Ahead of Friday’s vote on the Inflation Reduction Act, a sweeping package that aims to lower health-care costs, combat climate change, raise taxes on some large companies and reduce the deficit, the GQP would like you to believe the Biden Administration will hire 87,000 IRS agents to audit those making less than $75K a year.
Shocking!!! Qevin’s claim is untrue.
The IRS does plan to hire 87,000 IRS employees over the next 10 year but not IRS audit agents. Many of the new hires will replace people who will retire soon. That’s a major difference than what Qevin want us to believe and what the GQP and its KKKult parrot.
For years, Congress has underfunded the IRS, which resulted in less audits and more people who avoided not paying what they really owe.
So, where did the GQP get their latest misinformation from?
Qevin and the Republican staff of the House Ways and Means Committee “relied on a Sept. 2 blog post by Congressional Budget Office Director Phillip L. Swagel that explained how $80 billion of new spending for the IRS was estimated to raise an additional $200 billion in revenue over 10 years.”
Swagel noted that CBO baseline budget projections had assumed a continuing decline in audit rates. “The proposal, by contrast, would return audit rates to the levels of about 10 years ago; the rate would rise for all taxpayers, but higher-income taxpayers would face the largest increase,” he wrote, adding that “the administration’s policies would focus additional IRS resources on enforcement activity aimed at high-wealth taxpayers, large corporations, and partnerships.”
So the GOP staff applied 2010 audit rates to the recent tax filing data, coming up with 1.2 million new audits per year. The math adds up but of course, the liars took the numbers out of context.
According to IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig, who was appointed by TFG: “audit scrutiny” would not be raised on small businesses or middle-income Americans.
“Our investment of these enforcement resources is designed around the Department of the Treasury’s directive that audit rates will not rise relative to recent years for households making under $400,000.
The proposal would direct that additional resources go toward enforcement against those with the highest incomes, rather than Americans with actual income of less than $400,000.”
Fact Check:
As for hyperbolic claims about audits, McCarthy’s tweet lacks important context. The numbers reflect a relatively small percentage increase for people making less than $75,000 — and a big one for the superwealthy. In any case, the calculations relied on a CBO analysis that the agency says was not intended to be used in this way, making the numbers even more dubious.
McCarthy earns Three Pinocchios.
