And then there’s the increased funding for the IRS
One less-discussed part of the new spending bill about to be passed is the money being appropriated for the IRS to go after taxpayers with greater vigor. The following is from a WSJ editorial:
The $80 billion [proposed funding for the IRS] 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.
The main targets will by necessity be the middle- and upper-middle class because that’s where the money is. The Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress’s official tax scorekeeper, says that from 78% to 90% of the money raised from under-reported income would likely come from those making less than $200,000 a year. Only 4% to 9% would come from those making more than $500,000.
And of course you probably recall how, during the Obama administration, the IRS became a tool of the Democrats and went after political groups on the right. Looking for a link for that assertion just now, I came across this ABC article from 2013, and I thought I’d reproduce some of it because it’s such a fine example of what “journalism” has come down to [comments in brackets are mine]:
Conservative groups have rejected an Internal Revenue Service apology for unjustifiably scrutinizing tax-exempt conservative groups during the 2012 election cycle. The IRS apology has seemingly validated conservatives’ fears of politically motivated regulation.[What is this “seemingly” business? It obviously validated, not their fears, but their realistic fact-based assessment of what actually occurred.]
House Republican leaders, meanwhile, have vowed to investigate.[Mean old Republicans pounce!]
Lois Lerner, the director the IRS unit that oversees tax-exempt organizations, said that organizations had been given additional scrutiny if their applications included the words “Tea Party” or “patriot.” [Does this not resonate with the recent FBI targeting of things such as the Betsy Ross flag and the Gadsden flag? Why yes, yes it does. Fancy that!] The practice originated with “low-level” employees in Cincinnati, according to an Associated Press report. [Those “Sergeant Schultz” higher-ups again.]
…”They didn’t do it because of any political bias,” Lerner said, adding that singling out groups with specific names was an ill-thought-out organizational “shortcut.” [This remark of Lerner’s would be funny if it weren’t so sad, and so typical of the denials we hear from government higher-ups almost every day.]
“It was an error in judgment and it wasn’t appropriate but that’s what they did,” she said. [And strangely enough, none of the higher-ups had a clue, right? Hey, what do those upper-level agency people do, anyway – when they’re not fabricating charges against Donald Trump, I mean?]
“We’ve now corrected these issues, and we don’t expect that any of these will be repeated going forward.”[Not exactly and precisely the same things in the same way – but other things in other ways.]
Despite the apology, conservative groups are now seizing on the news [Republicans pounce and seize!], which they say proves their long-standing complaints of mistreatment by the IRS. [They say, but what do they know? After all, Lois Lerner has denied it was purposeful.]
“President Obama must also apologize for his administration ignoring repeated complaints by these broad grassroots organizations of harassment by the IRS in 2012, and make concrete and transparent steps today to ensure this never happens again,” said Jenny Beth Martin, national coordinator for Tea Party Patriots.[This represents an interesting example of the naivete of someone like Martin. The thought that an apology from Obama would matter if it were issued, and that he’d actually try to stop the persecution of right-wing groups, is absurd.]
But let’s return to the current bill and that recent WSJ editorial:
The federal government isn’t starving for revenue. Congress wants more tax revenue because it can’t control its appetite for spending. That’s why it wants a tax agency in beast mode.
True, but I think it’s more than that. It’s purposeful targeting of the middle class, although many people in that group won’t realize it. And because the IRS has become a political tool for the Democrats, giving the IRS more power and resources makes perfect sense for the Democrat goals of not just defeating the right but crushing it.
Later this month, NASA will finally launch Artermis I for a trip around the moon. It is roughly the end of a development process that began over a decade ago with the selection of the Orion capsule and the redesign of the launch vehicle to the SLS. You could buy 2 of those decade long moon programs for the annual budget the IRS will be getting if the Democrats have their way with BBB. And the SLS has various IG reports discussing how over budget that bloated program is.
Government bureaucracy feeds to expand itself to take in more feed.
No Government agency takes in more than the IRS.
And they are also part of the 2 tier justice system.
BLM hasn’t filed any information they are required to and no one will ever find out about it.
I received my 2020 refund from the IRS last month, filed my 2021 in February and they still have no record of the filing even though I have my return receipt and I have been told that is not uncommon for the IRS today, not enough knowledgable staff currently in place.
According to reports, 300 of the new IRS agents will make the same salary as VP Harris– $235K annually.
