Republicans Reject Funding for IRS Operations

iluvatar5150

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The IRS has been underfunded and understaffed for a while, leading to them to focus their attention on lower income taxpayers whose returns are easier to audit, leaving higher-income individuals with more complicated returns to exploit their more opaque tax avoidance strategies. The result has been a significant loss of revenue due to under enforcement.

Biden and Democrats proposed beefing up the IRS' enforcement operations as a way to pay for this new bipartisan infrastructure bill. Republicans rejected that plan.

Senate Infrastructure Bill Drops IRS Funding, Raising Pressure for New Revenue

Lawmakers dropped plans to pay for a roughly $1 trillion infrastructure package in part by boosting tax-collecting enforcement at the Internal Revenue Service, a setback for the bipartisan measure ahead of a looming deadline for agreement.
The shift came after pushback from Republicans who were wary of granting the agency more money and power, Sen. Rob Portman (R., Ohio), one of the lead negotiators, said Sunday on CNN. Legislative aides from both parties confirmed the move.
The change means that the plan to strengthen the IRS to do more to collect taxes owed but not collected—a priority for President Biden —has stalled, at least for now. But lawmakers say it could be revived elsewhere, in a separate spending package pushed by Democrats.
 
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Basil the Great

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Well, if you cannot raise taxes and you cannot cut spending and you do not allow the IRS to collect more taxes owed, then pray just how on Earth will you fund an infrastructure bill? I suppose that you could legalize marijuana and tax it and/or start up a national lottery, but both of those ideas are probably dead on arrival.
 
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Nithavela

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Well, if you cannot raise taxes and you cannot cut spending and you do not allow the IRS to collect more taxes owed, then pray just how on Earth will you fund an infrastructure bill? I suppose that you could legalize marijuana and tax it and/or start up a national lottery, but both of those ideas are probably dead on arrival.
That's the nice thing, you don't fund the infrastructure bill, you let it flounder and then use it as ammunition in the 2022 elections.
 
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CatsRule2020

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That's the nice thing, you don't fund the infrastructure bill, you let it flounder and then use it as ammunition in the 2022 elections.
That is exactly what the Republican controlled legislators did with Medicade expansion in the (Bible Belt??) state of Missouri that was voted in by the citizens of that state.
 
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Blade

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Good news... how much TRILLIONS have been spent so far by Dems/Biden? As one said it "does it even matter anymore". We are NOT thinking about our kids, their kids so forth so on. WOW not even one year and spean so much.. pulling money out of thin air has a price.. that will effect us all no matter what side you want to sit on.
 
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ThatRobGuy

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Tactical mistake #1: trying to drum up sympathy for the IRS lol

...a branch of government that virtually nobody has a positive perception of.

I get it...in order to have a society, taxes are a reality. But when it's framed in such a way as "well, if you don't beef of funding to hire more people for the IRS, then I guess they're just going to have to target lower income folks who are easier to audit" has a tinge mafioso tactics.

Especially when a lot of what's in this infrastructure bill isn't a necessity, and nearly half of it isn't even directly related to the nations infrastructure concerns.


It'd be like if I said, I want to raise money for the Rob-Fund...to the tune of $1 million dollars. $200k of it will go toward repairing roads and fixing up schools, the other $800k directed toward my political pet projects.

Reasonable person: "Hey, I don't think I'm on board with that"

Me: "Well, I guess you don't care about roads and schools, then"

Doesn't sound like a fair assessment, right?
 
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mark46

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Well, if you cannot raise taxes and you cannot cut spending and you do not allow the IRS to collect more taxes owed, then pray just how on Earth will you fund an infrastructure bill? I suppose that you could legalize marijuana and tax it and/or start up a national lottery, but both of those ideas are probably dead on arrival.

