An associate editor for Reason Magazine said she is “skeptical” that hiring tens of thousands of new Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agents will only result in the government increasing audits on the ultra-wealthy and not middle-class Americans.
Liz Wolfe told Hill.TV the Biden administration has not done anything to assure her that the IRS will fix “rampant” and longstanding issues, arguing that pouring billions of dollars to beef up the tax agency alone does not mean a positive shift.
“If we can actually make the IRS more competent and better at responding to taxpayer concerns, the people that they are supposed to be serving, I’m all in favor of that,” Wolfe said. “I’m just very skeptical as to whether or not that’s going to happen.”
The Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law this month, authorizes the addition of 87,000 new IRS agents, who are expected to target wealthy Americans and corporations that don’t pay their fair share in taxes.
The Biden administration has promised not to weaponize the IRS against Americans who make less than $400,000 a year, but the GOP claims they are more likely to target the middle class than corporate teams of lawyers and accountants.
Wolfe wrote an article raising questions about the IRS changes earlier this month. She wrote that a provision that would have guaranteed the IRS not target the middle class was taken out of the final Senate bill.
Wolfe on Monday said fact-checking groups such as Politifact have failed to hold to account the Biden administration, which she said has made some dubious claims about the IRS.
“When I think of fact-checking organizations, I think it’s really important [for them] to hold those who are actually in power accountable,” she said. “That’s something where they are really asleep at the wheel.”