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Biden has proposed $80 billion in funding to the IRS. Theoretically this is actually a good and progressive thing. Now I’m skeptical and critical of Biden but I am in favor of this and give him credit, if the effects match the goal.
The idea is that the IRS devotes its time to auditing the low to medium income earners because it is cheaper to audit them than the high earners who can afford to lawyer up to the nth degree. Therefore increasing the budget will allow them to go after high earners, and thus pay for itself and beyond.
But because of the policies of focusing on the poor and middle class as opposed to high earners, the IRS is the bugbear of the majority Americans and it’s hard to feel good about them being beefed up. And in truth taxes are rarely popular at the best of times.
So why not make this more palatable to America and show the priorities of the new administration. No taxes on your first 50k of income. Get the foot off the neck of the poor and working class. Let the IRS spend its time and effort exclusively on those making more than 50k. Then we can root the IRS on from the sidelines and not fear the beefed up genie, let out of its bottle will turn on us. By us I mean of course those earning less than 50k, which is about 50 percent of households. So it’s a pretty big we.
