Yesterday was the deadline for filing taxes and if last year was the same as the past few years, up to a trillion dollars will go uncollected in 2022 alone. Added up, the IRS has left around $7 trillion on the table in the last 10 years.
Why? Because Republicans have repeatedly stymied any effort to fund the agency. The vast majority of the missing cash is from wealthy individuals and corporations with extremely complicated returns, which take an extraordinary amount of time to process and to determine fraud. The number of auditors skilled enough to do this work has fallen by almost 40% - levels not seen since 1954.
And why are conservative politicians so determined to prevent the wealthy from being audited? Because they fund their elections….pure and simple.
The Biden Administration earmarked $80 billion to be spent over 10 years for the IRS in its recently passed Inflation Reduction Act to help recover lost revenue, but Republicans are livid and have vowed to kill the package.
Spend a billion to save a trillion? That's a 1000% return on their investment. It sounds like a no-brainer to me.
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