The GOP's obsession with the "87,000 new IRS" members

[GeneralMacArthur]

You know, I used to crack a lot of jokes about how every Republican candidate, when asked how they would pay for all their expensive proposals without raising taxes, would always fall back on "waste, fraud, and abuse."

Waste, fraud and abuse

I mean we used to hear about this all day long, every presidential campaign.  It was a meme.

And now the Democrats are actually doing something to tangibly cut down on waste, fraud and abuse, thus saving a lot of money, and using it to reduce the deficit.  And Republicans are furious!

Just goes to show what a pathetic party this is.  If you showed this bill, blind, to a whole bunch of Republicans, they would almost unanimously say it was a great bill.

[jojoju1998]

You know, I used to crack a lot of jokes about how every Republican candidate, when asked how they would pay for all their expensive proposals without raising taxes, would always fall back on "waste, fraud, and abuse."

Waste, fraud and abuse

I mean we used to hear about this all day long, every presidential campaign.  It was a meme.

And now the Democrats are actually doing something to tangibly cut down on waste, fraud and abuse, thus saving a lot of money, and using it to reduce the deficit.  And Republicans are furious!

Just goes to show what a pathetic party this is.  If you showed this bill, blind, to a whole bunch of Republicans, they would almost unanimously say it was a great bill.

When they talk about Waste and Fraud, they’re referring to the welfare programs. And all the lazy people who depend on welfare.

Remember Welfare queens from Reagan ?

[Mr. Reactionary]

"Small business owners" are among the last going to suffer under this employment expansion, but a great strawman for know nothings to mythically defend.

Speaking g as one of the relatively few actual small business owners on Atlas,  I think this is long overdue and have zero fear for my company since we follow the rules.

Most people who will suffer from audits are people who can’t afford to have their taxes done at accounting firms or top notch CPA’s.

This is false.
There are plenty of "smaller" tax accountant establishments out there, that know small business taxation very well (probably even better than the rookies they hire at The Big Four Accounting Firms (when I was in college, it was the Big .
Badger points to this also. They do so much small business (and maybe that's all they do), that they know it like the back of their hand, and probably do not charge an arm and a leg for their work.

What about businesses that cannot afford the fees of smaller firms as well .

Please. Accounting expenses are directly proportional the size of one's business. Anything that is more than literally two guys and a Truck doing landscaping or Contracting work can and should afford the nominal expenses of an accountant to do their taxes or frankly be able to do it themselves even as a business. The same reason that any small company bothers to incorporate or form an LLC despite the nominal time and expense of doing so. What an additional straw man in the effort to reach for some coaching argument for protecting uber wealthy tax cheats who make up the broad base of the Republican donor class. Shameful and intellectually dishonest, not to mention literally immoral and illegal

A bunch of Vietnamese American stores of all kinds got busted In California last year for not properly paying taxes, because they used to only accept cash payments; to avoid credit card fees and taxes.

Sorry, am I supposed to feel bad because some small businesses intentionally violated the tax laws while other businesses, including many immigrant businesses, follow the rules?

And let's get real. The type of so-called small businesses that osr and DT thump their chest about aren't literal mom and pop organizations like my firm with less than 10 full-time employees including the owners. Or my accountant's office for that matter. They are owners of regional car dealerships and small factories that employed hundreds of people and whose owners are millionaires and the landed gentry of their small towns. Plus regular $3,000 a plate Republican fundraiser types which, when we strip away these fake populist working for the little guy BS nostrums that they so embarrassingly trip over themselves pretending to care about, that's what it really comes down to.

That's why Republicans offered an amendment to not use the funds to target those making under $400k a year with audits, and every Democrat voted against it.

News flash. $400,000 a year, or even half that amount, is bloody rich. I'm about as hardcore a populists you can find around here and would have happily voted against it.

This is the same IRS that less than a year ago tried to require banks to give them records for any account with more than $600 in annual transactions so lets not pretend they arent trying to go after poors too.

https://www.kwch.com/2022/02/23/new-tax-law-requires-third-party-sellers-pay-taxes-earnings-over-600/

[ProudModerate2]

It wasn't too long ago when Democrats were weaponizing the IRS to specifically target Tea Party members. Now they want 87,000 more agents. As has been seen countless times, if something can be used to harass political rivals, Democrats will use it.

I've owned a small business. My first year, I foolishly thought I could do my own taxes. The problem is that the tax code, particularly for businesses, is so vague and difficult to understand that even the most well-intentioned CPA with years of experience can make a mistake, and that mistake can cost small businesses owners thousands in attorney fees alone. An audit is a brutal and expensive process. If you've never filed taxes for anything other than yourself, you know nothing about business taxes and should probably get off your soap box until you know what you're talking about.

