IRS has collected $1.3 billion from wealthy taxpayers by ramping up enforcement

The Internal Revenue Service said Friday that it has collected nearly $1.3 billion in overdue taxes from wealthy households since last fall – thanks to a ramp up of enforcement efforts funded by the Democrat-backed Inflation Reduction Act that passed Congress two years ago.

The Internal Revenue Service said Friday that it has collected nearly $1.3 billion in overdue taxes from wealthy households since last fall, thanks to a ramp-up of enforcement efforts funded by the Democrat-backed Inflation Reduction Act that passed Congress two years ago. The Trump campaign has claimed the federal investment is an example of reckless spending that has taken place under President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. “Harris was the tie-breaking vote for the Inflation Reduction Act in the Senate, which not only further spiked inflation, but led to a massive expansion of the IRS with an additional $80 billion to hire 87,000 new agents,” Trump campaign senior adviser Brian Hughes said on a call with reporters Thursday. That number of agents is a misleading figure, often repeated by Republicans, based on a report about how many total employees could be hired with the money rather than actual auditors focused on enforcement. The Biden administration has said that increased enforcement actions will only target wealthy taxpayers who earn more than $400,000 a year, as well as corporations. Plus, the independent Congressional Budget Office and other budget experts say that spending money on tax enforcement can reduce the deficit by bringing in more tax revenue. Friday’s announcement is the latest of several made by IRS officials over the past year that highlight how the agency is using money from the Inflation Reduction Act to ensure wealthy people are paying the taxes they owe, as well as improving taxpayer services.