Congressman Byron Donalds (R-FL), speaking on Sunday’s Meet the Press, rebuffed host Chuck Todd’s assertion that adding tens of thousands of new agents to the Internal Revenue Service is a good thing for the nation.
In an answer to Todd’s assertion that he “never understood the resistance of extra IRS agents unless you knowingly cheat on your taxes,” Donalds outlined how President Joe Biden’s addition of 87,000 IRS agents will expand the scope of tax audits to include middle-class families:
“Most Americans by far pay their taxes and do it honorably, what House Republicans, frankly the Republican Party, is concerned about is having IRS agents go after middle-class families and small business owners. When you have that many more agents, it’s not to go after the rich. It’s to go after middle class. That’s what it’s for,” Donalds said.
“All Joe Biden is trying to find out of every possible nickel out of every couch of every American to pay for his spending,” Donalds added.
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As part of negotiations over raising the nation’s debt ceiling, House Republicans have introduced legislation that would claw back all unspent dollars that were allocated to the IRS as part of an $80 billion increase in funding by President Joe Biden under the Inflation Reduction Act. Republicans claim the move would protect “honest” taxpayers from an “army” of IRS agents nickel-and-diming the public.
For two years the IRS has delayed implementing new regulations that could collect millions of dollars in revenue from small business owners utilizing digital payment services like Venmo or CashApp. Under the 2021 American Rescue Plan, President Biden signed into law new requirements for companies to send users a 1099 self-reporting form if they collect more than $600 through their payment systems.
Conservatives are also aghast at recent news that the IRS has removed its entire investigative team from its investigation into possible criminal activity by Hunter Biden, a move that whistleblowers claim is “clearly retaliatory.”