IRS Isn't Targeting Trump Voters
The Claim
IRS agents will target Trump voters.
News posted on
Emerging story
On June 1, 2021, Representative Marjorie Greene posted an article from the Washington Examiner about the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) previously targeting conservative groups. She added that President Biden is hiring agents to target Trump voters and donors. That post was liked or retweeted over 10,000 times. Others on social media are also claiming the IRS will be targeting conservative voters.
Misbar’s Analysis
Misbar discovered that President Biden recently proposed the American Families Plan. According to the U.S. Department of Treasury, to help support his plan, the President also proposed a set of tax compliance measures. The basis of the tax compliance plan is to help close the tax gap, which is the difference between taxes that are owed and are actually paid. According to the Treasury, the tax gap totaled nearly $600 billion in 2019.
According to Politico, the tax compliance plan will provide $80 billion to the IRS to hire 87,000 new workers over the next 10 years. The IRS presently employs about 75,000 full time employees, thereby greatly increasing the number of tax auditors.
The newly hired IRS tax auditors will not be allowed to go after certain parties based on political viewpoints. However, the tax evasion money they will be pursuing does not appear to be equally distributed among the American people. According to a working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, most of the tax evasion in the U.S. happens at the top of the income brackets. For example, experts have suggested that the bottom half of earners account for only 7% of the unreported taxable income while the top 1% accounts for more than 20%.
However, the wealthiest Americans are not necessarily Trump supporters. In a recent Forbe’s survey, 42 billionaires, most who claimed to be Republican, said they were more likely to vote for President Biden than former President Trump.
Besides pursuing sophisticated tax evaders, the IRS also plans to strengthen third party tax reporting and update outdated technology according to the Treasury.
