The Internal Revenue Service’s budget was reduced as a result of Republican efforts to reduce President Biden’s $1.7 trillion omnibus budget. More than $275 million in funding for the IRS will be slashed next year because of Republican pressure on Democrats and the White House.
Conservative senators insisted on the reduction, citing Biden’s $739 billion Inflation Reduction Act as evidence that the IRS should receive less funding in the coming decade than it currently does.
“This process was far from ideal, but ultimately it allowed Republican redlines to be adhered to and because of that I will urge my colleagues to approve this package,” said Alabama Senator Richard Shelby, the senior Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee.
The IRS will receive $12.3 billion in funding this fiscal year, down 2.2% from the almost $12.6 billion it received in the previous fiscal year. An increase of $1.3 billion was requested for the IRS by the Biden administration.
No new funding to help the IRS upgrade its tax processing infrastructure is included in the budget agreement. In his capacity as IRS commissioner, Charles Rettig has blamed the agency’s aging computer system for the significant delay in processing returns during the past two years.
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The Inflation Reduction Act, which Biden sponsored and Congress passed last summer, contained $80 billion in increased money for the IRS over the next decade. Democrats claimed the funds would aid in cracking down on affluent tax cheats, but Republicans claimed the funds would only harm the middle class.
To hire 87,000 new IRS agents, the Democrats have spent $80 billion, according to Republican Florida lawmaker Vern Buchanan. Nobody knows what these IRS officers will do, but we’re determined to make them answer for their actions.
The Republican Party, which gained control of the House of Representatives in the midterm elections, plans to make IRS scrutiny a primary priority in the 116th Congress.
Rep. Jason Smith (R-Missouri): “The American people are demanding supervision of this government.” “They have witnessed the IRS’s bias towards Republicans over time. They have witnessed an Internal Revenue Service that has allowed taxpayer data to be leaked for partisan purposes.”
