Dear Editor,
No IRS agents will come around searching under your sofa cushions for loose change, no matter what Jason Smith says. It was just one of the most startling among the zillion eyeball rolling remarks the US Rep is so good at. Ok, so it was a bit of hyperbole, referring to President Joe Biden’s plan to hire 87,000 new IRS agents over the next ten years.
It sure does sound like a lot of agents, but many of the new agents will simply be replacing agents who retire, leave for other jobs, or other reasons. Also the agency has been badly under funded for years. But Smith and like-minded Republicans claim that hordes of IRS agents will be descending on low and middle income taxpayers.
The truth is, Biden and other Democrat lawmakers have made it very clear from the start that the bill is aimed only at those making $400,000 a year or more, especially those who now pay little or nothing in income taxes. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has pledged the audit rate will not increase for those making less.
Just using common sense, ( I assume Jason Smith must have some, though he hides it well,) why would the agency use their resources to go after middle and low income families for a few hundred or thousand dollars when they could get much, much more from the rich and super rich?
Marilyn Ooms
Perryville