Pirate's Cove

This is so horrible!

GOP campaigns against the IRS, vowing to slash its funding

IRS pleas for more funding from Congress — made over the years by one leader after another — finally paid off this summer when Democrats tucked an $80 billion boost for the agency into their flagship climate and health care law.

Fortified with a new funding stream, the IRS is making plans to clear a massive backlog of unprocessed tax returns, upgrade technology that is decades out of date and, yes, hire more auditors.

But, as GOP candidates across the country are making clear, the battle over IRS funding has only just begun. They are making attacks on a larger IRS a central part of their midterm election pitch to voters, warning that the Democratic legislation will bankroll an army of auditors that will harass middle-class taxpayers rather than help them.

“If you pass it, they will come — after you,” says an ad running in an Iowa House race that spoofs a scene in the “Field of Dreams” movie. Instead of baseball players emerging from a field of corn, it’s black-suited IRS agents.

The Associated Press trying to fearmonger over the GOP coming after the IRS is not the Own The Republicans they think it is. I’d bet that even most Democrats, excluding those who want Other People’s money redistributed to them, have a low opinion of the IRS, and are scared of them

The GOP’s warnings are generally alarmist and misleading. The agency is not hiring an army of 87,000 “new agents” to target low- and middle-class Americans. Many hires will be used to replace some 50,000 IRS employee retirements in coming years. Others will become customer service representatives answering taxpayer phone calls.

Some of the IRS hires will be added to the ranks of sophisticated auditing teams that spend thousands of hours poring over complicated returns, but the Biden administration has also made clear that small business or households earning $400,000 per year or less will not see an increase in their chances of being audited.

Right, right, we’re supposed to trust the Biden admin? Trust the IRS? The middle class is an easy target for the IRS. They can get a whole lot more money from them than the Rich who can lawyer up. Remember, a lot of small businesses have a gross over $400k, though their net is much, much lower. Also, why is it necessary to essentially double the IRS budget to replace employees who will retire? Did anyone at the AP consider that question?

Still, some proponents of the additional IRS funding are concerned by the Democratic response to the GOP ads, or to be more precise, the lack thereof. Instead, Democratic groups and candidates are largely focusing their campaign ads on non-economic issues such as abortion rights.

“There’s crickets, is exactly the word, a crickets response from Democrats on this issue,” said Frank Clemente, executive director of Americans for Tax Fairness, a liberal-leaning advocacy group.

First, why would they? Is it really a winning message to defend the IRS? Also, elected Democrats really do want all this audit power, because they believe your money is the Government’s money.

Vanessa Williamson, a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, said if Republicans are successful in cutting funding for the IRS, “it will seriously damage a fundamental function of the government,” she said “which is really troubling.”

“The reality is that government, through the IRS, plays a critically important role in the lives of Americans every day,” she said. “Pretending that role doesn’t exist to score political points is destructive.”

And that’s what we do not like. So, defending the IRS really isn’t a great political strategy. But, hey, Democrats, go ahead and support the IRS expansion.

Read: ZOMG: GOP Is Campaigning Against IRS, Promising To Slash Funding »