The Democrats have funded 80,000 new IRS agents to catch tax cheats

Discussion in 'Political Opinions & Beliefs' started by JohnHamilton, Sep 7, 2023.

  1. JohnHamilton

    JohnHamilton Well-Known Member

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    And yet they are all for letting Hunter Biden walk on his tax liabilities. They even went so far as to arrange for statute of limitations run out on the millions that he owes.

    I know that the progressives are very cool with that, but for the rest of us, who make far less than Hunter, it’s a kick in the pants.

    The tax laws don’t apply to the Biden crime family especially since Joe Biden’s DOJ and IRS shield them from conclusive investigations until the statutes run out. As for the rest of us, who don’t take payments from China, Russia, the Ukraine and other countries, it’s strict law enforcement.
     
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  2. Doofenshmirtz

    Doofenshmirtz Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Nothing says "Power to the People" like 80K IRS agents striking fear in the hearts of those too poor to afford tax attorneys.
     
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  3. Alwayssa

    Alwayssa Well-Known Member

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    Not really. The 80000, part of the Inflation Reduction Act, is over a 10 year period despite the GOP effort to eliminate or curb those persons. But the 80000 will not all be agents. They will be customer service reps, submission processing clerks, revenue officers, revenue agents, IT persons, and the list continues. At the same time, RRA 98 and its taxpayer bill of rights are still in place.
     
  4. cd8ed

    cd8ed Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Please don’t insult everyone’s fauxrage with nuance!!!
     
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  5. Alwayssa

    Alwayssa Well-Known Member

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    Not sure if this is sarcasm or not.

    What makes you think it is just tax attorneys? Try CPAs and enrolled agents. You can even sign or add to your bill with places like H&R Block, Jackson Hewitt, Liberty Tax Service, Turbo Tax, and all the other private companies that do tax preparation in which you can get representation if you so choose when you file or afterward.
     
  6. Alwayssa

    Alwayssa Well-Known Member

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    It appears the OP has either forgotten or never read the actual bill.
     
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  7. ECA

    ECA Well-Known Member

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    The Inflation Reduction Act, a landmark climate, health care and tax package that passed the Senate on Sunday and is expected to head to Biden’s desk after the House approves it on Friday, includes roughly $78 billion for the IRS to be phased in over 10 years. A Treasury Department report from May 2021 estimated that such an investment would enable the agency to hire roughly 87,000 employees by 2031. But most of those hires would not be Internal Revenue agents, and wouldn’t be new positions.
    According to a Treasury Department official, the funds would cover a wide range of positions including IT technicians and taxpayer services support staff, as well as experienced auditors who would be largely tasked with cracking down on corporate and high-income tax evaders.
    More than half of the agency’s current employees are eligible for retirement and are expected to leave the agency within the next five years. “There’s a big wave of attrition that’s coming and a lot of these resources are just about filling those positions,” says Sarin, an economist who has studied tax avoidance extensively and who was tapped by the Biden administration to beef up the IRS’s auditing power.

    https://time.com/6204928/irs-87000-agents-factcheck-biden/
     
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  8. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Donor

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    The "Inflation Reduction Act" is a blatantly dishonestly-misnamed misnomer.
    Rather than help reduce inflation, like the name suggests, it was just another merrily-named package that was an excuse to spend more money (half of which was on progressive pet projects).

    Of course they had to throw something into the bill, as icing on the cake, to be able to claim it would do something to reduce inflation, so they decided to hire more IRS workers. They always like increasing the number of government employees, and they could make the claim it would help them increase tax revenue without raising tax rates.
    The whole thing was mostly a public relations stunt, designed to appeal to the stupid voters who don't know any better.
     
    Last edited: Sep 7, 2023
  9. fullmetaljack

    fullmetaljack Well-Known Member

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    So , in other words, the IRS gets to replace support staff cut by the Republicans , over the next 10 years.

    With this funding , maybe they can finally finish the exam of the Orange Stain’s returns and collect the money he owes .
     
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  10. ECA

    ECA Well-Known Member

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    Guess you missed this part...More than half of the agency’s current employees are eligible for retirement and are expected to leave the agency within the next five years.
     
  11. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Donor

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    There's some truth to that, but I suspect it's mostly an exaggeration, and an excuse to pass this bill.
    If people were really retiring, why do they need more funding? It really doesn't make the most sense.
     
    Last edited: Sep 7, 2023
  12. ECA

    ECA Well-Known Member

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    There is this...
    The IRS currently has roughly 78,000 employees. According to John Koskinen, who served as IRS commissioner from 2013 to 2017, that’s down from around 100,000 when he first started. By the time he resigned four years later, he said, it was clear that the agency was in the grip of a systematic attempt by the GOP to weaken it.
    And this...
    Funding from the Inflation Reduction Act will also go toward tech modernization. The IRS currently uses technology from the 1960s, called COBOL, to process and intake individual tax returns. According to government officials, the agency has struggled to find workers who are still equipped to code under the antiquated system.


     
  13. DaveBN

    DaveBN Well-Known Member

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    This is a superfluous redundancy. But in all seriousness, the ROI on funding the IRS is between five and nine to one.

    If we did other good stuff along with funding the IRS, I’d call that a win!
     
