IRS to Spend $80 Billion to Increase Staffing, Upgrade Technology: Deputy Treasury Secretary

In an effort to make the IRS easier to work with and more equitable for all citizens, it will spend$ 80 billion over the next ten years on staffing expansion and technology upgrades.

Wally Adeyemo, the assistant secretary of the Treasury, stated to visitors at a tax conference in Washington on April 17 that the IRS is committed to continuing to make expenditures so that you can work with them more easily in the future.

The company also anticipates intensifying income police on the highest earners in the country, who jointly underpay their taxes by an estimated$ 160 billion annually, according to Adeyemo. That exceeds what the United States spends overall on the administration of justice, the environment, knowledge, house, and technology.

House Republicans voted in January to repeal the grant out of concern that the IRS would use the$ 80 billion provided by the American Rescue Plan ( ARP ) Act of 2021 to harass conservative groups and increase audits on small businesses and regular Americans. The Senate did not move forward with the proposal.

IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel has reaffirmed that audits of taxpayers making less than$ 400,000 annually won’t be raised above historical levels in order to allay concerns on that matter.

Making sure we raise our prices for the best 1 % is where we need to put in the most effort, Adeyemo said.

According to Adeyemo, the IRS may invest in automation and hire income lawyers, accountants, and data academics in order to achieve this.

” We’re’re going to look at pass-throughs and other complicated ways people look to hide their income [ and ] try to close the tax gap ,” he said.

” One of the best ways to ensure that we are more financially responsible going forward is not necessarily to improve plan, but rather to enforce the laws on the courses and to make sure that, like the 90 or so percent of Americans who receive W-2s, rich people also pay their fair share.”

Adequate tax code enforcement has been hampered by cheap staffing.

According to Adeyemo, the agency’s’s current staff size is roughly the same as it was in 1970, when there were 203.4 million people living in the United States. 331.4 million people lived there in 2020, an increase of 63 cents.