U.S. Reps. Adrian Smith (R-NE) and Michelle Steel (R-CA) introduced this week legislation that seeks to defund the Biden Administration’s plan to hire 87,000 new Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agents.
Specifically, the Family and Small Business Taxpayer Protection Act would repeal all enforcement funding from the Inflation Reduction Act while preserving funding for customer service and IT modernization.
“It’s clear the IRS has long lost touch with its mission: to serve taxpayers,” said Smith, the Republican leader of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade. “Democrats’ Inflation Act would result in more audits for those who can least afford it, plain and simple. American families don’t need more audits and red tape, and this bill will help ensure hardworking taxpayers receive satisfactory customer service without having to fear a supercharged IRS.”
The bill would also block efforts to increase middle-class family audits.
“The so-called ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ certainly hasn’t reduced inflation, but it has cost taxpayers more than $700 billion and doubled the size of the IRS to target middle- and low-income families and small businesses with a flood of audits and draconian ‘enforcement’ activities,” Steel said. “The IRS has lost tens of billions of dollars to fraud and mismanagement, and I’m proud to introduce this legislation with Rep. Smith to protect the taxpayers, rein in an unaccountable federal agency, and reverse course from this dangerous path of growing bureaucracy and heavy-handed federal government.”