It’s unknown how many will be assigned to President Trump’s businesses.
Brian E., about 2000 will be.
I wonder just how much those under 200K really cheat on taxes. Few I would bet. There may be fudging of course, and forgetting to list something, but out and out cheating not so much. However, those above say 500K more likely to do so.
The IRS code is so complex that it is easy to mis-file. I use Turbo Tax for our relatively simple filing, but I always pay for the audit defense. I don’t trust the IRS one little bit.
they also have their own private army, it’s much the way the Romans did things, in the late Republic and early Empire,
Republicans in Congress should insist the new vehicles be electric “for the environment and Gaia.” That way they’d be limited to about 150 miles of their home base.
They should also insist that all of those black SUVs you see running around D.C. be EVs too.
Like OldTexan (5:42 pm) above, I’ve had to wait not-months-but-years to settle scores with the Internal Revenue Service.
Given that there is a role and a need for internal revenue, and assuming reasonable degrees of fairness and competence in the processing of taxes (HAH!!), I would find myself all in favor of staffing IRS at levels appropriate to the need.
Now, let’s wait and see if processing times get shorter (and if IRS agents are less error-prone), or is it all going to be in the vein of Brian E’s (5:44 pm) post (“how many will be assigned to President Trump’s businesses”)?
I fear the worst; I know well (as do most of us here) that Lois Lerner lives and prowls!
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Snitches and storm troopers for the evil
Empire aren’t free.
“The main Democratic command is for the tax agency to bring the hammer down on taxpayers.”
Brilliant, deepen the alienation of even more voters!
“It’s purposeful targeting of the middle class, although many people in that group won’t realize it. And because the IRS has become a political tool for the Democrats, giving the IRS more power and resources makes perfect sense for the Democrat goals of not just defeating the right but crushing it.” neo
The UniParty doesn’t need to collect more money for their spending. They simply print out of thin air all the money needed from their unlimited source of funds.
So count on it, the great majority of the middle class targeted will be the deplorables. It’s not about increasing revenues, it’s about that which their hero spoke; “The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them down between the millstones of taxation and inflation.” Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.
But today’s America is not 1917 Russia.
Tragically, the left’s ideological fanaticism has prevented them from thinking through the full consequences of what they seek to do.
Impoverish and destroy the lives of a hundred+ MILLION armed American citizens and you reap the whirlwind. The UniParty just spent the last 50 years training US combat veterans in guerilla warfare. And the logitics greatly disfavor the urban left.
Those grimly enraged patriots are not likely to be feeling much mercy when the smoke clears. Mussolini’s fate comes to mind. A fate they repeatedly demonstrate themselves to be richly deserving of…
GB: “Impoverish and destroy the lives of a hundred+ MILLION armed American citizens and you reap the whirlwind.”
To be fair, though … I mean they bankrupted Fly Over Country and sent all the jobs overseas to China. Schools have been turned into indoctrination centers over a period of many years.
So far? No shot has been fired.
Look up the provocations: Ruby Ridge, Waco, Lavoy Finicum, now Ashli Babbitt
Those are just the cold blooded killings. Reach back to Jaime Gorelick preventing CIA from informing FBI about 9/11 and then being appointed to the 911 Commission to cover her tracks. Compare Lois Lerner’s IRS and the DoJ and the FBI. The stolen election of ’20. C’mon, man. No price has been paid. No pension has been suspended. No job has been terminated. With a small handful of exceptions, no GOP support for traditional Americans.
Apropos to what Old Texan said “not enough knowledgeable staff currently in place”. What will be the qualifications of the 87,000 new hires? How many will be math/accounting literate? This is a huge increase in staff – an average of 1740 staff increase per state. Where will they work? The hidden costs to employ so many are enormous. It will be virtually impossible to find this many qualified staff familiar with the tax codes. I predict that this will decrease the efficiency of the IRS as the competent will, by necessity, have to spend more of their time correcting the mistakes of the incompetent. This ill thought out action serves to create another class totally dependent on the largess of Democrat controlled government – at our expense.
@ Xylourgos > “Where will they work?”
After being hired by the IRS, will they be “lent” to some other agency for “temporary duty” — because that hides the increase in apparatchiks somewhere the Dems don’t want people to know they are being used?
No idea what agency would get them — but they won’t be reviewing tax returns.
You could be correct – but they won’t be reviewing tax returns. I would wager that a sizable number of new hires have never/nor could not complete their own tax return.
