Two years have passed since the Biden-Harris Administration shoveled an $80 billion windfall to the IRS to spur more audits on more working Americans and a new watchdog report shows that the Administration’s own empty promises and lack of planning to protect middle- and low-income taxpayers is exposing them to additional audits.
“Middle-class families and small businesses are terrified of the audits funded by the Biden-Harris Administration’s $80 billion windfall to the IRS, and the only reassurance they’ve been given has turned out to be an empty promise,” said Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (MO-08). “After telling Congress that audits wouldn’t increase on taxpayers making less than $400,00, the tax collection agency’s own watchdog has revealed there is no plan to stop audits on those who can least afford them – even in the two years since Democrats gave the IRS new funding. With 98 percent of tax returns typically filed by people earning below $400,000 a year, it’s clear that the only priority for the Biden-Harris Administration has been to treat working Americans and Main Street like wealthy tax cheats.”
Key Facts:
- The Biden-Harris Administration made an empty promise to protect middle-class families and small businesses from increased audits funded by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). In August 2022, amid debate over IRA’s new funding for the IRS, Treasury Secretary Yellen provided a directive to then-IRS Commissioner Rettig that any additional resources shall not be used to increase the share of small businesses or households below the $400,000 threshold that are audited relative to historical levels. But there is no plan whatsoever to protect them as of this writing. And according to projections based on past IRS audit data, a return to historical levels would mean the IRS will conduct an additional 700,000 audits on Americans making less than $75,000 a year.
- IRS watchdog finds no plans made by the Biden-Harris Administration in securing those protections. A recent Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) report found that the IRS still has not finalized definitions and audit rate calculations necessary to comply with the Biden-Harris Administration’s pledge to not increase audits for low- and middle-income taxpayers.
- 33 million small businesses are under threat of greater IRS scrutiny. TIGTA reported that the Treasury Department and IRS have not yet defined “small business” – a necessary definition to protect 33 million U.S. small businesses from aggressive IRS scrutiny.
- Married couples are also under threat, explicitly because the Biden-Harris Administration failed to provide them with any protection. The report also finds that the IRS does not have a plan to protect married couples from potential tax penalties if they are above the $400,000 income threshold when filing jointly. Moreover, the report noted that when TIGTA asked the IRS “if this would be unfair to those married taxpayers, the IRS stated that the 2022 [Biden-Harris] Treasury Directive made no distinction between married filing jointly and single households, so neither will the IRS.”
