- The Treasury Department and the IRS announced the collection of more than $1 billion in tax debt from high-income individuals over the past year.
- In September, the IRS announced plans to expand its scrutiny of those making more than $1 million annually with more than $250,000 in recognized tax debt.
- However, the funding enacted in 2022 that is allowing the IRS to pursue its plans still has its critics, particularly among congressional Republicans.
This is the one that always gets me about “small government” people. They talk about inefficiencies and say, “the private sector can do it better,” which is debatable because comparing money and service is subjective (IMHO, they’re still wrong, but that’s besides the point). Yet most of them don’t want to properly fund tax administrators, when time and time again, they’ve shown they’re a money multiplier. If you want a more basic, striped down tax code, I once again disagree, but fine, that’s your opinion. However, in our current tax system enforcement is underfunded, and I think it just shows their true intent to enrich the wealthy.
I mean the small government types are not the ones who typically pay attention to what actually is shown to work or not work.
Their view is big govt needs big taxes for big spending and big IRS steals people’s hard earned money. No counterpoint or evidence will ever persuade them otherwise because it’s a core belief that is largely beyond questioning.
The private sector generates profits, which can then be translated into passive incomes for lenders and dividend recipients. The public sector isn’t explicitly designed to provide steadily increasing passive incomes to American plutocrats. That’s the big difference.
Laws are for little people. The purpose of the IRS should be to make low-income tax credits and other poverty relief measures a political promise the smallest possible material benefit. It shouldn’t be to claw back profits from the plutocrat class. Government should exist to guarantee the collection of rents from the working class and defend the property of the landlord class by extracting additional rents from the working class.
I’m confused, you think the IRS should be protecting the wealthy from the working class?
All enforcement is underfunded except the armed law enforcement against citizens. The enforcement of laws and corporations should be beefed up. And the start from big to small. Now enforcement just focusses on small companies as they don’t have big legal teams and can be bullied into submission.
You can make a more basic stripped down tax code that’s still fair. What I’d like to see is instead of a stepped progressive tax rate, tax each dollar based on a function that approaches 100% somewhere around a million dollars. So maybe you can get another dollar by taking the next million, then one more by taking ten million, then the next one by taking a hundred million.