According to an American Thinker article this morning:
“Buried in the wording is a paragraph giving the Secretary of the Treasury the ability to hire directly into the competitive service without regard for current laws that mandate publicly announcing available competitive service openings.”
https://tinyurl.com/5cu9fbv7
The same article has:
“In the $45 billion enforcement section, we’ve got ‘…to provide digital asset monitoring…’.”
The author speculates this is for Warren’s wealth tax. Or could it mean Central Bank Digital Currency is a fait accompli?
There’s a CBO report on the proposed increase that is skeptical there would be a vast increase in IRS revenue from it:
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57444
https://mobile.twitter.com/julie_kelly2/status/1555744038212485121
https://babylonbee.com/news/nation-wishes-there-were-some-word-to-describe-adults-who-isolate-and-condition-children-for-sexual-activity
They picked today to Nuke the Republic
Yeah. You know that garage sale you had and sold a hundred dollars worth of old stuff? Taxable. Sold a chair on Craigslist or a lamp on ebay? Taxable.
Sold a used car? Trade in a used car, tax on trade in value.
Teenager mowing the neighbors lawn? Taxable.
And, notification of interest and fines a couple of years after you commit the crime of not paying the tax.
re: Nancy B’s comment on digital asset monitoring.
I have no idea what it is, either, but I did notice this recent article–
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/court-authorizes-service-john-doe-summons-seeking-identities-us-taxpayers-who-have-used-1
Court Authorizes Service of John Doe Summons Seeking Identities of U.S. Taxpayers Who Have Used Cryptocurrency
A federal court in the Northern District of California entered an order today authorizing the IRS to serve a John Doe summons on Payward Ventures Inc., and Subsidiaries d/b/a Kraken (Kraken) seeking information about U.S. taxpayers who conducted at least the equivalent of $20,000 in transactions in cryptocurrency during the years 2016 to 2020.
JimNorCal,
Good men and women do not resort to arms until no other recourse remains. It has ever been so.
“Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”
So too was it prior to 1776. Only when very few could argue that there was still reason to hope did the American colonists conclude that only through force could relief from tyranny be obtained.
“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.”
The next two elections will decide whether hope remains.
GB: we’re on the same side.
Let’s hope our “Good German” neighbors wake up while the cost to right the ship is relatively low.
But it may be time to imagine a world where they don’t. It has happened before in history…
Yes Jim we are but they didn’t “throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security” without force.
I fear it may turn out to be an unavoidable necessity.
As there is no limit in the depth of depravity that the left will not descend to in pursuit of their utopia.
Knowing the drubbing they are in for in November, the Democrats and the Administrative State are putting as much mischief as they can in place, so that the incoming politicians will be tied up for a good long time, undoing it.
A saving grace would be if the Republicans had a game plan to stop the clock, so to speak, as soon as they take office. But of course they have no time or any particular taste for such dramatic planning efforts. If a Republican is sworn in come January ’25, we may be in for interesting times, or at least I may be wishing for them by then.
@ Aggie > “But of course they have no time or any particular taste for such dramatic planning efforts.”
You are assuming there are some who aren’t complicit in the actions we want stopped.*
Replacing Obamacare and Building the Wall come to mind.
They didn’t have any plans ready in 2017, when they finally got the Presidency that they demanded before they could do anything, because most of them didn’t really want to interfere with their (or their donors’) preferred policies.
And we should have had enough support for flat-out repealing Obamacare that Maverick “Benedict Arnold” McCain couldn’t stop it with his sour-grapes no vote.
*I actually believe there are a few, but not enough, and not in higher positions. However, I never let facts get in the way of a good line!
@ Nancy B > the American Thinker post indirectly supports what Xylourgos and I speculated on: going after garden-variety fraud is not the major objective.
Whether taxing unrealized capital gains, crypto transactions, or big-league evasion, rest assured that you will be under the thumb of the wokest diversity-inclusion-equity agents.
In re filling the ranks of IRS accountants regardless of ability, Heather Mac Donald has thoughts and facts about the medical schools lowering their standards to raise the matriculation and graduation rates of certain desired applicants, which apply to woke education in general.
https://www.city-journal.org/the-corruption-of-medicine
“Guardians of the profession discard merit in order to alter the demographics of their field”
An inadequate tax accountant might get you sent to jail, but an incompetent doctor can get you killed.