The White House Is Lying About Democrats’ Middle-Class Auditing Scheme

Olivia HajicekAugust 10, 2022

While the Democrats’ so-called Inflation Reduction Act will use taxpayer dollars to pack the Internal Revenue Service with 87,000 new agents, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre claimed there won’t be any new audits on people making less than $400,000 a year.

The claim is ridiculous on its face. Over 99 percent of Americans make less than $400,000 per year. And while the IRS employs more than 78,000 people full-time, the agency has fewer than 66,000 agents as of March to handle its audits. But the Biden White House wants you to believe these 87,000 new agents will be reserved for auditing the top 1 percent, with no effect on everyday Americans.

Despite claims that the new audits will target the rich, all available evidence suggests the opposite. As Fox Business’s Thomas Catenacci reported, an analysis from House Republicans estimates that “Americans who earn less than $75,000 per year are slated to receive 60% of the additional tax audits.” That annual salary accounts for roughly three-quarters of Americans and covers the lower and much of the middle class.

“Overall, the IRS would conduct more than 1.2 million more annual audits of Americans’ tax returns,” Catenacci wrote of the analysis, and individuals with an annual income of $75,000 or less would be subject to more additional audits than those making more than $1 million.

Meanwhile, Jared Bernstein, who was an economic adviser to then-Vice President Joe Biden, brought the Democrats’ claims further into question. When asked by a CNBC reporter, “Is the president guaranteeing nobody making under $400,000 will be audited?” Bernstein replied, “No, no, no, no, that’s not what I said.”

Not only are Democrats failing to get their story straight about whom they plan to target, but they have also already voted against following through on their promises. When Idaho Republican Sen. Mike Crapo proposed an amendment that would have prohibited the new IRS funds from being used to audit people with a taxable income under $400,000 a year, the Senate voted the amendment down in a 50-50 party-line vote.

While on the campaign trail, Biden pledged not to raise taxes on people who make less than $400,000 a year. Now, his administration has promised the Democrats’ bill will not result in new audits on these people. The so-called Inflation Reduction Act breaks both of these pledges — increasing taxes on middle-class Americans and more than doubling the number of IRS agents to make sure they pay.

Olivia Hajicek is an intern at The Federalist and a junior at Hillsdale College studying history and journalism. She has covered campus and city news as a reporter for The Hillsdale Collegian. You can reach her at [email protected].