Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.Photo: Alex Wong/Getty
As Republican lawmakers lambast the Biden administration for a new plan that earmarks some $78 billion to the IRS over the next decade, the Department of Treasury is pushing back, saying that the funding won’t be used to expand audits of households making less than $400,000 per year.
The package sets aside roughly $78 billion for the IRS — an investment that a 2021 Treasury Departmentreportestimated would enable the agency to hire about 87,000 employees and raise “$700 billion in additional tax revenue over the next decade.”
Republicans have seized on the notion of 87,000 new hires, though asTIMEnotes, the report makes clear that those hires wouldn’t all be IRS agents — and any new agents likely wouldn’t target anyone other than those making $400,000 a year or more.
On Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen further detailed what the investment into the IRS would mean, via a letter to IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig.
“Specifically, I direct that any additional resources — including any new personnel or auditors that are hired — shall not be used to increase the share of small business or households below the $400,000 threshold that are audited relative to historical levels,” Yellen wrote.
Yellen’s statement echoes the language of the bill itself, which specifically says the IRS fundingis not “intended to increase taxes on any taxpayer or small business with a taxable income below $400,000.”
But the assurances that those making $400,000 or less a year will not see an increase in the chances of getting audited haven’t dissuaded many Republicans from claiming that the increased funding would be used to target everyday Americans.
Those include House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, whotweetedthis week: “Democrats in Washington plan to hire an army of 87,000 IRS agents so they can audit more Americans like you.”
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Other Republicans have tried to draw a line between the increased IRS funding and the recent FBI search of Donald Trump’s Palm Beach, Fla., home.
“After todays raid on Mar A Lago what do you think the left plans to use those 87,000 new IRS agents for?” Sen.Marco Rubio tweeted.
In an interview with Fox News, Texas Rep. Kevin Brady also weighed in, saying, “There’s simply so many more IRS agents that will be unleashed on the American public, and of course it’s going to land on those Walmart shoppers and middle-class families.”
Rettig himself clarified to lawmakers last week that “low- and middle-income taxpayers would not be the focus of increased enforcement action,” adding that the investment would actually make it “less likely” that compliant taxpayers would be audited, due to “better technology and customer service.”
source: people.com
