Harris-Biden 2025 budget might help weaponize IRS against the right
The Kamala Harris tax plan
Paul Gigot interviews tax analyst Scott Hodge.
The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Which is why the Democrats’ tenacious efforts to expand the IRS should be worrisome to every American. This is an agency with a history of nefarious activity and targeting conservatives. This is a political party with a history of lying about it.
The staggering $80 billion budget infusion Democrats fought to send to the IRS through the Inflation Reduction Act is spread across 10 years, but for an agency with a $12 billion annual appropriation, that extra $8 billion a year is significant.
Now, the Biden-Harris administration’s 2025 budget proposal calls for an additional $104 billion for the IRS. That’s eight times the annual budget, just two years after Congress appropriated an amount that was seven times the agency’s annual budget. What is going on here?
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As Senator Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, wrote, "Now, the IRS justifies its request for $104 billion in additional mandatory multi-year spending—or eight-times the agency’s annual budget—as again being needed to maintain IRS employees and update its systems. When will taxpayers see the end to the staggering growth of the size of the IRS in budget requests?"
The Harris-Biden budget for 2025 calls for lots more cash going to the IRS. It also raises the question about whether that agency will once more be weaponized against the right. (iStock)
Perhaps the biggest question is why?
Whatever the answer is, the Biden-Harris administration has not been truthful about it. Voters were told the increased enforcement would target the millionaire and billionaire class for audits.
Imagine if that were true. If we took the first $80 billon and added the proposed $104 billion, plus the $12 billion per year they already spend, it is a spectacular increase in spending.
Of course, Harris doesn’t need that much money just to go after the millionaire and billionaire class. They didn’t seek to hire 87,000 new employees just to go after high earners, and it certainly wasn’t just for automation and customer service.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen promised in 2022 that the $80 billion included in the Inflation Reduction Act would not be weaponized against the middle class. "Contrary to the misinformation from opponents of this legislation," she said, "small business or households earning $400,000 per year or less will not see an increase in the chances that they are audited."
That was not true.
According to an audit by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration released in March, 63% of audits last year involved taxpayers earning less than $200,000 a year. This is slightly different than how the Biden-Harris administration sold it.
Given the track record of both Democrats in Congress and the IRS, I have to wonder what criteria the IRS uses to determine who will be audited. Will IRS investments in artificial intelligence and other cutting-edge technology enable a partisan administration to weaponize tax enforcement against politically convenient targets?
The Internal Revenue Service has a bad history of being weaponized against conservatives. (Samuel Corum/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Recall that in 2012, the House Oversight Committee began a two-year investigation of allegations that the IRS had been weaponized against conservative nonprofits. Those allegations turned out to be true. But the IRS lied to us then – and Democrats in Congress reinforced their denials.
That investigation ultimately showed that the agency had overwhelmingly singled out conservative nonprofits for disparate treatment. A 2013 TIGTA audit documented the truth of those allegations.
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Now the IRS is seeking to build an army of more than 100,000 personnel, swelling the ranks to its highest levels ever, all in the name of fairness and making sure Americans pay their fair share. Perhaps the IRS should first look in the mirror.
With more than $104 billion in taxpayer money to enforce the tax code, perhaps the IRS could enforce tax compliance within its own ranks.
According to an audit by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration released in March, 63% of audits last year involved taxpayers earning less than $200,000 a year. This is slightly different than how the Biden-Harris administration sold it.
More than 3,500 IRS employees owe more than $50 million in back taxes according to TIGTA. They also found nearly 150,000 federal employees owe roughly $1.5 billion in unpaid taxes.
Before Vice President Kamala Harris and the IRS expand their dragnet, perhaps the federal workers not paying their taxes should be fired.
Why does the IRS and the Harris administration need such large infusions of federal funding? Will we see a proliferation of audits against conservative taxpayers? One thing is for sure. If that does happen, we can’t trust the IRS or the Democrats to tell us the truth.
I worry, based on past performance, the real reason is more about weaponization than fairness and customer service.
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Jason Chaffetz is a FOX News (FNC) contributor and the host of the Jason In The House podcast on FOX News Radio. He joined the network in 2017.
