Biden’s IRS Seeks to Increase Audits by TEN TIMES

Americans have never liked the Internal Revenue Service, or any of their predecessors who are simply in the business of making us pay them for being alive and participating in society.  In fact, it wouldn’t be out of hand to suggest that this disdain has been with us from day one, when Boston Harbor ran dirt-brown with the tea of the British Empire.

And so when any American leader attempts to widen the scope and severity of the agency, it shouldn’t be taken lightly.  This is precisely the sort of thing that Americans have fought for all these years:  Freedom from those who would oppress us otherwise.

This is why so many of us are furious with the Biden administration at the moment, as they seek to increase the amount of audits conducted by the IRS by tenfold.

The IRS hopes to increase tax audits on the wealthiest taxpayers tenfold under the Biden administration’s plan for the agency, according to a senior administration official and the IRS’s new strategic operating plan.

IRS and Treasury Department officials said Thursday that they will use $80 billion in new funding for the tax service to claw back unpaid balances from high-income earners and complex businesses — restoring audits on those taxpayers to higher rates from more than a decade ago — and boost customer service resources for middle- and low-income tax filers.

The agency plans to digitize its tax-processing pipeline and begin developing a government-backed online tax-filing software with money from the Inflation Reduction Act, one of President Biden’s chief legislative victories, officials announced in a 149-page report.

The move would break a decades-long lull in audits.

Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said in an interview that the IRS hopes to increase audit rates on wealthy individuals to 2011 levels, before congressional Republicans slashed its budget for five consecutive years.

“One of the things that people talk about when they say that the tax code is unfair is, if you’re low-income, you’re more likely to be audited than if you’re wealthy,” Adeyemo said in an interview. “That is not consistent with tax fairness.”

The unpopular move could prove fatal at the ballot box as well, with Joe Biden already preparing for a tight race…perhaps even in the primaries.