I haven't heard that one in awhile. I'm sure you don't care, but that's been long-debunked.

Debunked by who?  CNN?  MSNBC?

Lois Lerner, btw, refused to testify before Congress on the advise of her attorney.  That happened, as did the extra attention by the IRS against certain disfavored organizations. 

Of course, Lois Lerner's refusal to testify before Congress but didn't get the Peter Navarro treatment.  She got the Eric Holder treatment.

The IRS doesn't just happen.  The Internal Revenue System works due to the VOLUNTARY compliance of taxpayers.  That's THEIR words, not mine.  Their policies are designed to encourage VOLUNTARY compliance with the Internal Revenue System because without it, tax collections would be either (A) grossly diminished or (B) conduced in a manner not conducive to a free society.

A Tax Audit is a SEARCH and a SEIZURE.  It is not something that the government is supposed to conduct because they're short on flow; there has got to be a reason for an audit.  Ordinary people ought to be concerned about this, as (A) the IRS has long been used by Presidents against their political enemies (and the Biden White House has the largest enemies list in the history of politics that extends to every Trump supporter) and (B) people who have done no wrong where there is no basis for people to think that they have done wrong will have to spend money on accountants and attorneys that they ordinarily would not have.

But if you're going to roll with this, then let's roll with the principle to it's logical conclusion.  Let's restore the units to the NYPD that conducted the Stop and Frisk operations that caused crime to drop and got guns off the street and out of the hands of criminals.  After all, if you're not holding dope or an illegal gun, what do you have to be afraid of being searched.  How about that?  It's "disproportionate" in it's effects?  How disproportionate would the effect of 87,000 new enforcement staff fall on small businesspeople, who are an extremely Republican constituency?

The sad truth is many people here view THEIR privacy differently than they do the privacy of others.  The sad truth is that many people here view THEIR Constitutional Rights differently than they do the Constutional Rights of others.  These 87,000 "agents' in the hands of THIS government will result in the unprecedented weaponization of the IRS.  Lots of people here actually want that; they've practically said it out loud.  They won't like it when it actually happens, but then it will be too late.

Stop. It's debunked. End of story.

It's not debunked any more than accounts of Joe Biden's involvement with his son's foreign business deals are debunked.   They are under investigation to this day.   Lois Lerner refused to testify before Congress; that is a fact.  Amazing how those demanding transparency (to the point of advocating illegal searches and seizures) are OK with not hearing from Lois Lerner under oath. 

Democrats weaponizing the IRS to specifically target Tea Party members = DEBUNKED!

Joe Biden involvement with Hunter's Russian business deals = DEBUNKED!

Hogwash conspiracy theories that the 2020 election did not follow "international elections standards" = DEBUNKED!

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

"Small business owners" are among the last going to suffer under this employment expansion, but a great strawman for know nothings to mythically defend.

Speaking g as one of the relatively few actual small business owners on Atlas,  I think this is long overdue and have zero fear for my company since we follow the rules.

Most people who will suffer from audits are people who can’t afford to have their taxes done at accounting firms or top notch CPA’s.

This is false.
There are plenty of "smaller" tax accountant establishments out there, that know small business taxation very well (probably even better than the rookies they hire at The Big Four Accounting Firms (when I was in college, it was the Big .
Badger points to this also. They do so much small business (and maybe that's all they do), that they know it like the back of their hand, and probably do not charge an arm and a leg for their work.

What about businesses that cannot afford the fees of smaller firms as well .

Please. Accounting expenses are directly proportional the size of one's business. Anything that is more than literally two guys and a Truck doing landscaping or Contracting work can and should afford the nominal expenses of an accountant to do their taxes or frankly be able to do it themselves even as a business. The same reason that any small company bothers to incorporate or form an LLC despite the nominal time and expense of doing so. What an additional straw man in the effort to reach for some coaching argument for protecting uber wealthy tax cheats who make up the broad base of the Republican donor class. Shameful and intellectually dishonest, not to mention literally immoral and illegal

A bunch of Vietnamese American stores of all kinds got busted In California last year for not properly paying taxes, because they used to only accept cash payments; to avoid credit card fees and taxes.

Sorry, am I supposed to feel bad because some small businesses intentionally violated the tax laws while other businesses, including many immigrant businesses, follow the rules?

And let's get real. The type of so-called small businesses that osr and DT thump their chest about aren't literal mom and pop organizations like my firm with less than 10 full-time employees including the owners. Or my accountant's office for that matter. They are owners of regional car dealerships and small factories that employed hundreds of people and whose owners are millionaires and the landed gentry of their small towns. Plus regular $3,000 a plate Republican fundraiser types which, when we strip away these fake populist working for the little guy BS nostrums that they so embarrassingly trip over themselves pretending to care about, that's what it really comes down to.

