New funding in the Inflation Reduction Act will make sure the ultra-wealthy and big businesses pay their fair share
Tuesday, September 12, 2023
MADISON, Wis. – In case you missed it, the IRS has announced a new effort is underway to crack down on the ultra-wealthy and big businesses who have refused to pay their fair share of taxes.
This program is made possible with funding included in the Inflation Reduction Act, which was opposed by Wisconsin’s Republican delegation in Congress. In addition to opposing the Inflation Reduction Act, House Republicans – including Congressmen Bryan Steil, Derrick Van Orden, and Tom Tiffany – voted multiple times earlier this year to stop this program and protect wealthy tax cheats who owe millions to the federal government.
“Wisconsinites work hard and they pay their fair share – it shouldn’t be any different if you’re a millionaire or big corporation, but that’s exactly what Republicans in Congress want to see,” said Opportunity Wisconsin Program Director Meghan Roh. “Congressmen Bryan Steil, Derrick Van Orden, and Tom Tiffany would rather protect wealthy tax cheats instead of giving the federal government the valuable resources they need to hold them accountable.”
Republicans have continued to mislead people about the law’s funding for additional IRS resources, falsely stating that this would be used to hire 87,000 new IRS agents. These claims have been found “patently untrue,” and the program is designed to use new technology and experienced auditors to examine only the most extreme tax evaders at the top who owe millions.
Associated Press: The IRS plans to crack down on 1,600 millionaires to collect millions of dollars in back taxes
WASHINGTON (AP) — The IRS announced on Friday it is launching an effort to aggressively pursue 1,600 millionaires and 75 large business partnerships that owe hundreds of millions of dollars in past due taxes.
IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel said that with a boost in federal funding and the help of artificial intelligence tools, the agency has new means of targeting wealthy people who have “cut corners” on their taxes.
“If you pay your taxes on time it should be particularly frustrating when you see that wealthy filers are not,” Werfel told reporters in a call previewing the announcement. He said 1,600 millionaires who owe at least $250,000 each in back taxes and 75 large business partnerships that have assets of roughly $10 billion on average are targeted for the new “compliance efforts.”
Werfel said a massive hiring effort and AI research tools developed by IRS employees and contractors are playing a big role in identifying wealthy tax dodgers. The agency is making an effort to showcase positive results from its burst of new funding under President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration as Republicans in Congress look to claw back some of that money.
“New tools are helping us see patterns and trends that we could not see before, and as a result, we have higher confidence on where to look and find where large partnerships are shielding income,” he said.
In July, IRS leadership said it collected $38 million in delinquent taxes from more than 175 high-income taxpayers in the span of a few months. Now, the agency will scale up that effort, Werfel said.
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The federal tax collector gained the enhanced ability to identify tax delinquents with resources provided by the Inflation Reduction Act, which Biden signed into law in August of 2022. The agency was in line for an $80 billion infusion under the law, but that money is vulnerable to potential cutbacks by Congress.
House Republicans built a $1.4 billion reduction to the IRS into the debt ceiling and budget cuts package passed by Congress this summer. The White House said the debt deal also has a separate agreement to take $20 billion from the IRS over the next two years and divert that money to other non-defense programs.
With the threat of a government shutdown looming in a dispute over spending levels, there is the potential for additional cuts to the agency.
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