This 2-part post is very long and yet is important to addresses the two IRS stories (and growing GOP conspiracies) that follow and are now flying all over GOP-mostly conservative media outlets in one huge massive lie.
Three
evil nasty faces above and their statements on the below two stories:
* Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) tweeted (he is always eager) to be out there first
with the most shameless Republican rhetoric: “The Biden Admin has fully
weaponized DOJ & FBI to target their political enemies. And with 87K new
IRS agents, they're coming for YOU too.”
* Sen. Ron Johnson
(R-WI) – the biggest loon ever also tweeted – since he is always eager to beat
Cruz in the race to the bottom: “Who do you think they'll weaponize the
87,000 IRS agents against? The answer is obvious. Their political enemies.”
* Brian Kilmeade, a
FOX news host, enters and is always eager to muddy the waters when Trump commits
crimes, got heavily involved tweeting and saying over the airwaves: “The
IRS is Joe Biden's new army that will hunt down and kill middle class taxpayers
that don't pay enough.”
Now two rightwing
conspiracies dominating the airwaves:
Conspiracy #1: The facts and proper story is below from Verifythis.com with this headline about it:
“The IRS is not increasing audits on middle class by hiring 87,000 new
agents”
The Inflation
Reduction Act (IRA) just passed, includes about $80 billion in funding for the
IRS. The agency isn’t using that money to hire 87,000 new auditors. Details
follow below:
Key elements in
this story: Congress recently passed the IRA of 2022, the largest-ever federal effort to
combat climate change, lower rising costs of goods and Rx for Seniors on Medicare.
All while helping pay down the nation's debt and allocating
funds to the IRS.
After the Senate passed the bill, people all across Twitter claimed that the funding would allow the IRS to increase audits on middle-class Americans by hiring 87,000 new agents.
For
example: GOP House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) in his tweet wrote: “Do you make $75,000 or less? Democrats' new army
of 87,000 IRS agents will be coming for you — with 710,000 new audits for
Americans who earn less than $75k.”
THE QUESTION:
Is the IRS increasing audits on the middle class by hiring 87,000 new agents?
SOURCES FOR THIS
VERIFY POST:
2. IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig
3. Inflation Reduction Act of 2022
THE ANSWER: FALSE … The IRS
is not increasing audits on the middle class by hiring 87,000 new agents to
bust through your door.
WHAT WE FOUND: The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 includes about $80 billion in funding for the IRS over the next 10 years. Some $45.6 billion of that IRS funding would be put toward expenses for IRS tax enforcement services through September 2031, including hiring more employees, not all agents.
The
bill does not mention that the agency will hire 87,000 new agents specifically
tasked with audits, and the Treasury Department also says the claims otherwise
are false.
The text of the Inflation
Reduction Act doesn’t specify a number of new hires for the IRS.
The 87,000 number shows up
in a May 2021 report from the Treasury Department that estimated
more funding allocated by President Joe Biden’s administration would allow the
IRS to hire nearly 87,000 full-time employees by 2031.
That report was specific to previous legislation and it’s
not clear yet how many people the IRS would hire with the Inflation Reduction
Act. The IRS is expecting a large number of employees to leave in the next 10
years and they will have to hire new staff to fill those vacancies. At least
50,000 staff members will leave or retire from the agency in the next five
years alone say the Treasury Department.
Those staff members work in various departments throughout
the IRS and aren’t tasked with only law enforcement. The IRS plans to determine
the final numbers and breakdown of potential new staff for the next decade in
the coming months, but the addition of new employees won’t mean increased
audits for middle-class Americans – that also is according to the Treasury Department
and the IRS.
A spokesperson for the Treasury Department clarified saying: “New
staff will be hired to improve taxpayer services and experienced auditors who
can take on corporate and high-end tax evaders, without increasing audit rates
relative to historical norms for people earning under $400,000 each year. The
resources to modernize the IRS will be used to improve taxpayer services, from
answering the phones to improving IT systems, and to crack down on high-income
and corporate tax evaders who cost the American people hundreds of billions of
dollars each year.”
