via unionleader:
THE DEMOCRATS’ new reconciliation bill isn’t just going to be the largest-ever expansion of a government agency. It’s going to be the largest expansion of the domestic police state in American history. Only a statist could believe that a federal government, which already collects $4.1 trillion every year — or $12,300 for every citizen — supposedly needs 80 battalions of new IRS cops.
The average American has less reason to be concerned about cops with guns — though the IRS is looking for special agents who can “carry a firearm and be willing to use deadly force, if necessary” — than they do bureaucrats armed with pens who are authorized to sift through their lives. If you pay your taxes you have nothing to worry about, Democrats claim. But most law-abiding citizens know they have something to fear from a state agency that doesn’t concern itself with your due process, has no regard for your privacy and is empowered to target anyone it wants without any genuine oversight.
And, please, spare us this nonsense about the IRS expansion focusing exclusively on “high earners.” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre promised that the IRS wouldn’t engage in new audits of anyone making under $400,000 — a claim she has no authority to make and could not possibly predict even if she did. Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy also said that the bill was passed to stop an “epidemic of tax cheating amongst the millionaires and billionaires” and promised that “audit rates won’t increase for anyone making under $400K.”
This is a lie. Nothing in the bill that Democrats passed through the Senate limits audits. Murphy, along with every other Democrat in the Senate, voted against a Republican amendment that would have prevented new agents from auditing individuals and small businesses with less than $400,000 of taxable income. Not long ago, Democrats passed the American Rescue Plan Act — which had as much to do with rescuing as the Inflation Reduction Act has to do with reducing inflation — and changed the tax code so that mobile payment apps like Venmo and Cash App were now required to report transactions totaling $600 or more per year to the IRS. Does that sound like a party aiming fire exclusively at high-earning Americans?
Indeed, poor and middle-class Americans are far more likely to do their own taxes, and thus more prone to making mistakes. In 2021, those making $25,000 or less (often the young and elderly) were audited at a rate five times higher than everyone else. The wealthier you are the more likely it is that you can hire lawyers and accountants to work within the system. There aren’t enough millionaires and billionaires in the world to keep a potential new 87,000 IRS employees busy.