Let us understand the farce of Republican negotiations since the day Obama took office. There are exceptions, but on any major legislation, a well-intentional groups of senators from both parties talk and negotiate for weeks or months. They come to a deal. Then the leadership pressures them to vote against the compromise. Obama wasted many months negotiating the stimulus package and Obamacare. This was a huge waste of time. The worst of it was that Democrats ending up passing watered down legislation, incorporating most of Republican compromises.

This time the chutzpah has been taken to a new level. They shook hands with the president, and celebrated the deal. After many weeks, Republicans accepted the proposal to increase revenue by beefing up the enforcement and collected branch of the IRS. Half the money would come from the stimulus package, The rest (the new money) would come from increased IRS enforcement.

We might (and should) disagree on whether this would really collect the money. That is not the issue (for us or them). After all the celebration, OF COURSE, the leadership has directed its members to vote against the deal, and not to accept the proposal for increases in IRS enforcement.

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We may go through this for another month or so, with revised bills being brought forward and voted down. The real question is how long Manchin will allow the charade to continue. After all, he can stop it at any point by agreeing to support the inclusion of the physical infrastructure money in the reconciliation bill (merging them back together). The separation was for Machin's benefit (and for Biden's). Somehow they thought that McConnell would fold, or that 10 Republicans would defy his orders (on anything).
 
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Albion

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Pretty typical. Republicans ask how Democrats want to pay for something, and then reject every proposal to pay for it.
I guess we could call adding ten or fifty trillion dollars to the national debt by an act of Congress to be be "paying for something" except that it isn't!
 
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Arcangl86

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I guess we could call adding ten or fifty trillion dollars to the national debt by an act of Congress to be be "paying for something" except that it isn't!
They were proposing adding ten or fifty trillion dollars to the IRS budget to make it easier to enforce tax laws? I agree that's a bit much.
 
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RocksInMyHead

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But when it's framed in such a way as "well, if you don't beef of funding to hire more people for the IRS, then I guess they're just going to have to target lower income folks who are easier to audit" has a tinge mafioso tactics.
I believe the phrasing is more "Well, because you haven't been funding the IRS, they've been targeting lower-income folks who are easier to audit."

It's not a threat - it's reality.
 
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iluvatar5150

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Tactical mistake #1: trying to drum up sympathy for the IRS lol

...a branch of government that virtually nobody has a positive perception of.

I get it...in order to have a society, taxes are a reality. But when it's framed in such a way as "well, if you don't beef of funding to hire more people for the IRS, then I guess they're just going to have to target lower income folks who are easier to audit" has a tinge mafioso tactics.

They’re already doing that.

Especially when a lot of what's in this infrastructure bill isn't a necessity, and nearly half of it isn't even directly related to the nations infrastructure concerns.


It'd be like if I said, I want to raise money for the Rob-Fund...to the tune of $1 million dollars. $200k of it will go toward repairing roads and fixing up schools, the other $800k directed toward my political pet projects.

Reasonable person: "Hey, I don't think I'm on board with that"

Me: "Well, I guess you don't care about roads and schools, then"

To be clear, this isn’t a new tax. It’s money to enforce existing tax laws. Whatever you’re trying to fund, something like this is good policy if the added outlays pay for themselves (which this supposedly does).
 
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mark46

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They were proposing adding ten or fifty trillion dollars to the IRS budget to make it easier to enforce tax laws? I agree that's a bit much.
Please tell us when the vote comes on the $50T, or even on the $10T.
 
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Arcangl86

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Especially when a lot of what's in this infrastructure bill isn't a necessity, and nearly half of it isn't even directly related to the nations infrastructure concerns.
What part of the proposal isn't directly related to infrastructure?
 
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Arcangl86

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I really don't understand the opposition to properly funding the IRS to ensure tax cheats are caught.
The argument, as far as I can make it out, is that the more funding the IRS has, the more likely they are going to be to abuse their authority and harrass hard working taxpayers.

I also love the irony of the party that is screaming that the sky is falling down because of some funding being diverted from the police are perfectly fine underfunding law enforcement agencies they don't agree with.
 
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