Op-ED: Make the IRS Pay Its Fair Share
By Chuck Flint, Executive Director of the Alliance for IRS Accountability
If one were to believe the Internal Revenue Service, the agency is a beacon of transparency and accountability, carrying out a mission to provide taxpayers with “top-quality service” and a culture guided by “honesty and integrity.”
Meanwhile, reports showed that nearly 6,000 workers providing services to the IRS owed $50 million in back taxes. For this and a host of other reasons, the IRS remains the least trusted agency in the federal government, and one in dire need of accountability.
The IRS’s lack of public trust is an issue of its making. From blatant political targeting and its backward guilty-until-proven-innocent enforcement to its vague interpretations of tax law and make-it-up-as-they-go-along rulemaking, the IRS has created a broad sense of fear and uncertainty for taxpayers, businesses and nonprofit organizations.
We have countless examples of targeting, including the 2013 tea party scandal in which former IRS official Lois Lerner referred to conservatives as “crazies” and “a**holes” (her deputy at the time, Holly Paz, was accused of misleading Congress but remains in a leadership position at the IRS). Or, more recently, with the largest intentional data leak of taxpayer information in the agency’s history, including President Trump’s, at the hands of IRS contractor Charles Littlejohn. Last year, journalist Matt Taibbi was a victim of a surprise visit from the IRS on the same day he was to testify before Congress on government weaponization.
Worse, many view the IRS’s longtime enforcement efforts as discriminatory. Before the administration began its push to cut the agency’s bloated workforce, the IRS had enjoyed billions in additional funding and personnel aimed at going after wealthy tax filers. However, 63 percent of new IRS audits during this time still targeted middle-class Americans making less than $200,000 annually. That’s because lower and middle-income taxpaying families cannot afford to defend themselves and prove their innocence.
In September 2023, the IRS created a new pass-through audit team to target businesses involved in such partnerships. Some believe it was created as a means to target higher-income individuals, including Trump’s business contemporaries. Adding to political appearances is that the team, which is still in operation, was placed in a division led by the aforementioned Holly Paz. Such behavior falls squarely within the January 20 executive order “Ending the Weaponization of the Federal Government,” and the pass-through audit team should be disbanded.
America’s small businesses bear the brunt of IRS discriminatory enforcement. With most family enterprises surviving payroll to payroll, the prospect of an unexpected IRS audit, inquiry or change in tax treatment creates a cloud of stress and uncertainty that limits growth. Rather than serving as a resource, the IRS is a constant threat to such mom-and-pop operations, making it harder to expand and create jobs. A February 28 Rasmussen poll found 33 percent of Americans fear the IRS will audit them, even though a vast majority pay taxes honestly.
The arrogance of the IRS should shock the conscience of all Americans. The agency harasses the middle class, politically targets opponents and permits bureaucrats to drown taxpayers in a blight of red tape. It desperately pushes a narrative of a responsible agency that pursues wealthy tax cheats, but the reality is that your elderly aunt or uncle is more likely to be audited than Jeff Bezos — and certainly more likely than IRS workers themselves.
There is no greater hypocrisy than the IRS collecting taxes from hardworking Americans while refusing to hold its tax dodgers accountable — a blatant double standard. As the administration examines downsizing the IRS, the national interest is best served by first terminating workers who haven’t paid their fair share of back taxes. It’s the beginning of many steps that must be taken to restore trust to a broken agency.
Chuck Flint is the executive director of the Alliance for IRS Accountability. He wrote this for InsideSources.com.
Read the original op-ed here: https://dcjournal.com/make-the-irs-pay-its-fair-share/