Dear John,

Money invested in the IRS yields much in return. Every $1 spent auditing wealthy taxpayers owing hundreds of thousands of dollars returns an average of over 2,000%. Yet Republicans continue to insist their efforts to defund the IRS are “fiscally responsible.”

In reality, the Republican push has one goal only: Protect the wealthy from paying what they owe in taxes.

In 2022, President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act included $80 billion for the IRS over ten years, which in its first few months has already resulted in dramatically increased revenues collected from wealthy tax cheats.

Now, even with the temporary funding bill passed this week, Republicans are still pushing for bigger cuts to protect their billionaire benefactors. The proposed cuts are estimated to increase the deficit by $114 billion over ten years -- this will in turn provide Republicans with a manufactured rationale for deep cuts to crucial programs including Social Security and Medicare.

Send a message to Congress: Reject cuts to IRS funding which will cost ordinary Americans while letting wealthy and corporate tax cheats off the hook.

In these first few months of increased IRS funding, the American people have already seen major improvements. In 2023, the IRS answered 3 million more phone calls than the previous year. Call waiting time was reduced from 28 minutes to only 3 minutes. Modernized scanning equipment enabled the IRS to digitally process 80 times as many claims in the first three months of 2023 as in the entire previous year.

Improvements in revenue have also been dramatic. The IRS identified and collected over $160 million in unpaid taxes from wealthy tax cheats last year. It has also put corporations on notice: The IRS has notified Microsoft that it owes the U.S. Treasury $29 billion, and it will audit 60 huge corporations with collective annual profits over $500 billion.

Taxpayers will also benefit from the advent of Direct File, a free, user-friendly, digital tax-filing system piloted last year that will provide an alternative to paid tax preparation software. Importantly, Direct File will also enhance working Americans’ access to the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit.

Despite these gains, Democrats have given in to Republicans by allowing cuts to the IRS before, and we can’t let them do it again.

Protect future investments in Medicare and Social Security. Tell Congress: No further cuts to IRS funding!

Thank you for telling the Democrats to hold firm and keep any further cuts off the table.

Robert Reich
Inequality Media Civic Action