Claiming a supposed “tax gap” between what Americans owe and what they pay, a new proposal by President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats would spend $80 billion to create as many as 87,000 new federal “enforcement and compliance” agents to investigate any financial transaction involving more than $600 and create a federal database to record and monitor Americans’ financial activities.
“Democrats want to give the IRS $80 billion and hire 87,000 new agents so they can harass and audit taxpayers and create a new reporting regime that targets any bank account, Venmo account, or financial account exceeding $600 in gross inflows and outflows,” said Grover Norquist, President of Americans for Tax Reform. “This should be alarming given the IRS has a long history of failing to do its job and targeting taxpayers based on their political beliefs.”
“Congressional Democrats’ answer to Americans’ frustrations with the IRS is to hire more tax bureaucrats to audit them,” said Ryan Ellis, President of the Center for a Free Economy.
“People are fed up with being told they are tax cheats by academics and bureaucrats who have never signed the front of a paycheck, and that they must become the subject of fishing expedition audits in service to a fabricated ‘tax gap,’” said Ellis. “Congress should focus on getting the IRS to answer phone calls and correspondence in a timely manner, not on new audits.”
Congressional Republicans are responding by proposing the “TaxGap Reform and IRS Enforcement Act.”
“Before American taxpayers are subjected to 80,000 new IRS agents and surveillance of their private bank accounts, let’s begin with an accurate, independent estimate of Treasury’s so-called ‘tax gap,’” said House Ways and Means Republican Leader Kevin Brady (R-Texas.) “This bill also protects taxpayers from IRS targeting based on their political or religious beliefs and closes loopholes that risk leaking private taxpayer returns.”
“The IRS financial institution reporting requirement forces financial institutions to turn over detailed bank account information to the IRS based on vague and ‘flexible’ criteria, such as a $600 threshold and account inflows and outflows, which are determined by the IRS,” said U.S. Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Mike Crapo (R-Idaho.)
“This time-draining burden disregards banking privacy in order to squeeze more resources out of responsible Americans and entrepreneurs. It subjects law-abiding Americans to more intense targeting from the IRS and additional data collection, a concern that was recently amplified by a leak of private taxpayer information out of the IRS. I have long been critical of big data collection activities, and oppose turning banks and brokers into government tax collectors,” said Crapo.
“My amendment prevents the undue monitoring and reporting of sensitive American taxpayer information to the IRS by financial institutions about deposits and withdrawals made by any individual or business,” said Crapo.
Key provisions of the TaxGap Reform and IRS Enforcement Act:
Tax Gap Reform: Requires timely, annually-updated information on tax gap estimates in coordination with the Joint Committee on Taxation.
Taxpayer Protection: Prevents the IRS from targeting Americans for their political and ideological beliefs, codifies President Biden’s pledge to not increase audits of taxpayers making less than $400,000 per year, and prohibits the establishment of new bank reporting requirements.
Smarter Enforcement: Requires the IRS to use existing data and tools to improve its corporate audit selection process and increase enforcement against high-income non-filers.
Closes the Expertise Gap: Creates an IRS enforcement fellowship pilot program to assist with the agency’s most complex audits and case selection decisions. Before hiring thousands of new agents, Congress should test the effectiveness of increasing expertise in a targeted way.
Original Senate co-sponsors include John Barrasso (R-Wyoming), Mike Braun (R-Indiana), John Boozman (R-Arkansas), Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana), Kevin Cramer (R-North Dakota), James Lankford (R-Oklahoma), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Mike Rounds (R-Nebraska), Marco Rubio (R-Florida), Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) and Todd Young (R-Indiana).
To date there is no serious effort by congressional Republicans to abolish the federal income tax and IRS.
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AmericanActionNews.com
Michael Brigham
Michael Brigham has written for American Action News since the summer of 2019. His areas of expertise include foreign affairs, government, and politics, but regardless of the subject matter, he has a nose and an insatiable appetite for news. In his free time, he enjoys reading nonfiction, watching a mix of comedies and true crime documentaries, and spending time away from the swamp hiking in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.
The democracts need to be abolished along with the IRS since both are not for America and the people here, they are for themselves. The democracts every single one needs to lose every cent they got. Knew that the democracts are the ones who created the IRS for their own pleasure, nothing more, democracts are useless idiots need to go
Americans need to start by abolishing globalists and their voter fraud to appoint their puppets; demonrat criminal party and rino criminal party .
Actually it is necessary to RICO the democrat party, arrest its leadership and seize their assets. It’s long past due
Who would do the accounting for the U.S. Raymond? Where would the money come from to protect the U. S. Or are you living in China ?
Simplify all this bullshlt and whatever’s left of the irs would be about 5% of the behemoth that is shaking down the working class right now.
I am kewl with that but.. China Joe is an argument against what you just said and I think you should donate all your possessions to the effort of that protection against China. That is what you have left after you have given to blm/antifa… just sayin
The Democrat Party is becoming FULLY Exposed, THAT’S fer’ damned sure, and if ENOUGH of This country doesn’t catch on and vote these DEMENTED CROOKS Out of office, it WILL BE PROOF that the Majority are IGNORANT FOOLS that actually WANT Socialism, which can Reeeeeal easily turn into out and out Communism.
Tipping Point time, America. Just HOW SICK have you become?
globalists and their demonrats know that they can’t win a legal election, there are more American voters than there are libby snow flake sheep voters and illegal criminal invader voters and taliban terrorist voters and dead libby snow flake voters !
When it comes right down to it , both parties are being exposed.
Follow the decisions that Joe has made, this is the Obama 3rd term. Joe is too damn stupid to think. Joe is burned out, and has a 50 year record of political failure.
That’s obvious, obama already told us what he was going to do and he’s doing it. “If I had a third term.”
If that’s case then they need to investigate Oprah Obama.Clintons,AOC.The Squads Nancy Chuckie Bidens Harris Soros and the people in Hollywood,the Congress and Senate.Governors the IRS and Etc that work inside the government oh and Hunter Boden
But they won’t because they are the animals in the farm that are more equal then the rest. I bet that they are going to have a hard time finding help because who would want the job?
I’d take that job, then I could go after all my libtard neighbors , who voted for Biden.
But don’t you see? That is what they already did going after Conservative donors in previous years. It wasn’t right to weaponize the agency then and it is wrong to do it now no matter which side is the target.
The guy that is doing his 3rd Term did that!! Weaponized the IRS, what a Nazi, besides a Marxist.
They need to start inside IRS.