Dear John,

Thanks to President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, the IRS is planning to pursue aggressively hundreds of millions of dollars owed by some 1,600 millionaires and 75 large businesses in back taxes.

The agency has already begun this task, having recovered $38 million in back taxes owed by 175 high-income earners earlier this year.

For decades, Republicans in Congress have sought to protect their billionaire donors by demonizing and defunding the IRS, with budget cuts so severe the agency was left toothless to audit wealthy taxpayers, whose tax avoidance schemes are more inventive and complex.

Instead, by design, that left the IRS to focus audits on the poor and the middle class instead.

With Republicans constantly attacking the IRS, Congress needs to know the IRS has our support. Tell Congress to increase, not cut, funding for the IRS now.

It may seem odd to some that the five most audited counties in the U.S. are primarily Black, low-income, and in the Deep South, but in fact, the reason these communities are audited at such high rates is because they’re low-income.

The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is the government's largest anti-poverty program, paying out over $60 billion to low-income earning families each year. But thanks to over a decade of Republican pressure to gut the IRS budget, the far simpler EITC audits have increased dramatically, while audits on the rich have fallen -- just as congressional Republicans like it.

Now, thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, we have $80 billion set aside for the IRS to enhance its audits of the uber-wealthy. This funding is also helping the IRS reduce call times, process returns faster, and issue refunds faster. For example, this year alone, the IRS has increased phone assistance by more than 2 million calls.

Cutting IRS funding makes it easier for the rich to cheat and harder for you to get your refund quickly.

As MAGA Republicans try to defund the IRS in order to protect their wealthy, tax-cheating donors, the rest of Congress must fight back and protect the IRS.

Tell Congress the American people want wealthy tax cheats to pay what they owe, and the best way to do that is to increase -- not cut -- funding to the IRS. Add your name now.

Thank you for helping to improve tax fairness for all the people in our nation.

Robert Reich
Inequality Media Civic Action