The McCarthy caucus used their first vote in the 118th Congress to cut funding for the IRS.
The bill is essentially dead on arrival thanks to Democratic control of the Senate, and a promised veto from President Biden.
And that’s a good thing, because the House bill would increase the deficit while making clear Republicans’ top priority is protecting the rich and powerful.
The attempt to derail President Biden’s overhaul of the agency was based on a repeatedly debunked falsehood that claimed 87,000 new IRS agents would be targeting primarily middle-class families.
In reality, the administration hoped to address a “tax gap,” or the difference between what is owed to the government versus what is actually being paid. That difference was thought to be at least $381 billion a year, with most of it due to underreporting of income.
A provision of the Inflation Reduction Act provided $80 billion in new funding to the IRS over 10 years to bolster a wide range of agency functions, including customer service, taxpayer assistance and criminal investigations.