Elon Musk has attacked Democrats' efforts to tighten tax enforcement against rich Americans, echoing a slew of Republican critics who have made misleading statements about the plan.
The Tesla CEO and SpaceX tycoon shared a meme on Twitter on Thursday suggesting that US voters would "revolt" against the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for hiring 87,000 new "agents" to collect taxes.
However, federal officials have said that many of those new employees will only be replacing the roughly 50,000 IRS staff who are expected to retire over the next five or six years. The figure also includes support workers such as IT staff and customer service agents.
Mr Musk's meme showed a laughing British soldier from the time of the American Revolutionary War, with the caption: "When the country that revolted over taxes hires 87,000 new IRS agents."
Mr Musk, who is estimated to be the world's richest person, added: "Fate loves irony."
The Democrats' new Inflation Reduction Act allocates $80bn over the next ten years to bolster the IRS, hoping to increase collections revenue by $204bn. A US Treasury report released by the Biden administration last May advocated hiring 86,852 new full time employees by 2031.
Natasha Sarin, a Treasury official appointed by Mr Biden, has argued that the IRS desperately needs new funding to crack down on tax evasion by the rich while making the tax process easier for ordinary Americans.
But House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy told voters on Tuesday that "Democrats' new army of 87,000 IRS agents will be coming for you".
Other conservatives went further, with Fox News host Brian Kilmeade suggesting that "Joe Biden's new army" would "hunt down and kill middle class taxpayers that don't pay enough". He cited a recent job advert for IRS criminal investigators, who sometimes carry guns because their duties include probing organised crime.
Numerous Republican politicians have claimed that the Biden administration is planning to "weaponise" the IRS for raids on middle-class households or even targeted legal harassment against Trump supporters.
Ron Wyden, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, shot back on Friday: "The incendiary conspiracy theories Republicans are pushing about armed IRS agents are increasingly dangerous and out of control.
"Given the social media chatter we're already seeing, it's all too easy to imagine individuals using these conspiracy theories as justification for violence against public servants and their families."
