Priorities, priorities. Clearly this behemoth IRS would be a partisan club wielded against dissidents, as it began to be in the days of Lois Lerner.
“Dems Poised To Make IRS Larger Than Pentagon, State Department, FBI, and Border Patrol Combined,” by Joseph Simonson, Washington Free Beacon, August 6, 2022:
If Democrats have their way, one of the most detested federal agencies—the Internal Revenue Service—will employ more bureaucrats than the Pentagon, State Department, FBI, and Border Patrol combined.
Under the Inflation Reduction Act negotiated by Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.), the agency would receive $80 billion in funding to hire as many as 87,000 additional employees. The increase would more than double the size of the IRS workforce, which currently has 78,661 full-time staffers, according to federal data.
The additional IRS funding is integral to the Democrats’ reconciliation package. A Congressional Budget Office analysis found the hiring of new IRS agents would result in more than $200 billion in additional revenue for the federal government over the next decade. More than half of that funding is specifically earmarked for “enforcement,” meaning tax audits and other responsibilities such as “digital asset monitoring.”
That would make the IRS one of the largest federal agencies. The Pentagon houses roughly 27,000 employees, according to the Defense Department, while a human resources fact sheet says the State Department employs just over 77,243 staff. The FBI employs approximately 35,000 people, according to the agency’s website, and Customs and Border Protection says it employs 19,536 Border Patrol agents.
The money allocated to the IRS would increase the agency’s budget by more than 600 percent. In 2021, the IRS received $12.6 billion.
Although Democrats say the hiring of additional IRS agents will help root out tax cheats and other criminals, federal tax revenues have steadily risen over the past several decades. Federal tax receipts are projected to hit $5.7 trillion in 2027, up from just over $4 trillion last year without additional IRS agents….
CogitoErgoSum says
Why is there a need for the IRS when the government can print all the money it needs anyway? We are taxed through inflation.
somehistory says
Because they want to threaten and make citizens squirm and worry and panic and stress out of their minds about paying what they are unable to pay, stress extra over audits, and when they can’t pay on time, they get to turn the vice and make the poor citizens….honest citizens…bleed with fines and interest and threats of jailtime.
Power and control.
somehistory says
Oh, yeah, the agents who squeeze the hardest and get the most back from the poor taxpayer, earn bonuses.
mortimer says
Get ready now for TAX AND TAX, because it was SPEND AND SPEND … someone has to pay.
Whom did the gullible Dem voters think was going to pay. THEY are going to pay and get taxed out of their minds.
A lot of borderline tax evaders will soon be in big trouble.
Wellington says
No surprise. Just an expansion of the Deep State, the Swamp, the DC bureaucracy—call it what you will—which the Left keeps maintaining does not exist (they’re lying) and which RINOs aplenty go along with.
America is now down to around a 25% chance when one examines the two major political parties in the US. The Democratic Party is virtually completely gone (the exceptions any longer are so few they’re nugatory—just look at how Manchin and Sinema, supposedly the two moderate Democrats remaining in the Senate, caved on the obnoxiously and mendaciously named, “Inflation Reduction Act”). And about half of the Republican Party are patsies, which means RINOs.
So, it’s come down to one half of one major political party to save America seen from a national, state-wide and local political perspective. Yes, this dire and ones knows this by now or should know it. And, quite frankly, I am becoming less tolerant of those who don’t. Intolerance of stupidity and blind and willful ignorance, you know, is not a negative, especially where the fate of one’s nation is at stake as it surely is now.
On an optimistic note I will end here and it is this: A very large percentage of the American people, at least 50%, are utterly disgusted by Washington and all the woke garbage that is pulling down what Churchill called “The Great Republic.” This percentage knows that DC with all its “trappings” (never mind other major “impediments” like the MSM and academia) has now become an enemy of what the Founding Fathers of America established. For now, but only for now, I rest my case. I’ll “pick up” with it soon—like tomorrow or at most a week because I never know when to quit.
mortimer says
The Dems will probably politicize the IRS as well to punish the Republicans.
