Washington: House Republicans are seeking to make good on their campaign promise to rein in the IRS with cutbacks built into the debt ceiling and budget cuts package moving through Congress.
The bill rescinds $1.4 billion given to federal tax collectors in the Democrats’ health and energy package that was approved last year on party-line votes. The White House says the debt deal also includes a separate agreement to take $20 billion from the IRS over the next two years and divert those funds to other non-defense programs.
Democrats expended a lot of political capital to get the IRS more money last year. They faced an onslaught of campaign ads, many of them misleading, about the expected hiring of 87,000 “new agents” to target low- and middle-class Americans.
Now, Biden administration officials are offering assurances that the spending cuts secured by Republican negotiators will have minimal impact on the agency’s operations over the next few years.
The agency is on course to still get nearly three-quarters of the $80 billion boost that Congress approved for the agency last year. And the agency has the flexibility to spend some of that money sooner than planned, officials stressed.
“The IRS has the resources it needs in the near term to improve customer service and go after wealthy and corporate tax evaders,” tweeted Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo.
