Weaker McCarthy Priority: Protect The Wealthy and Tax Cheats.

[Lazaran]

Despite the number of millionaires doubling in the U.S. in the last decade or so, the number of them being audited by the IRS has plummeted by 70% or more.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/heres-likely-millionaires-audited-irs-223039864.html

The information in the link provides context and causation.

Yet despite the indisputable facts in evidence, Weaker McCarthy is making gutting the IRS of the resources to perform its duties the FIRST priority of “the new republican” controlled house.

The tax cheat in chief and republicans made passing tax cuts for the wealthy their FIRST priority, and now “the new republican” controlled house is making protecting wealthy tax cheats its FIRST priority.

SAD!!!

 

[YDB95]

It's even worse than that. Since they know there's no chance of getting it enacted, it's all performance art.

 

[JohnEBbad]

You might want to look into who those millionaires are and what percentage of them donate heavily to the Democrats.

 

[dkovic77]

You might want to look into who those millionaires are and what percentage of them donate heavily to the Democrats.

Do you think when folks donate, they use a credit card….for the points?

And do you think they get an alert?

I mean they gotta be donating more than what a tank of gas costs…. Right?

Thanks for my morning chuckle.

 

[JohnEBbad]

An excellent breakdown of rules-change reality compared to the partisan attack that begat this thread:

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/...-conservative-house-republican-rules-changes/

 

[JohnEBbad]

An excerpt:

• Provides for the consideration of seven conservative bills
  • A bill to rescind the tens of billions of dollars provided to the IRS to hire 87,000 IRS agents under the Inflation Reduction Act
  • A bill to authorize the Homeland Security Secretary to suspend the entry of lines
  • A bill to block the Secretary of Energy from sending petroleum from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to China
  • A bill to amend the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act to direct district attorneys and prosecutors’ offices to report to the Attorney General
  • A bill to require the national instant criminal background check system to notify U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the relevant State and local law enforcement agencies whenever the information available to the system indicates that a person illegally or unlawfully in the United States may be attempting to receive a firearm.
    • A bill to prohibit taxpayer-funded abortions.
    • A bill to amend title 18, United States Code, to prohibit a health care practitioner from failing to exercise the proper degree of care in the case of a child who survives an abortion or attempted abortion.

 

[JohnEBbad]

Additional protections for the wealthy:

Budget Matters

• Allows the Budget Committee chair to adjust an estimate to exempt budgetary effects of measures to protect taxpayers with incomes below $400,000 from an increase in audits from the IRS

 

[JohnEBbad]

Such a punitive effort aimed at the little guy!

• Replace “Pay-As-You-Go” (PAYGO) spending with “Cut-As-You-Go” (CUTGO) spending to reduce spending and improve accountability
  • This means that increases in mandatory spending be offset by equal or greater decreases in spending. This rule change prioritizes spending cuts compared to increases in revenue
• Reconciliation budget bills cannot cause an increase in net direct spending

 

[JohnEBbad]

The [Joe Biden Democrat] Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is targeting low-wage working-class Americans, as well as those in the middle class, with audits while earners making a million or more annually are reviewed at a lower rate, a report detailing federal data reveals.

The data obtained by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University shows the odds of the IRS auditing a millionaire, in the traditional way carried out by revenue agents or tax auditors, was just 1.1 percent.

The IRS audit rate indicates that barely one out of every 100 millionaires in the United States was audited by revenue agents or tax auditors in Fiscal Year 2022. When correspondence audits — letters sent by the IRS asking for more financial documentation — are included, millionaires were still only audited last year at a rate of 2.4 percent.

Meanwhile, the nation’s lowest income earners making less than $25,000 annually had an IRS audit rate of 1.27 percent. Nearly 8,900 audits on working-class income earners were carried out by revenue agents or tax auditors — fewer than the nearly 8,700 audits, conducted the same way, on millionaires in Fiscal Year 2022.


https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/01/09/irs-audits-working-class-the-rich/



(Watch, the numbers will not be disputed, the source will be attacked.)

 

[Chobham]

From the article linked by the OP.

"Some 85% of all audits, and just under half of millionaire audits, were done by mail, TRAC found. Still, it called this form of enforcement a "fiction.""

So, some sort of organization, TRAC, has deemed audit by mail "fiction." I wonder why that is? You either have the documentation to back up your return or you don't. No 'face to face' meeting is required at all.

Two other points. Being a 'millionaire' today just isn't what it used to be. Inflation over time has made sure of that. And there is a vast difference between having a net worth of a million dollars and having a million dollars of declared income.

 

[JohnEBbad]

Agreed on that last point.

I despise the Fed.

Gold Standard.

 

[Chobham]

Later in the article yet another point is made re. the EITC and how those claiming the EITC have a relatively high audit rate. The reason for that is quite simple, erroneously, or purposely, claiming the EITC when not entitled jumps out of the computer like a sore thumb. The same paragraph points out that phone help from the IRS is hard to come by, and that is most definitely true. That particular problem is compounded by the fact that the information provided by the IRS 'help line' is just as likely to be wrong as not. That particular tidbit has been documented year after year. The tax code is so complex now that even the IRS isn't sure what is what.

