This next week, Americans will begin that annual task of filing their taxes. This year, unlike the past several, that task will be met with a little more help on the other end. Due to funding secured last year through the Inflation Reduction Act, the Internal Revenue Service has already hired more than 5,000 new customer service agents and begun to improve its aging technology. That’s just the start of a plan to hire some 87,000 auditors to ensure that people – and companies – are paying their fair share in taxes.
But to hear it from the new majority in the U.S. House, the conversation around the IRS should be less about ensuring entities pay their fair share and more about the boogeyman of the pistol packin’ IRS agent empowered to come for your money.
The irony is almost too much to bear. After a political season in which there were many contentious issues that again divided our nation, Republicans opted to defund the IRS as their first order of business.
Among the ironies:
-We may not be able to see much movement around gun safety among certain factions of our federal government, but when it comes to agents with the IRS, it was Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL1) who introduced the “Disarm the IRS” bill last year. Had that bill gone anywhere, the small faction of the IRS that engages in criminal financial investigations would not have been able to buy any more ammo. If there’s anything worse than a bad guy with a gun, it surely must be a bad IRS agent coming to ensure that law and order is upheld, right?
Another irony:
-We may be facing a debt ceiling and some $31 trillion in United States debt, but when it comes to bringing in the funds that might help to lower that debt by way of taxpayers paying their fair share, it was the new House Republican majority that, among its first orders of business, sought to roll back funding.
And not to be outdone:
-Some factions of the GOP want to disband the IRS all together and implement a federal sales tax of anywhere from 23 to 30% for all goods. By some estimates, this will significantly raise costs for everyone but the top 5% of earners.
It would all be hilarious if this wasn’t actually our country’s financial system being dismantled.
Sadly, Oregon’s two most-junior House representatives – Cliff Bentz (R-OR2) and Lori Chavez-Deremer (R-OR5) are playing right along, voting in favor of rolling back that funding allocated under the Inflation Reduction Act.
As journalists and watchdogs, we have other issues. Right now, it’s been close to three years since we’ve been able to see the financial reporting of nonprofit entities in our community. We’d like to say that every hospital and activist organization in our community is on the up-and-up and is making good use of the tax-free funds provided to them by local people—but without the ability to view financial reporting documents that are submitted and then processed by the IRS, we can’t know what those records entail. The IRS backlog is, according to the agency, directly tied to funding. It needs more agents to process them.
We can only assume, by the way they vote, that our representatives in Congress are perfectly fine with this. Constituents should ask them why. If the notion of the scary desk-jockey IRS agent showing up at your house packin’ a pistol seems like a ridiculous notion, it’s because it is. However, having Oregon representatives unwilling to commit to financial responsibility for all is far more frightening.
This article appears in Source Weekly January 26, 2023.
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A sales tax (and an abolishment of the income tax) would be a great thing. Without a doubt the favorite phrase of liberals is “fair share”. The sales tax would be the epitome of fair as it would force everyone to have skin in the game. Our current system is far too heavily weighted toward soaking the rich.
Republicans in Congress are embracing their chaotic and Quixotic assault on windmills. Much of what they try to do will die a well-deserved death in the Senate. They will continue to take on “issues” and vendettas that the overwhelming majority of voters don’t care about. I do hope they go after Medicare and Social Security because they won’t succeed, except to expose their callousness. Remember Gingrich’s “Contract On America”? Sometimes the opposition can be your best organizer.
The screaming headline for imposition of a national sales tax: “Corporate Income Tax Eliminated.” Subheadlines would be: “Direct Funding for Social Security and Medicare Eliminated.” “IRS abolished.”
From the Tax Foundation (https://taxfoundation.org/fair-tax-nationa…).
“A national sales tax would abolish the IRS and outsource the administration of the national sales tax to the governments of the 50 states and the District of Columbia.
States would retain 0.25 percent of the revenue they collect to help offset administrative costs. Similarly, businesses would receive a taxpayer administrative credit of 0.25 percent of the amounts collected as compensation.
For example, if the national sales tax was levied at a high enough (44%) rate to generate enough revenue to maintain current levels in 2023 ($4.6 trillion), states and businesses would retain about $11.5 billion for administrative costs. The IRS budget in FY 2022 was $11.9 billion, implying no cost savings.”
Sales tax is the ultimate regressive tax: A 30% consumption rate (or whatever ghastly amount they have in mind) eats far more deeply into the family income of a low or middle income wage earner.
Lori Chavez-DeRemer boasted about her family’s union ties–the one redeeming feature about her campaign, and, at least, a sign of hope. It will be interesting to see how the union values which she claims to champion square with her demonstrations of loyalty to the unbridled corporate state. Let’s keep an eye on Lori if she champions a tax system that defunds social spending in an era with resurgent childhood poverty and galloping wage inequality. Let’s watch–and hope the campaign of her Democratic challenger in 2024 contends with these economic issues.
Thanks for the thought-provoking editorial.