As part of the Democrats’ push to extract more tax revenue from the “rich,” Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren is backing an idea to give the IRS a permanent budget boost:
The Massachusetts Democrat is proposing to give the IRS a mandatory annual budget of $31.5 billion, up from the $11.9 billion the agency received from Congress for fiscal year 2021. Warren’s legislation would remove the agency’s funding from the annual appropriations process, so that it wouldn’t change based on the year-to-year whims of Congress.
“Strengthening the IRS’s ability to go after wealthy tax cheats will not only require more funding, but more stable funding,” Warren said in a summary of the legislation released Monday. “Mandatory funding would provide funding on an ongoing basis, ensuring that the IRS budget is steady, predictable, and sustained — money that lobbyists can’t easily strip away.”
Warren’s idea of taking the IRS out of the annual budget process entirely – for its own good, of course – looks like she would be surrendering an important piece of congressional oversight.
But that’s not all the Senator wants to do:
The legislation would also require financial institutions to report account flows from wealthy clients that don’t already have their incomes reported to the IRS by third parties, similar to a plan that Biden has proposed. The IRS would be required to shift audits to high-income individuals, analyze racial disparities in their enforcement activities and increase penalties for underpayment for those earning at least $2 million.
So more snooping, more audits, more enforcement (for some), and a dollop of social justice for good measure.
What could possibly go wrong?