By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Northern Missouri Congressman Sam Graves opposes President Biden’s proposal to nearly double the number of IRS agents.
Graves, a Republican, casts doubt on the wisdom of hiring 87,000 new agents at the Internal Revenue Service, pointing out the United States has a little more than 3,100 counties.
“You do the math, with 87,000 IRS agents, that means we’re going to have 27 IRS agents for every single county in the United States,” Graves tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. “So that would be 27 agents for Atchison County, 27 agents for Holt County, 27 agents for Gentry, Dekalb, Buchanan.”
The proposed expansion of the IRS by President Joe Biden was included in the Inflation Reduction Act passed by Democrats in Congress. The plan would cost $80 billion and would add about as many agents as the IRS has now. More than half the allocation is earmarked for enforcement to ensure compliance with federal tax law.
“This is an army of IRS agents,” Graves says. “This is absolutely ridiculous and they’re going to be coming after small businesses that are pass through corporations. That’s who their main focus is going to be.”
The president and his fellow Democrats say the expansion is needed to crack down on tax cheats.
Graves dismisses suggestions the added agents will make sure billionaires pay their fair share.
“There are only about 800 billionaires in the United States. So, why do we need 87,000 IRS agents to cover that?” Graves asks.
Democrats insists the IRS needs more agents to collect taxes owed, but not paid, estimated to be as much as $600 billion.
Graves rejects the reasoning.
“I fail to see why we need any more IRS agents than we have, unless it’s for processing refunds, because I know a lot of people out there, they get tired of waiting for their refund,” according to Graves. “If you’re late paying your taxes, then you get fined and there’s interest built on that. But if the federal government takes forever to pay back the money that they owe you, there’s no consequence to that.”