Great Lakes Wire

Republicans are leery of the nonpartisan Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, calling the Democrat-backed initiative a "reckless tax-and-spending bill."

A portion of the bill authorizes $80 billion for an army of new IRS Agents that would have the authority to audit Americans with no limits on income.

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 earmarks the funds, which is more than six times the current IRS budget, for the hiring of IRS agents, according to the Associated Press. The initiative is also meant to address the expected retirement of IRS employees in the coming years.

This plan has been in the works and is due in part to the expected amount of IRS employees retiring from and quitting their jobs in the coming years.

U.S. Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) filed an amendment to the Democrats’ “Inflation Reduction Act of 2022”-- a bill that he and many Republicans believe to be misleadingly-named. His amendment would prevent the IRS from using any of the supersized $80 billion of funding for audits on hard-working American taxpayers with taxable incomes lower than $400,000. This includes both individuals and small businesses.

Senator Gary Peter (D-MI) and his Democratic colleagues voted the amendment down along party lines, 50-50.

"The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has recently confirmed that a significant portion of revenue that the IRS supersized funding Democrats claim will be forthcoming comes from audits that will squeeze tens of billions out of taxpayers earning less than $400,000," Crapo said when he delivered remarks on the bill.

According to a report by the Government Accountability Office in May, while audits decreased for Americans of all income levels during 2010 through 2019, audit rates for taxpayers with incomes of $200,000 and above declined the most. IRS officials said this trend was the result of reduced staffing due to decreased funding. It has also been said that lower-income audits are generally less complex and more automated so they can still be conducted even with fewer staff.

“The reality is a significant portion raised from their IRS funding bloat would come from taxpayers with income below $400,000,” Crapo told The Free Press. “My colleagues and Americans know the real answer: small business owners, cash-heavy businesses, and those who can’t afford legal teams are easy targets for the new IRS agents and their audits.”

Crapo added Americans can expect "more taxes, more spending, higher prices and an army of IRS auditors" from the Inflation Reduction Act.

"The IRS absolutely targets lower-income taxpayers for audits, in my opinion," Benjamin Wilkerson, an attorney at North Mississippi Rural Legal Services (NMRLS), told Just the News. The proof lies in an analysis by Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC). The analysis found that "low-income wage earners with less than $25,000 in total earnings were audited at a rate five times higher than everyone else in fiscal year 2021."