That's why Republicans offered an amendment to not use the funds to target those making under $400k a year with audits, and every Democrat voted against it.

News flash. $400,000 a year, or even half that amount, is bloody rich. I'm about as hardcore a populists you can find around here and would have happily voted against it.

I unironically know people in San Francisco who can only afford small apartments at $200k per year. The easiest way to fix this would be to allow people to deduct state and local taxes from their incomes. That would force red states to actually put people ahead of corporate profit instead of stealing from the rest of the country.

[Badger]

"Small business owners" are among the last going to suffer under this employment expansion, but a great strawman for know nothings to mythically defend.

Speaking g as one of the relatively few actual small business owners on Atlas,  I think this is long overdue and have zero fear for my company since we follow the rules.

Most people who will suffer from audits are people who can’t afford to have their taxes done at accounting firms or top notch CPA’s.

This is false.
There are plenty of "smaller" tax accountant establishments out there, that know small business taxation very well (probably even better than the rookies they hire at The Big Four Accounting Firms (when I was in college, it was the Big .
Badger points to this also. They do so much small business (and maybe that's all they do), that they know it like the back of their hand, and probably do not charge an arm and a leg for their work.

What about businesses that cannot afford the fees of smaller firms as well .

Please. Accounting expenses are directly proportional the size of one's business. Anything that is more than literally two guys and a Truck doing landscaping or Contracting work can and should afford the nominal expenses of an accountant to do their taxes or frankly be able to do it themselves even as a business. The same reason that any small company bothers to incorporate or form an LLC despite the nominal time and expense of doing so. What an additional straw man in the effort to reach for some coaching argument for protecting uber wealthy tax cheats who make up the broad base of the Republican donor class. Shameful and intellectually dishonest, not to mention literally immoral and illegal

A bunch of Vietnamese American stores of all kinds got busted In California last year for not properly paying taxes, because they used to only accept cash payments; to avoid credit card fees and taxes.

Sorry, am I supposed to feel bad because some small businesses intentionally violated the tax laws while other businesses, including many immigrant businesses, follow the rules?

And let's get real. The type of so-called small businesses that osr and DT thump their chest about aren't literal mom and pop organizations like my firm with less than 10 full-time employees including the owners. Or my accountant's office for that matter. They are owners of regional car dealerships and small factories that employed hundreds of people and whose owners are millionaires and the landed gentry of their small towns. Plus regular $3,000 a plate Republican fundraiser types which, when we strip away these fake populist working for the little guy BS nostrums that they so embarrassingly trip over themselves pretending to care about, that's what it really comes down to.

That's why Republicans offered an amendment to not use the funds to target those making under $400k a year with audits, and every Democrat voted against it.

News flash. $400,000 a year, or even half that amount, is bloody rich. I'm about as hardcore a populists you can find around here and would have happily voted against it.

I unironically know people in San Francisco who can only afford small apartments at $200k per year. The easiest way to fix this would be to allow people to deduct state and local taxes from their incomes. That would force red states to actually put people ahead of corporate profit instead of stealing from the rest of the country.

I've never really bought into this false equivalency that people who live in the most expensive neighborhoods in the country are somehow relegated to middle class because the cost of living only affords them an apartment. I can't seriously consider anyone earning multiple hundreds of thousands a year simply middle class because they live in Manhattan and can't afford a house or Brownstone as opposed to renting. Location location.

That said, I'm all about the salt deduction. Republicans oppose it basically because they want to squeeze and starve state and local taxation on a general religious principle that Saint Ronald supposedly established that all taxes are bad bad and tax cuts are inherently morally good.

[Torie]

I must dissent from Badger's endorsement of SALT.  The thing is, is that represents a subsidy from low tax states to high ones via lost federal revenues (and more often than not, lower income states to higher ones), and creates an incentive for everyone to go high tax to end the regressive cross subsidy. So a deduction made to order to benefit me, rather than being expanded, should actually be repealed in its entirety. It serves no estimable public policy purpose.

In general, as an overarching principle, I am a low deduction, low rate kind of guy. Yes, I favor the medical cost deduction, but then, I have segued into believing that while government funded single payer medical care is bad, all other options are worse, so in my world, there would be little to deduct in any event.

[OSR stands with Israel]

"Small business owners" are among the last going to suffer under this employment expansion, but a great strawman for know nothings to mythically defend.

