Republicans quietly cut IRS funding by $20 billion in bill to avert government shutdown
Republicans quietly cut IRS funding by $20 billion in bill to avert government shutdown
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A 2021 report from the Congressional Budget Office indicated that the $80 billion in added IRS funding over 10 years would yield approximately $200 billion in added tax revenue without raising taxes. The Biden administration this week said $140 billion would be added to the debt over a decade due to the cuts, per the Washington Post.
Anyone who says republicans are good at the budget and national debt should be laughed out of the room.
They are the worst of people and I pray that saint luigi will visit them.
The IRS started using their bigger budget to go after the wealthy and fight their lawyers instead of just nickel and diming the classes that can’t afford to fight back, can’t have that
It’s a classic CEO move though: cut the workforce and expect the numbers to go up.
That's not why they did it though.
The extra funds that were recently given to the IRS that had Republicans screaming they're coming for you Johnny America! were ment to give the IRS the means to actually go after the wealthy who have methods of evading taxes so complex that typically the IRS can't afford to spend the time chasing so they just focus on us poors.
Republicans obviously cant have the ownership class actually pay taxes like the rest of us or they wouldn't be Republicans.
No points for guessing who benefits most from a reduced IRS budget ..
The dumb part is ..... the US has to somehow finance a big giant monster of a military .... if billionaires and millionaires stop paying taxes where the hell will the money come from? Taxing the poor and middle class more won't even pay for all their expenses.
The wealthy want it all and think they can get poor people who have no money to pick up the slack.
I'm no economist but it's pretty plain to see that none of this makes sense.
That's generally how the big powers from the past died: they get hollowed out from the inside by the elite our of greed. Then there is one or more external shock (pandemics, climate, war, disasters, resource depletion or agriculture problems are a few classics) that it can't handle anymore and things collapse. It looks things are following that well-worn path. China is even counting on this and aims to be the next big power.
Governments that can print their own money don't actually get money from taxes; taxes are how excess money is taken out of circulation. The budget actually gets balanced by inflation and everyone's money being worth less. It's a flat tax on people with cash.
Cutting money to the only government agency that can actually turn a decent profit, in order to save money. How very republican.
Hmm, I wonder if we could make a public business for auditing, and work with the IRS. Full transparency and stuff maybe. I don't know how much work this is, but apparently there's a bucket of money to be made for getting it back, just make it a percent amount of recovered funds?
Open to thoughts, or if this already exists - let me know.
So, Republicans are no-so-quietly saying that everyone should cheat on their taxes, or is this just for the rich?
Always just for the rich. When they reduce IRS funding, they audit low hanging fruit because it's much cheaper
I think game theory stipulates that everyone is wise to cheat on their taxes. The amount the average person usually end up paying in back taxes is less than the potential reward of getting away with it, jail time is almost unheard of, and the more people that cheat, the harder it is for them.
Not saying everyone should do it. But the only reason they have gone after people like Snipes and Stewart were to put the fear into everyday Americans.
Anyone who makes $100,000 (gross) in wages, or less should not have to pay Federal taxes. Wealthy corporations, citizens, and all churches should be paying their fair share of all taxes.
Churches should get tax deduction for money spent on real charity, however they should pay taxes on money received and spent on everything else - looking at those mansion homes, expensive cars and private jets.
The vast majority don't. The bottom half don't pay any federal taxes, and in fact get more back in their refund than they paid in. The rest barely pay at all. 90% of federal income comes from the top few percent.
Local income taxes, sales taxes, lack of wage increases, rent increasing, are all the bigger issues that screw the lower class.
In 1953 the top margin tax rate was 92% for income over $400,000. That’s about $4,000,000 today adjusting for inflation. In 1953 we had a strong middle class. Today we do not. Maybe stop spouting Republican lies that have led us to the highest wealth inequality in US history.
Where do you live? In the U.S. federal taxes hit everyone. People get tax returns because they paid to much in taxes up front.
"The bottom" half of Americans all pay federal taxes. The percentage they pay is exactly the same as what those in the top 1% pay in their tax brackets. If someone makes 1 million dollars a year, the first 24,000 they made is taxed exactly the same way that someone who only made 24,000 that year.
That amount would be $2,648 dollars.
I'd argue $1m or less and increase capital gains taxes.
Couldn't have been accomplished without democrats
Not Republicans. Congress did. The bill only passed because of a bipartisan vote.
As if by design...
The party super concerned about the debt is also the one who wants to defund their only source of income. Brilliant.
They feign concern about the national debt. For my entire lifetime they’ve done nothing but run up the debt.
They feign concern about the national debt.
Exactly. Government debt promotes wealth concentration: instead of paying tax, the rich lend their money, earning interest on it. They do not advocate for less government spending to “balance the books”, but to (a) make people more reliant on their employers and thus supress wages (“labour cost”) and (b) weaken the state agencies that check their power. I'm convinced every Republican threat of a government shutdown is a bluff.
Realize the new tactic, trump admin will have the group of secondary goons fighting in public over multiple concepts, they'll wait to see where public sentiment falls (or more likely how the money feels), and then trump will jump on the bandwagon and "punish" the face of the "losing" side as if he was for the "winning" side all along.
In the meantime, heritage foundation directed gop will use every second of the distraction to quietly pass bad law.
Examples:
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they just quietly defunded the department that tracks and reports on foreign propaganda efforts after musk just attacked it publicly link
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And they just gutted $20b from the IRS that could be used to audit millionaires and billionaires - the IRS famously brings in more money for every dollar funded into the service link
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But don't worry. They'll still have enough resources to go after ordinary people.