The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is using a new army of tax collectors to conduct mass audits of middle-income earners after Democrats promised additional resources would only be used to target the rich.
On Thursday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., celebrated the federal government’s collection of more than $1 billion in taxes from “high-wealth taxpayers” as a triumph for the agency’s radical expansion under President Joe Biden.
“Democrats boosted IRS funding, and it’s already gotten back $1 BILLION from millionaire tax cheats,” the Massachusetts senator wrote in response to a story in The Boston Globe. “Republicans want to cut IRS funding again to protect their rich tax-dodging buddies — no way.”
A columnist for the paper trumpeted by Warren, however, pointed out that “Buried deep in the same story: Two-thirds of IRS audits initiated last year were on taxpayers making less than $200,000.”
In fact, the note on IRS middle-class audits is highlighted at the end of The Boston Globe’s story, which is headlined, “IRS collects milestone $1 billion in back taxes from high-wealth taxpayers.”
“Demian Brady, vice president of research for the National Taxpayers Union Foundation — says the IRS still targets non-high-wealth partnerships for audits,” the Globe reported.
“It should also be noted that nearly two-thirds of audits initiated in 2023 were on those making less than $200,000,” Brady told the paper.
In April, The Wall Street Journal editorial board reported on a review of the federal tax agency’s auditing practices, which found 63 percent of new government inquiries were to middle-income earners who made less than $200,000.
“Only a small overall share reached the very highest earners, while 80% of audits covered filers earning less than $1 million,” wrote the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal. “Don’t forget to save those charitable-giving receipts.”
Congress beefed up the IRS with an army of 86,000 new tax collecters in the 2022 “Inflation Reduction Act” (IRA). The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) reported in March that new employees were “not to be used to increase the share of small businesses or households below the $400,000 threshold that are audited,” but the agency “did not include specifics on how the IRS was going to ensure it met this commitment.”
In 2022, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen pledged, “contrary to the misinformation from opponents of this legislation,” that “small business or households earning $400,000 per year or less will not see an increase in the chances that they are audited.”
Except if audits are going up overall under an agency with nearly 100,000 new auditors, then everyone’s chances of being audited have gone up, with the IRS still targeting middle- and lower-income Americans for the majority of audits. A report from Syracuse University published in March 2022 shows the IRS already audits the poorest Americans at a rate five times higher than other Americans. “Empowering the IRS” was the whole point of the agency expansion two years ago.
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