(PresidentialWire.com)- A budget-focused congressman who helped create the Trump tax cuts anticipates that the Inflation Reduction Act will increase middle-class tax audits.
Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, ranking member of the House Ways and Means Committee, expects an increase in IRS tax audits as a result of the Democrats’ bill, which passed the Senate on Sunday after Vice President Kamala Harris cast a tie-breaking vote.
The plan would give the IRS $80 billion—six times its current budget. This money would pay 87,000 new IRS agents to paw over taxes to weaponize the agency. And by weaponize, this is meant literally.
Brady estimated that the Democrats’ bill, if implemented as is, would result in 1.2 million new audits annually. The Texas Republican stated over 710,000 audits would target those making $75,000 or less.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Americans making less than $400,000 a year wouldn’t be audited. Biden and Rettig have made similar statements.
Brady argued that the Inflation Reduction Act would “hit made-in-America businesses, small businesses, and workers.”
Families whose every cent counts are being hammered by inflation and increasing gas prices. Brady warned on Fox News Monday that they’ll face the brunt of the new audits.
Brady highlighted a CBO estimate indicating increased IRS audits for all taxpayers.
The IBO anticipated IRS revenue would grow by $200 billion over the following decade.
According to a Senate Finance Committee estimate, $45.6 billion of the additional $80 billion would go toward enforcement—hence the Congressional Budget Office’s projection that IRS staff would double over the next ten years.
The Joint Committee on Taxation stated that low-income Americans would be hurt worst by IRS enforcement.
Brady told Fox News, “More officers, more arrests.” Middle-class working families that can least afford IRS harassment will pay a lot for this measure.
Brady’s House Ways and Means Committee said the IRS had targeted the middle class for years. Brady says Democrats’ new bill would “supercharge” the IRS to audit more working-class Americans.
Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, submitted an amendment to shield Americans making less than $400,000 from tax hikes, but Senate Democrats rejected it.
Brady told Fox that the bill has “no protections for hardworking families, which says it all.”
Sheppard noted that more than half of IRS annual audits were of low-income taxpayers
