It was barely six months ago that congressional Democrats voted to boost IRS funding by $80 billion over the next decade under the guise of beefing up tax enforcement and wringing more money out of billionaires and millionaires. Wage-earners of less means were assured they had little to worry about from an army of new agents.
“These resources,” IRS Commissioner Charles Rettigare insisted in August, “are absolutely not about increasing audit scrutiny on small businesses or middle-income Americans.”
Yet it would be dangerously naive to believe that financially fortifying the tax agency wouldn’t have repercussions beyond the dastardly 1 Percent. And a new IRS proposal proves just that.