Wellington says
That was done, mortimer, as far back as FDR’s Presidency. He used the IRS to go after political enemies, most of whom, though not all, were on the Right.
Donovan Nuera says
They will have to construct a new IRS Annex to house the new IRS agents. Perhaps they will name it to honor Lois Lerner?
Funny thing is, the tax code, due to its colossal size, scope and byzantine regulations and laws, causes a net loss of productivity each year of $600 Million to $1.2 Billion in COMPLIANCE, both direct and indirect, by individuals, companies, groups, and corporations. Also, you wonder why only 30% of Boomers have enough in their retirement accounts? Maybe it is the strict limits on SAVINGS. Also, look at how the Code micromanages taxpayers into shoving money in shelters that don’t really accrue wealth.
Time for 10% Flat tax on ALL income for all adults. Get it done in a single weekend in February and stop wasting 3 months of weekends in the Spring poring over accounts, paystubs, receipts, investments and getting ulcers and heart attacks. Then spend the 90% AS YOU SEE FIT!! Save it! Invest! Give to grandkids! It’s none of the Government’s business on how you spend your fruits of your labor!
James Lincoln says
Donovan Nuera says,
“Time for 10% Flat tax on ALL income for all adults.”
Of course, this is exactly what the federal government does not want. The tax code is written to encourage spending – the way that they want you to spend.
Donovan Nuera says
Gee….. They Dems don’t expect Democrat racial minorities to be able to use the 700 days between elections to pay $25 for their certified birth certificate from the local town hall records division and take a car, truck, bus, trolley, streetcar, train, Uber, Lyft, taxi, or ask a friend to drive them to their local DMV to get a FREE photo ID card so that can then vote….. but GOD FORBID if the dumbest taxpayer is short $1 on Line 32A or Form 1040-XSDFLJ993 after multiplying Line 387D on page 83 by the number of dependents who qualify for the Railroad Retirement Pension for Grandkids of Veterans of the Spanish-American War who have sold investment income from Peruvian asbestos mines!!!! Their ass is grass to the new IRS audit gestapo!!!
Donovan Nuera says
If the GOP somehow doesn’t screw things up (again….) and takes the Majority in the House, they could simply NOT FUND the new IRS agents…..
ON a side note….how come not one GOP Senator asked FBI Director Wrong Wray WHY does Perkins Coie Law firm have an FBI Work Station in its office??? (as per a whistleblower from Perkins Coie) .Is that a common practice in law firms? Surely, it should have been known by FBI chief counsel James Baker that Sussman was working for Hillary and the DNC as Sussman was IN CHARGE of setting up the work station. They were illegally accessing files on all opponents going back to 2012… This was the abuse of databanks that Adm. Mullen of NSA was talking about in his report in late 2016.
GreekEmpress says
We were harassed every year by the IRS during Obama’s second term. I could tell you horror stories. And in each case, it was resolved in our favor. One year it turned out they owed US a small amount of money—(which we never got)
It ended when Trump was elected.
I supported Ted Cruz because he said people should only have to file their returns on a post card sized form.
This is infuriating! 😡😡😡
gravenimage says
So sorry this happened to you, GreekEmpress–but I have heard other similar stories.
gravenimage says
Dems set to make IRS larger than Pentagon, State Department, FBI, and Border Patrol combined
…………………………
Geeeez–that says it all…
Mark Spahn (West Seneca, NY) says
Joseph Simonson reports, “The money [$80 billion] allocated to the IRS would increase the agency’s budget by more than 600 percent. In 2021, the IRS received $12.6 billion.”
No. $80 billion/$12.6 billion = 6.35, which is an increase of 535 percent, not “more than 600 percent”.
Pray Hard says
Wow, Mark, thanks for straightening us out. You’re the man.
James Hoagland says
To insure that all will suffer utter poverty… serfdom glorified.
Pray Hard says
They’ll spend billion$ to collect million$ and think they made a wise decision all the while creating misery and grinding us to dust. America is in trouble under these communists.