Internal Revenue Service by saturnism is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
48 days after deadline, the Biden administration says the IRS will release some details of its $80 billion in new taxpayer funding on Thursday afternoon.
This is a news dump right before the Good Friday / Easter weekend.
It is clear the Biden administration does not want too much scrutiny here.
The IRS is 48 days late but faces no penalty. The IRS was supposed to release details for how they were going to spend the $80 billion no later than Feb. 17, 2023. But the agency ignored the deadline. If taxpayers missed an IRS deadline by 48 days, they would face penalties.
For every $14 for IRS “enforcement,” only $1 is spent on “taxpayer services.” Of the $80 billion in new funding in the “Inflation Reduction Act”, $45.6 billion will go towards tax enforcement while a mere $3.18 billion goes towards taxpayer services – meaning Democrats spent 14 times more on increasing enforcement than improving taxpayer services. Taxpayer services include things like pre-filing assistance and education along with filing and account services.
Even Obama-era IRS chief John Koskinen said $80 billion is too much. As reported by the New York Times in April 2021, Koskinen said this when asked about the $80 billion: “I’m not sure you’d be able to efficiently use that much money.” And, “That’s a lot of money.”
Beware of claims of “no new audits on those making less than $400,000.”Democrats have claimed this funding won’t go towards any new IRS audits on Americans making less than $400,000, but a preliminary assessment from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) shows otherwise. The CBO estimates that at least $20 billion of new revenue from increased IRS audits will come from individuals earning less than $400,000 per year.
IRS will put out a bunch of happy talk about improved technology, but they have an appalling track record of failure. Despite numerous tech funding surges over the past 40 years the IRS has failed each time. Why would this time be any different?
53% of IRS employees never set foot into an office. Will the IRS tell us how many of its employees will actually come to the office? Then-IRS chief Charles Rettig told congress in 2022 that 53% of IRS employees never set foot into an office. Rettig said an additional unspecified quantity work in a “blended capacity” where they got to an office sometimes.
IRS still hasn’t commented on Matt Taibbi home visit. IRS agent visited Taibbi’s home “unannounced and unprompted” at the very moment he was testifying to congress regarding government abuse of power. The White House also will not comment. Treasury Secretary Yellen told congress she isn’t aware of it. Convenient.
IRS still hasn’t held anyone accountable for the massive theft of private IRS taxpayer files given to the progressive group, ProPublica. It has been nearly two years since this theft was revealed. Someone on the inside appears to have the keys to the entire kingdom of IRS personal data. At this point it is unclear whether or not the Biden administration has even asked for a copy of the stolen material. They seem in no hurry to get to the bottom of it, as shown in this video.
IRS still hasn’t explained why or how it destroyed 30 million active taxpayer documents at its Ogden, Utah facility and then didn’t tell anyone about it. Yes, the IRS physically destroyed 30 million pages of documents submitted by Americans attempting to resolve their taxes. IRS didn’t tell anyone about it. It was only discovered after a walk-through by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.
IRS refuses to give congress their internal memo on the details.
The volume of material destroyed is considerable: if stacked in a single pile, it would reach a height of two miles. Was it put in a landfill? Shredded? Burned? Perhaps members of the media could ask?
The bigger the IRS, the bigger the campaign war chest for Democrats. The IRS employee union gives nearly 100% of its PAC contributions to Democratic party entities and candidates. This is a one-party IRS.