Letter to the Editor: IRS Agents

Posted

Dear Editor,
No IRS agents will come around searching under your sofa cushions for loose change, no matter what Jason Smith says. It was just one of the most startling among the zillion eyeball rolling remarks the US Rep is so good at. Ok, so it was a bit of hyperbole, referring to President Joe Biden’s plan to hire 87,000 new IRS agents over the next ten years.
It sure does sound like a lot of agents, but many of the new agents will simply be replacing agents who retire, leave for other jobs, or other reasons. Also the agency has been badly under funded for years. But Smith and like-minded Republicans claim that hordes of IRS agents will be descending on low and middle income taxpayers.
The truth is, Biden and other Democrat lawmakers have made it very clear from the start that the bill is aimed only at those making $400,000 a year or more, especially those who now pay little or nothing in income taxes. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has pledged the audit rate will not increase for those making less.
Just using common sense, ( I assume Jason Smith must have some, though he hides it well,) why would the agency use their resources to go after middle and low income families for a few hundred or thousand dollars when they could get much, much more from the rich and super rich?

But mere facts don’t get in the way of the scare tactics coming from the Right. Maybe the wildest comes from Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley who warned that a strike force wielding AK 15s will descend on unsuspecting taxpayers.
He is evidently referring to a section of the plan that mentions armed agents.
Actually there have always been a small fraction of trained armed agents who are only used in dangerous situations. Unless you are printing or laundering money in your basement, you have nothing to worry about.
This is all a snow job, more like a blizzard, to cover up the fact that most Republicans really, really don’t want to raise taxes on their wealthy campaign donors, friends, or themselves. They would much prefer to lower them as past experience has shown.

Marilyn Ooms
Perryville