Dear John,

For decades, Republicans in Congress have protected their billionaire donors by demonizing and defunding the IRS.

They have enacted budget cuts so severe the agency did not have the wherewithal to audit wealthy taxpayers, who use more complex schemes to avoid paying taxes. As a result, the IRS focused audits on the poor and the middle class instead, letting the rich off the hook again and again.

Now, thanks to President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, signed in August 2022, the IRS has received funding to go after hundreds of millions of dollars owed by over a thousand millionaires and large businesses in back taxes.

The IRS has identified some 1,600 millionaires owing more than $250,000 in tax debt each totaling more than $400 million, of which the IRS has only collected $160 million so far.

Unsurprisingly, Wall Street billionaires are still fighting to cut back IRS funding, because they know that a fully-funded IRS can and will go after wealthy tax cheats.

With the IRS under constant attack by wealthy Republicans, Congress needs to know the IRS has our support. Tell Congress to increase, not cut, funding for the IRS now.

Updated taxpayer services, due to the Inflation Reduction Act, are also a boon for the working and middle classes. Since the new funding started in 2022 and 2023, phone response times have improved from an unacceptable average wait of 27 minutes to just four minutes. And the percentage of callers who spoke with a live person increased from an inaccessible 13% to a caller-friendly 87%.

Meanwhile, using modernized scanning technology, capabilities increased so dramatically that in just the first three months of 2023, the IRS was able to digitally process 80 times more returns than in the entire year of 2022. The result: faster refunds for consumers, and fairer application of the tax laws -- just what powerful billionaires don’t want.

It may seem strange that in recent years the five most audited counties in the U.S. were in the Deep South, low-income, and primarily Black. In fact, these communities were audited at such high rates because they were low-income. The underfunded IRS prioritized audits on the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) because they were simpler and more politically expedient.

Meanwhile, with continuous Republican pressure to gut the IRS budget, audits on the rich had fallen -- just as Republicans liked it. But now, with sufficient resources to carry out more complex audits, a recent investigation shows every additional $1 spent on auditing taxpayers above the 90th income percentile generates over $12 in revenue.

Fully funding the IRS makes it harder for the rich to cheat, and easier for you to get your refund quickly. To eliminate de facto anti-Black racism from taxation practices, we need to support the mission of the IRS and protect its funding.

Tell Congress we want wealthy tax cheats to pay what they owe. The best way to accomplish this is to increase -- not cut -- funding to the IRS. Add your name now.

Thank you for prioritizing tax fairness for all Americans, across all levels of income.

Robert Reich
Inequality Media Civic Action