{"id":1917079,"date":"2023-04-20T08:10:59","date_gmt":"2023-04-20T12:10:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/republican-senators-alarmed-by-irss-disproportionate-focus-on-enforcement\/"},"modified":"2023-04-20T08:14:08","modified_gmt":"2023-04-20T12:14:08","slug":"republican-senators-alarmed-by-irss-disproportionate-focus-on-enforcement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/republican-senators-alarmed-by-irss-disproportionate-focus-on-enforcement\/","title":{"rendered":"Republican Senators Alarmed by IRS\u2019s \u2018Disproportionate\u2019 Focus on Enforcement"},"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\">18<\/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%2Frepublican-senators-alarmed-by-irss-disproportionate-focus-on-enforcement%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=1917079&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--><div class=\"post_content\">\n<div class=\"aplayer_app\" data-source=\"https:\/\/vs1.youmaker.com\/assets\/2023\/0419\/38ca4632-610e-4882-be82-8c755c5bb98c\/audio.mp3?length=3893517&#038;duration=324\"><\/div>\n<\/p>\n<p>Some Senate Republicans are worried that the IRS is placing an \u201coverwhelmingly disproportionate\u201d focus on enforcement in its latest budget requests and operating plan.<\/p>\n<p>Airing those concerns at an April 19 Senate Finance Committee <a href=\"https:\/\/www.finance.senate.gov\/hearings\/the-presidents-fiscal-year-2024-irs-budget-and-the-irss-2023-filing-season\">hearing<\/a>, lawmakers grilled IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel about his agency\u2019s plans for the $80 billion increase in funding it is set to receive through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and additional funds requested as part of President Joe Biden\u2019s 2024 budget plan.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOf the $80 billion provided to the IRS in the partisan IRA, more than half, or about $46 billion, is directed toward enforcement activities, while only 4 percent of the $80 billion \u2026 was earmarked for improving taxpayer services,\u201d Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) said.<\/p>\n<p>Noting that Biden was requesting an additional $29 billion for enforcement purposes, Thune asked Werfel whether some of the \u201coverwhelmingly disproportionate\u201d enforcement funding wouldn\u2019t be more effectively spent on customer service.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think that we actually need funds to do both,\u201d Werfel replied. \u201cAnd I worry that if we were to redirect funds out of one bucket into another, we would lose important ground that we need to cover in one particular area.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While acknowledging that the funding appeared to be skewed, Werfel advised that the IRS currently lacks sufficient staff to handle the complex returns of high-income earners.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe reality is that, today, we have 2,600 staff that work on high-income, high-wealth taxpayers, individuals, corporations, and complex partnerships,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are more than 390,000 of those.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd a lot of these filings are thousands of pages\u2014tens of thousands of pages\u2014and some come in hundreds of thousands of pages,\u201d he added. \u201cSo, every dollar we move off of our efforts to build the capacity to unpack those returns means, I think, we\u2019re leaving money on the table for the American people in terms of our ability to close the gap \u2026 of what\u2019s paid versus what\u2019s owed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Thune, accepting that some additional enforcement might be needed, said the heavy focus on enforcement just seemed disproportionate.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Operational Changes<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Earlier this month, the IRS released its strategic operating plan (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.irs.gov\/pub\/irs-pdf\/p3744.pdf\">pdf<\/a>) through fiscal year 2031, outlining significant changes to agency operations, including a greater emphasis on modernization and customer service and a shift in focus toward auditing those with complex tax filings and \u201chigh-dollar compliance issues.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In an April 6 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.finance.senate.gov\/chairmans-news\/wyden-statement-on-irs-funding-plan\">statement<\/a>, Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) praised the plan for its increased focus on \u201cwealthy tax cheats.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRepublican budget cuts created a double standard for tax enforcement that put too much of the audit burden on working families and ushered in a golden age for wealthy tax cheats,\u201d Wyden contended. \u201cDemocrats passed additional funding for the IRS to fix the double standard, crack down on wealthy tax cheats, and improve customer servic<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some Senate Republicans are worried that the IRS is placing an \u201coverwhelmingly disproportionate\u201d focus on enforcement in its latest budget requests and operating plan. Airing those concerns at an April 19 Senate Finance Committee hearing, lawmakers grilled IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel about his agency\u2019s plans for the $80 billion increase in funding it is set<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1226,"featured_media":1917080,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[543],"tags":[24730,6213,5052,7786,24729,3911,3709],"class_list":["post-1917079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-epoch-times","tag-disproportionate","tag-alarmed","tag-enforcement","tag-focus","tag-irss","tag-republican","tag-senators"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1917079","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\/1226"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1917079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1917079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1917080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1917079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1917079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1917079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}