In the summer of this year, Democrats slipped a $80 billion funding increase for the IRS inside their signature climate and health care measure, putting an end to the IRS’s decades-long campaign for additional funds from Congress.
The IRS is planning to clear a vast backlog of unprocessed tax returns, replace decades-old equipment, and, yes, recruit additional auditors, thanks to a new funding source.
However, as GOP candidates around the country make clear, the fight over IRS funding is only getting started. They are making assaults on an expanded IRS the centerpiece of their midterm election message to voters, saying that Democratic legislation will fund an army of auditors who will harass middle-class taxpayers rather than assist them.
“If you pass it, they will come – after you,” reads a campaign advertisement in an Iowa House election that parodies a sequence from the film “Field of Dreams.” Instead of baseball players, black-suited IRS officials emerge from a field of corn.
In general, the GOP’s warnings are exaggerated and deceptive. To target low- and middle-income Americans, the agency is not creating an army of 87,000 “new agents.” In the future years, over 50,000 IRS employees will retire, necessitating several new hiring. Others will become customer service employees who take phone calls from taxpayers.
