On August 7, Senator Crapo offered an amendment during consideration of the “Inflation Reduction Act” to prevent the IRS from using any of the $80 billion of funding for audits on individuals and small businesses with taxable incomes below $400,000. Senate Democrats rejected the amendment along party lines, 50-50.
You know a liberal is lying because their lips are moving.
When I offered my amendment to simply make it clear that the $80 billion being given to the IRS--six times its current annual budget--could not be utilized to audit people making less than $400,000, the most they would agree to was to say they did not ‘intend’ to audit them. That’s because they know from the analysis of the Joint Committee on Taxation that most underreported income occurs among taxpayers earning less than $200,000 per year, and from the Congressional Budget Office that they cannot collect the $200 billion they are claiming without auditing people making less than $400,000. If they truly do not intend to audit anyone making less than $400,000, then they would have supported my amendment, turning ‘intent’ into binding statute.”
The truth is, it isn't the rich who "cheat" on taxes. Since they are rich, they have fancy teams of tax avoidance CPAs and lawyers to dodge taxes legally. The people who "cheat" are the ones who make just enough money for the bite of taxes to truly hurt them: the middle and upper middle class.
If you're rich, even though you pay a lot in taxes, the diminishing returns on what money can buy you means that the incentive to cheat is much lower. The risk/reward calculation strongly favors strict compliance.
The biggest tax cheat by far IMO is people with small businesses writing off shit they're not supposed to, like their personal vehicles. This is super common, and I know a bunch of people who do it. These are the kinds of people who are going to get blown up with audits.
That may not really be accurate though. They’d have to earn at least $400K worth of “revenue” to pay folks, but to the business those salaries are an expense and could be looked at as or even cause a loss. In terms of taxable income this hypothetical business would have to clear like $800K in order to hit a $400K “income”…. And that’s not even considering inventory and other normal costs of running a small business that would chip away at the actually taxable income.
Some other folks made it clear why they picked the 400 number but it’s still theatrical bullshit