Every April when Americans file their taxes, they’re reminded just how much of their hardearned money goes straight into Uncle Sam’s pocket. On top of that, they have the added headache of having to worry that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) will come after them if they make a mistake when filling out the seemingly endless paperwork. And thanks to Washington Democrats voting to give the IRS an $80 billion funding increase in their Inflation Act, the agency now has the resources it needs to hire 87,000 new agents to target and harass more middle- and lower-income Americans. Earlier this month, the IRS finally released its plan for how it will spend that $80 billion. It’s bad news for working-class families. A simple, conservative analysis shows that the policy will result in 1.2 million new audits per year with nearly 650,000 of those new audits falling on taxpayers making $75,000 or less. That’s absolutely unacceptable. But an avalanche of new audits isn’t the only thing Americans have to worry about when it comes to taxes and the IRS. President Joe Biden has promised he wouldn’t raise taxes on Americans making under $400,000, but the facts paint a much different picture. At a recent Ways and Means Committee hearing, I asked Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to provide legislative text that would show how working-class families and small businesses would be protected from Biden’s $4.7 trillion tax hike proposal that was included in his budget for next year. Yellen declined to commit to doing so.
