By: Andy Xu

A new bill known as the “Inflation Reduction Act” has cleared the Senate last

week, with a majority of it going towards funding research into clean energy

as well as reducing the effects of climate change. However, a lesser-known

proposal of the bill is that $80 billion dollars would be used to fund the IRS.

This $80 billion would be used to improve tax collection and enforcement on

the wealthy and elite while helping lower income families with tax audits.

The IRS reported that most of the IRS’s inquiries were for people with an

income of less than $75,000. Unlike wealthy Americans, these people do not

have the resources to hire lawyers to help them with these tax audits. The

goal of the reformed IRS is to focus their resources on the wealthy which, in

theory, should net the IRS more money than examining the lower class.

However, Republicans are not too keen on supporting this bill. They say that

as a result of giving the IRS more money, they would use the new funds to

audit and examine more and more Americans in the lower and middle

classes.

Senator John Barraso says “You don’t need that many IRS agents to go after a

few people they say are very, very rich. [The bill] would hit families, farmers

and the small businesses of Americans, that’s who’s going to bear the burden

of this legislation.” He notes that “4 percent of the $80 billion is going to

taxpayer services; 57 percent goes to enforcement, so that the IRS can spend

more time harassing taxpayers around this country.”