 

[JohnEBbad]

In years past, it has been demonstrated that if you call the IRS multiple times with a question on many of the more arcane points of the tax code, you will get conflicting, i.e., erroneous, answers.

FairTax.org

 

[Lazaran]

Well that triggered the usual suspects nicely.

Not much attention paid to the FACT that the budget for the IRS has been slashed by republicans over the years and the correlation between plummeting audits of millionaires.



Of course Weaker McCarthy is going to throw up dust and grunt about anything I.R.S. related that DOESN’T HIGHLIGHT THE PLUMMETING NUMBER OF AUDITS OF MILLIONAIRES DUE TO REPUBLICANS GUTTING THE BUDGET OF THE IRS.

Weaker McCarthy will certainly not investigate why the orange tax cheat in chief wasn’t audited while “President”.

the usual suspects

 

[KeithD]

So far, the McCarthy House is setting up the Democrats for a great 2024 election. Especially if they go after Social Security and Medicare.

 

[Lazaran]

So far, the McCarthy House is setting up the Democrats for a great 2024 election. Especially if they go after Social Security and Medicare.

But they would only do that ^ to “save social security”.

Not to continue shielding the wealthy from paying a fair amount in taxes.

 

[KeithD]

But they would only do that ^ to “save social security”.

Not to continue shielding the wealthy from paying a fair amount in taxes.

I think we can count on them continuing their failure in timing--like hammering down on the abortion issue before rather than after the midterm elections.

 

[Lazaran]

I think we can count on them continuing their failure in timing--like hammering down on the abortion issue before rather than after the midterm elections.

Abortion always was a losing proposition for “republicans”.

Messaging about the opposing parties’ priorities involving the IRS will be far more challenging.

NO ONE “likes” to pay taxes, so highlighting how millionaire’s and billionaire’s tax avoidance / fraud IS impacting/ HAS impacted major government social programs will be a far more difficult issue to message on / generate public outrage.

Especially with shills like BabyBoobs, etc, attempting to gaslight less informed individuals about the true purpose of appropriations for hiring at the IRS.

The wealthy and tax scofflaws have invested a lot of time and effort into their IRS disinformation campaign.

See: BabyBoobs contribution to that ^ cause.

BabyBoobs

 

[entrometido]

https://reason.com/2023/01/06/in-2022-the-irs-went-after-the-very-poorest-taxpayers/

In 2022, the IRS Went After the Very Poorest Taxpayers​

Despite $80 billion in new funding, the agency is living up to its reputation of hassling low-income taxpayers over rich people.​

 

[Fuzzy1975]

awww pissed off you got audited eh?

 

[butters]

So far, the McCarthy House is setting up the Democrats for a great 2024 election. Especially if they go after Social Security and Medicare.

from what i've read so far, they'll be playing a line that runs like this:

"oh NO!! we're not touching the social security/medicare of anyone getting it already, but we have to look to the future and make cutbacks to 'entitlement programs' since we can't cut military spending"

which translates as: "we can't afford to lose the elderly republican base vote that depends on SS/MC, but we'll raise the age where it can be first claimed and lose the early exceptions that allow some to start drawing it at 50 if they retire early. Can't afford to lose the vote on military cutbacks (a far harder dog to beat amongst republicans) but let's use the words "Entitlement programs" to seed that concept of it being something people shouldn't get as a basic human regard for life and health."

those older, republican voters are mainly concerned ONLY with making sure they get to keep theirs... younger people? someone else's problem.

 

[KeithD]

from what i've read so far, they'll be playing a line that runs like this:

"oh NO!! we're not touching the social security/medicare of anyone getting it already, but we have to look to the future and make cutbacks to 'entitlement programs' since we can't cut military spending"

A new generation of voters is coming into significance in voting. So, as long as Democrats keep pointing out what the Republicans are trying to do on all sorts of legislation, it's fine with me that Republicans keep trying to do this in the House. It highlights what voting for a Republican means for most citizens and it's legislation that would need to get through a Democratic Senate and administration to get enacted for the next two years--and then there will be a new election.

The Republican move against abortion has worked out so well for them with the electorate. Let them get the lesson in other areas as well. Social Security is a fine hill for them to die on.

 

[jaF0]

SS may not be as big an issue for some people now working and they may not care about what happens when they get old.

My point has always been that many people should not get it. There are people out there getting hundreds of thousands of dollars annually in pensions that can still collect SS. I don't agree with that.

 

[Bray123]

Why in the world would anyone think that the GOP is going to enable any audit of the tax returns of the Tax-Dodger In Chief?

 

[KeithD]

SS may not be as big an issue for some people now working and they may not care about what happens when they get old.

My point has always been that many people should not get it. There are people out there getting hundreds of thousands of dollars annually in pensions that can still collect SS. I don't agree with that.

I have a federal annuity that's not in the SS system. But after I retired from the federal government, I worked in jobs where SS money was taken out of my paycheck. It was my money, paid into the system, and I was then working in that system. It was my money. It doesn't matter if I also have a federal pension. If I wasn't going to get money back on the SS system I paid into (which isn't much; I don't need it), the money shouldn't have been taken out of my paycheck.