{"id":1577871,"date":"2022-07-29T09:19:55","date_gmt":"2022-07-29T13:19:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1577871"},"modified":"2022-07-29T09:21:59","modified_gmt":"2022-07-29T13:21:59","slug":"build-back-better-bill-would-fund-86000-additional-irs-agents-to-sic-on-american-taxpayers-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/build-back-better-bill-would-fund-86000-additional-irs-agents-to-sic-on-american-taxpayers-2\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Build Back Better\u2019 Bill Would Fund 86,000 Additional IRS Agents To Sic On American Taxpayers"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">30<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fbuild-back-better-bill-would-fund-86000-additional-irs-agents-to-sic-on-american-taxpayers-2%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1577871&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>If you think that Democrats\u2019 tax-and-spending bill wouldn\u2019t expand government, have I got news for you. Believe it or not, the Build Back Better legislation would more than double the size of the IRS.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s one of the hidden details in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.democrats.senate.gov\/inflation-reduction-act-of-2022\">agreement<\/a> that Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., cut with Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., behind closed doors. And of course, Democrats want to ram it through Congress within a matter of days. As House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=9uC4bXmcUvw\">once said<\/a> about another big-government scheme, \u201cwe have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Massive Increase in IRS Personnel<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.democrats.senate.gov\/imo\/media\/doc\/inflation_reduction_act_of_2022.pdf\">draft bill<\/a> contains an $80 billion \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.democrats.senate.gov\/imo\/media\/doc\/summary_closing_tax_loopholes_in_the_inflation_reduction_act_of_2022.pdf\">investment<\/a>\u201d in the Internal Revenue Service. Of that amount, more than half, or over $45.6 billion, will go towards enforcement activities.<\/p>\n<p>Even as it doles out such vast sums for the IRS, the bill contains only a few short pages of text explaining the provisions. In other words, the IRS will have a relatively wide berth to spend the new funding as it likes.<\/p>\n<p>But last May, the Treasury Department released its \u201ctax compliance agenda,\u201d showing where it would like to spend that money. And on page 17 of <a href=\"https:\/\/home.treasury.gov\/system\/files\/136\/The-American-Families-Plan-Tax-Compliance-Agenda.pdf\">that document<\/a>, it helpfully included a chart demonstrating the IRS agents it would hire with that additional cash. All told, the Biden Administration wants to hire 86,852 agents, expressed in this chart as \u201cFTEs,\u201d or full-time equivalent employees:<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><\/figure>\n<p>By comparison, the most recent version of the IRS\u2019 Data Book shows that in the fiscal year that ended last September 30, the agency had a total of 78,661 full-time equivalent employees. (See Table 32 on page 87 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irs.gov\/pub\/irs-pdf\/p55b.pdf\">here<\/a>.) In other words, hiring an additional 86,852 agents would more than double the size of the IRS.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Warning: Government Harassment Ahead<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Language on page 39 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.democrats.senate.gov\/imo\/media\/doc\/inflation_reduction_act_of_2022.pdf\">of the bill<\/a> states that \u201cnothing in this subsection\u201d\u2014that is, the portion of the bill appropriating the $80 billion for the IRS\u2014\u201cis intended to increase taxes on any taxpayer with a taxable income below $400,000.\u201d A one-page \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.democrats.senate.gov\/imo\/media\/doc\/summary_closing_tax_loopholes_in_the_inflation_reduction_act_of_2022.pdf\">fact sheet<\/a>\u201d summarizing the tax provisions makes the same claim.<\/p>\n<p>But, as previously noted, the Biden Administration intends to use the funding in the bill to hire over 86,000 new employees. Does anyone really believe that more than doubling the IRS \u2014 the same agency that spent years harassing conservative groups, and still hasn\u2019t explained the public leak of confidential tax return information to the liberal website ProPublica \u2014 means that all those new employees will exclusively focus on \u201cthe rich,\u201d and won\u2019t spend some or all of their time targeting middle-class and working Americans?<\/p>\n<p>Admittedly, the Treasury Department claimed in its compliance agenda last May that \u201caudit rates will not rise relative to recent years for those with less than $400,000 in actual income.\u201d But the bill itself includes no statutory prohibition on the IRS harassing middle-class taxpayers. It merely says the bill \u201cintends\u201d not to increase their tax burden. It doesn\u2019t prohibit the legislation from having that effect in practice, and it doesn\u2019t prohibit the IRS from burying struggling families in a mountain of new audits and paperwork.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Why Not Audit Biden Instead?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>All this focus on IRS \u201cenforcement\u201d comes with a profound irony: Many tax experts, including one from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/joe-biden-used-tax-code-loophole-obama-tried-to-plug-11562779300?mod=article_inline\">liberal Tax Policy Center<\/a>, believe that Joe Biden himself <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2021\/09\/23\/biden-could-owe-as-much-as-500k-in-irs-taxes-report\/\">cheated<\/a> on his 2017 and 2018 taxes, paying himself an absurdly low salary (while using a \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/how-the-bidens-dodged-the-payroll-tax-11597083162\">loophole<\/a>\u201d that his Administration <a href=\"https:\/\/home.treasury.gov\/system\/files\/131\/General-Explanations-FY2022.pdf\">now wants to close<\/a>) to avoid paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in Medicare and Obamacare taxes.<\/p>\n<p>In what will come as a shock to absolutely no one who understands how Washington works, the Democrats who claim to support giving more power to the IRS to audit \u201cthe rich\u201d have <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2019\/08\/12\/house-democrats-refuse-request-irs-audit-bidens-questionable-tax-returns\/\">said precious little<\/a> about Biden\u2019s tax shenanigans. Of course, if they really believed in the accountability they claim to support, they would be sending letters to the IRS <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2021\/07\/13\/why-congress-should-demand-an-audit-of-bidens-taxes\/\">demanding that the Service audit<\/a> Biden\u2019s 2017 and 2018 returns.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, the principle of \u201caudits for thee, but not for me\u201d rules the Democratic roost. All of which suggests that the 86,852 new IRS agents the Biden Administration wants to hire will end up making life miserable not for \u201cthe rich,\u201d but for ordinary Americans, for years to come.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<p>\n  Mr. Jacobs is Founder and CEO of Juniper Research Group and the author of the book The Case Against Single Payer. He is on Twitter: @chrisjacobsHC.<\/p>\n<div class=\"article-comments mt-30 mt-sm-60\">\n<div class=\"article-comments-container d-flex flex-column align-items-center py-30\">\n    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"110\" height=\"106\" src=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/fdrlst-mark.svg\" class=\"img-fluid mb-20\" alt=\"The Federalist logo eagle mark\" \/>    <\/p>\n<p>Unlock commenting by joining the Federalist Community.<\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/plans\/pricing\/\" class=\"btn btn-on-white\">Subscribe<\/a>  <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you think that Democrats\u2019 tax-and-spending bill wouldn\u2019t expand government, have I got news for you. Believe it or not, the Build Back Better legislation would more than double the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1164,"featured_media":1578166,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1577871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1577871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1577871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1577871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1578166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1577871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1577871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1577871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}