The IRS focuses its audits on the poor and middle class. That is a fact.

Despite $80 billion in new funding, the IRS is living up to its reputation of hassling low-income taxpayers over rich people.https://t.co/eKhEO5V37E

— reason (@reason) January 7, 2023

So what was the response of the Democrats when the first order of business for the Republican majority in Congress was cutting the funding for 87,000 new IRS agents?

Accuse them of shilling for the rich.

It is shameful, but not surprising, that @HouseGOP’s first order of business in this Congress is to protect corporate America and ultra-wealthy individuals who are illegally avoiding taxes.

— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) January 10, 2023

We live in a dystopia.

On Wednesday, Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) released data provided to it by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on audits performed by the agency in fiscal year 2022. Despite the infusion of new funding earmarked for the IRS via last year’s Inflation Reduction Act, the agency continued historic trends of hassling primarily low-income taxpayers, with relatively few millionaires and billionaires getting caught up in the audit sweep.

“The taxpayer class with unbelievably high audit rates—five and a half times virtually everyone else—were low-income wage-earners taking the earned income tax credit,” reported TRAC, noting that the poorest taxpayers are “easy marks in an era when IRS increasingly relies upon correspondence audits yet doesn’t have the resources to assist taxpayers or answer their questions.”

In fact, “if one ignores the fiction of auditing a millionaire through simply sending a letter through the mail, the odds that millionaires received a regular audit by a revenue agent (1.1%) was actually less than the audit rate of the targeted lowest income wage-earners whose audit rate was 1.27 percent!”

I hesitate to argue that you should assume the opposite of what any Democrat says is the truth, since they will start going into double reverse psychology or something. But you get the idea. If they are making an argument with any moralistic content, they are likely lying. The IRS is not your friend, and the best thing we could do is eliminate the whole damn thing, not expand its funding by $80 billion.

The Senate Democratic Majority BLOCKED an amendment to prevent lower-income families from increased audits when Democrats super-sized the IRS.

They specifically need to increase tax audits on poor families to fund their climate plans. That's what this fight is about. https://t.co/lOGnHQL2Az

— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) January 10, 2023

Unfortunately we have the worst of all worlds when it comes to the tax agency. It is actually true that given the current tax code the IRS is woefully understaffed, although not in the audit department per se. Rather, the agency is utterly incapable of providing reliable assistance to taxpayers trying to navigate our ridiculously complex tax code. There aren’t enough people to answer questions, and the code itself is so ridiculous that the answers you get from any particular IRS agent on the phone will likely be unreliable. And even if that advice is defensible, a different IRS employee might disagree and you are left holding the bag.

The IRS is broken, but hardly as broken as our tax code itself. No amount of money could possibly fix an agency tasked with managing a complex and contradictory tax code that changes seemingly by the minute. Wealthy people and corporations simply hire expensive lawyers–often former IRS agents themselves–to get them out of jams.

You and I? Not so much. We are the easy targets.

Republican attempts to rescind IRS funding that holds the ultra-wealthy accountable is a dishonest attack on working Americans paying their fair share. I was proud to voice my opposition to this legislation, which leaves working families holding the bill, on the Floor tonight. pic.twitter.com/aHiNHIVl7N

— Steny Hoyer (@RepStenyHoyer) January 10, 2023

I am not inclined to see the average IRS employee as a storm trooper out to get me. No, most of them are just working Janes and Joes (she/her and he/him) doing a nasty boring job and trying to get through the day to accumulate their nice pension. I wouldn’t do it because it would drive me insane, but if you are an accountant it would probably be a pretty good gig.

But the system itself is corrupt, and designed to be that way. The complexity benefits the people in power, who can navigate it easily. The rest of us are victimized by it.

Replace it with a flat tax and be done with the problem. But that would be too easy, so the Left goes all “anti-millionaire and billionaire” while they accumulate cash and power for themselves.

Breaking: President Biden says he will veto Republicans’ first bill, which would protect rich people who cheat on their taxes and raise the deficit by over $114,000,000,000, if it comes to his desk. https://t.co/T2hbCgC7L2

— No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen (@NoLieWithBTC) January 10, 2023

If anybody out there actually buys the spin that the Democrats are all for ensuring tax fairness, let me remind you of this little story:

A big-shot Hollywood lawyer reportedly paid off Hunter Biden’s delinquent taxes — which a source told The Post amounted to more than $2 million — as President Biden’s notoriously troubled son awaits the results of a Delaware grand jury’s investigation into his personal finances.

Kevin Morris, an entertainment attorney and novelist who earned a fortune representing the co-creators of “South Park” and won a Tony Award as the co-producer of “The Book of Mormon,” footed Hunter Biden’s overdue taxes totaling over $2 million — more than twice what was previously reported, a source familiar with conversations between the two told The Post.

Morris, whom Hunter Biden’s friends call his latest “sugar brother,” has also been funding the 52-year-old’s lifestyle in Los Angeles — including his rent and living expenses, the source said.

The attorney has also been advising the president’s son on how to structure his art sales, according to the source.

The president’s son. Failed to pay $2 million in taxes. Gets a zillionaire to pay the debt off when caught.

That’s right. If you are connected to the right people–and most zillionaires and major corporations are–you can get away with anything. Instead, even when they train their armed enforcement agents they target small business owners:

This IRS recruiting program is “taking down a landscape business owner who failed to properly report how he paid for his vehicles,” not “taking down a billionaire who uses the corporate jet for private trips.”

Dems argue we need 87,000 new IRS employees!pic.twitter.com/QXlHmDBR6D

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) January 10, 2023

Still want the IRS to get bigger and more powerful?