrats who support granting the IRS additional ability to audit “the rich” have said little about Biden’s tax antics, which will surprise no one who understands Washington.
Obviously, if they genuinely believed in the transparency they profess to champion, they would have sent out letters to the IRS requesting an audit of Biden’s 2017 and 2018 tax forms.
Joe Biden should open up the debate on Tuesday night by reading from his own tax returns. He and Dr. Jill Biden paid $5.2m in taxes in 2017 and 2018, a third of their total income. 1/3 of their income.#TrumpTaxReturns
— Charlotte Clymer 🏳️⚧️🇺🇦 (@cmclymer) September 27, 2020
“Audit you, not me” is the Democratic motto. All of this shows the 86,852 extra IRS agents the Biden presidency wants to hire will make ordinary Americans’ lives miserable for years.
This article appeared in Mainstpress and has been published here with permission.