    Last edited: Sep 7, 2023
  14. Doofenshmirtz

    Doofenshmirtz Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    "The burden of the IRS audits disproportionately falls on lower-income families, with households making less than $25,000 facing the largest audit scrutiny among other income ranges in 2022"

    These are the people Dems claim to care about the most.
     
  15. ECA

    ECA Well-Known Member

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    What is the source of your quote?
     
  16. Alwayssa

    Alwayssa Well-Known Member

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    True, but most audits are correspondence or through the TPP program, the Taxpayer Protection Program. In these cases, it usually comes from a ghost tax preparer or a small tax preparation outfit. In some cases, it even comes from those franchised tax preparation businesses, with unusually large refunds or has just the right amount of earned income, usually self-employed income, where they max out both the EITC and the Additional Child Tax Credit. But in-person audits range from wage earners from all demographics and even "small businesses." The IRS definition of "small business" can range from one rental property to a Schedule C to an S Corp and to a Partnership. These types of returns are "more complex" than wage income earners who may have wages, pensions, interest, some dividends, and the more common tax credits on their return. And there are new rules for partnerships that affect everyone no matter how little or how much that partnership receives in gross receipts.

    However, the IRS does have specific groups that go after high-income taxpayers as well. They are located in the Large and International Division, LB&I of the IRS. And then you have Revenue Agents who handle the Tax Exempt and organizations. But the Commissioner, appointed by Trump and confirmed by a GOP senate, has said that the new agents will not exclusively target low or middle-income taxpayers.
     
  17. Alwayssa

    Alwayssa Well-Known Member

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    It is from IRS data, but "audits" range from correspondence to low-income persons whose AGI may be $25000 or less to TPP programs that are holding onto the refunds until certain items are verified through the phone. This is somewhat of a misnomer. For instance, a taxpayer in this group may be a Married filing Joint, three dependents, with a single Sch. C of net income of around $18,500. This will maximize the EITC and the Additional Child tax Credit. The Schedule C may need to be looked at and if there are round numbers of gross receipts and certain expenses, then the return may be in the TPP program to have them prove income or a correspondence audit from the Service Center to prove certain income and/or expenses. When it comes to refundable credits such as the EITC and the Additional Child Tax Credit, the GOP congress has urged the IRS to look more closely at those taxpayers who may be taking advantage of the larger credits being enabled for those years.

    https://news.yahoo.com/irs-tax-audits-target-and-burden-lower-income-families-say-tax-experts-142746381.html#:~:text=The burden of the IRS,to data released by TRAC.

    https://trac.syr.edu/reports/706/
     
    Last edited: Sep 7, 2023
  18. Alwayssa

    Alwayssa Well-Known Member

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    I think that ship has said because of the statute of limitations. The more recent returns maybe to be audited, but the Joint Committee of Taxation shows that there was a possible or even probable of $300 million or more in questionable deductions unless fraud is used, and there is no statute of limitations on fraud in the IRS code.
     
  19. Alwayssa

    Alwayssa Well-Known Member

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    We call this a "brain drain" when the most experienced agents and employees will retire. There will be a learning curve for the younger agents to absorb the knowledge that the more senior and experienced employees will leave behind. And a learning curve will take time. In addition, it is more expensive to hire someone today than 25 years ago because everyone now has to go through a thorough background and credit check. Any discrepancies and TIGTA will be involved to resolve them. Add to the fact that after 90 days, and full time, the benefits start to kick in from health insurance to life insurance to those hours accruing for sick and annual leave to be used in the future.
     
  20. Doofenshmirtz

    Doofenshmirtz Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The wealthy have great accountants and tax attorneys. They can say they won't target low or middle class, but I don't buy that. The tax system needs to be simplified.
     
  21. Alwayssa

    Alwayssa Well-Known Member

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    They have a plethora of accountants and tax attorneys, that just complicate and slow down the audit process, not dismiss it. Even Middle Class hire accountants and CPA from large acounting firms such as Moss Adams for instance. And Enrolled Agents can be used. The "poor taxpayers" will get insurance from whatever tax preparer software or company that they used to prepare their tax returns. But that tax preparer has to use due dilligence just as any tax attorney or CPA the wealthy use.
     
  22. Doofenshmirtz

    Doofenshmirtz Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Thats nice. Low income workers are still 5.5 times more likely to be audited. This is about keeping the population fearful of the mighty government and the beast we are discussing here today. The gullible are cheering because they believe that they are only going after the wealthy.
     
  23. Alwayssa

    Alwayssa Well-Known Member

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    But low income taxpayers don't do the taxes themselvs and hire someone or use a software to get their taxes completed and submitted. You may want to think a company called "Mo Money Taxes" in Tennessee that pretty much screwed almost all their clients because they were so shoddy. But that does not excuse the taxpayers who hired them though.
     
  24. Doofenshmirtz

    Doofenshmirtz Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Thats nice. I don't support a bigger, more powerful government screwing these poor folk with their voluminous, complicated tax codes/laws.
     
  25. Quantum Nerd

    Quantum Nerd Well-Known Member

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    What happened to the tax return fitting on the back of a postcard? Oh, yes, that was another lie to sell the Trump tax cut, making the corporations whole was more important.

    Meanwhile, the freedom caucus has submitted a bill to abolish the IRS. These ultra RW bomb throwers will not stop until they have sowed chaos and torn the system down.
     

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