Then, IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig in a letter to the Senate wrote: “The IRS would not increase audit scrutiny on small businesses or middle-income Americans. The IRS has fewer front-line, experienced examiners in the field than at any time since World War II, and fewer employees than at any time since the 1970's.”
Rettig added: “Advances in technology have been helpful but have not kept pace with the ever-increasing responsibilities and challenges facing the IRS. As a result, the IRS has for too long been unable to pursue meaningful, impactful examinations of large corporate and high-net worth taxpayers to ensure they are paying their fair share.”
National Taxpayer
Advocate Erin M. Collins said in her midyear report to Congress, published in June 2022: “That
many of the challenges the IRS is facing stem from inadequate staffing,
including limited staffing in Submission Processing, and telephone call
centers.”
Previous analyses of the agency also have revealed that the
IRS needs more employees. In 2021, the IRS had less than 80,000 employees, a
decrease of nearly 13% since 2012, according
to their website.
Conspiracy Story
#2: This also hyped by GOP internet conspiracy nuts and also checked by VERIFY with this headline:
“Yes, the Internal Revenue
Service did buy nearly $700K in ammunition in early 2022”
A VERIFY
viewer named “Ian” asked if the IRS bought $700,000 in ammunition earlier this
year. Yes, it’s true. It’s for armed agents who can carry weapons and
ammunition. Details below clarify.
Background: On
July 1, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) (yeah, that Matt Gaetz) introduced the “Disarm the IRS Act,” which would prohibit the Internal
Revenue Service (IRS) from acquiring ammunition.
Gaetz had previously
claimed the IRS purchases hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of ammunition.
In an interview published in June by Breitbart, a
conservative news website, reported that Gaetz said: “The IRS spent
approximately $700,000 between March and June 1” purchasing ammunition.”
The Act was
co-sponsored by Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-SC), who tweeted: “IRS has stockpiled ammunition.”
THE QUESTION:
Did the IRS buy approximately $700,000 in ammunition between March and June 1?
THE SOURCES FOR
THIS STORY:
1. Internal
Revenue Service (IRS)
2. Government Accountability Office (GAO)
THE ANSWER:
TRUE. Yes, between March 1 and June 1, 2022, the IRS
ordered $696,000 in ammunition (IRS spokesperson confirmed to VERIFY).
WHAT WE FOUND:
Between March 1 and June 1, 2022, the criminal division of
the IRS ordered $696,000 in ammunition (IRS email to VERIFY). The order was for
the IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) division, which is a
federal law enforcement agency.
It conducts criminal investigations including tax
violations, money laundering, cyber-crimes, and organized crime involving drugs
and gangs. There are more than 2,000 sworn special agents in that
division.
IRS spokesperson
told VERIFY: “Many of these cases are typically worked in conjunction
with other state and federal law enforcement agencies. IRS-CI special agents
have been carrying firearms throughout the more than 100-year history of the
agency, and have found themselves dealing with some of the most dangerous
criminals.”
FYI: In 2018, the
GAO published a report on what the IRS spent on firearms and ammunition from 2010
through 2017 (data starts on page 75 of the report). For example the report
shows that from 2010 through 2017, the IRS spent an average of $675,000 on
ammunition.
By comparison:
1. The Treasury
IG for Tax Administration, which is responsible for conducting investigations
of misconduct or fraud within the IRS, spent an average of $250,625 a year on
ammunition from 2010 through 2017.
2. The U.S. Marshals Service spent an average of nearly $3.2
million annually on ammunition during that same time period.
The GAO told VERIFY there is no more recent data available
on the IRS annual spending. Thus VERIFY can confirm that the IRS did buy nearly
$700,000 in ammunition between March 1 and June 1, but it is to arm their
criminal division and is not for any new trend.
My 2 Cents: I hope this
fact finding helps put an end to the huge GOP conspiracy now flying all over
the place. Will it? Probably not.
This new owned and operated
GOP has the best teacher in the world for spreading lies and eternal BS – and that
is Donald J. Trump – the most-skilled and highly experienced con man and
biggest liar ever to have sat in the Oval Office and hopefully he never will
again
Thanks or stopping by.
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