Speaking g as one of the relatively few actual small business owners on Atlas,  I think this is long overdue and have zero fear for my company since we follow the rules.

Most people who will suffer from audits are people who can’t afford to have their taxes done at accounting firms or top notch CPA’s.

This is false.
There are plenty of "smaller" tax accountant establishments out there, that know small business taxation very well (probably even better than the rookies they hire at The Big Four Accounting Firms (when I was in college, it was the Big .
Badger points to this also. They do so much small business (and maybe that's all they do), that they know it like the back of their hand, and probably do not charge an arm and a leg for their work.

What about businesses that cannot afford the fees of smaller firms as well .

Please. Accounting expenses are directly proportional the size of one's business. Anything that is more than literally two guys and a Truck doing landscaping or Contracting work can and should afford the nominal expenses of an accountant to do their taxes or frankly be able to do it themselves even as a business. The same reason that any small company bothers to incorporate or form an LLC despite the nominal time and expense of doing so. What an additional straw man in the effort to reach for some coaching argument for protecting uber wealthy tax cheats who make up the broad base of the Republican donor class. Shameful and intellectually dishonest, not to mention literally immoral and illegal

A bunch of Vietnamese American stores of all kinds got busted In California last year for not properly paying taxes, because they used to only accept cash payments; to avoid credit card fees and taxes.

Sorry, am I supposed to feel bad because some small businesses intentionally violated the tax laws while other businesses, including many immigrant businesses, follow the rules?

And let's get real. The type of so-called small businesses that osr and DT thump their chest about aren't literal mom and pop organizations like my firm with less than 10 full-time employees including the owners. Or my accountant's office for that matter. They are owners of regional car dealerships and small factories that employed hundreds of people and whose owners are millionaires and the landed gentry of their small towns. Plus regular $3,000 a plate Republican fundraiser types which, when we strip away these fake populist working for the little guy BS nostrums that they so embarrassingly trip over themselves pretending to care about, that's what it really comes down to.

That's why Republicans offered an amendment to not use the funds to target those making under $400k a year with audits, and every Democrat voted against it.

News flash. $400,000 a year, or even half that amount, is bloody rich. I'm about as hardcore a populists you can find around here and would have happily voted against it.

I unironically know people in San Francisco who can only afford small apartments at $200k per year. The easiest way to fix this would be to allow people to deduct state and local taxes from their incomes. That would force red states to actually put people ahead of corporate profit instead of stealing from the rest of the country.

I've never really bought into this false equivalency that people who live in the most expensive neighborhoods in the country are somehow relegated to middle class because the cost of living only affords them an apartment. I can't seriously consider anyone earning multiple hundreds of thousands a year simply middle class because they live in Manhattan and can't afford a house or Brownstone as opposed to renting. Location location.

That said, I'm all about the salt deduction. Republicans oppose it basically because they want to squeeze and starve state and local taxation on a general religious principle that Saint Ronald supposedly established that all taxes are bad bad and tax cuts are inherently morally good.

To be considered rich you should be able to easily buy  a single family home in the area you are living in otherwise the definition has no means .

I have friends who lived in the Bay Area who were unable to realistically afford a home despite the both of them having six figure salaries .

[Badger]

"Small business owners" are among the last going to suffer under this employment expansion, but a great strawman for know nothings to mythically defend.

Speaking g as one of the relatively few actual small business owners on Atlas,  I think this is long overdue and have zero fear for my company since we follow the rules.

Most people who will suffer from audits are people who can’t afford to have their taxes done at accounting firms or top notch CPA’s.

This is false.
There are plenty of "smaller" tax accountant establishments out there, that know small business taxation very well (probably even better than the rookies they hire at The Big Four Accounting Firms (when I was in college, it was the Big .
Badger points to this also. They do so much small business (and maybe that's all they do), that they know it like the back of their hand, and probably do not charge an arm and a leg for their work.

What about businesses that cannot afford the fees of smaller firms as well .

Please. Accounting expenses are directly proportional the size of one's business. Anything that is more than literally two guys and a Truck doing landscaping or Contracting work can and should afford the nominal expenses of an accountant to do their taxes or frankly be able to do it themselves even as a business. The same reason that any small company bothers to incorporate or form an LLC despite the nominal time and expense of doing so. What an additional straw man in the effort to reach for some coaching argument for protecting uber wealthy tax cheats who make up the broad base of the Republican donor class. Shameful and intellectually dishonest, not to mention literally immoral and illegal

A bunch of Vietnamese American stores of all kinds got busted In California last year for not properly paying taxes, because they used to only accept cash payments; to avoid credit card fees and taxes.

Sorry, am I supposed to feel bad because some small businesses intentionally violated the tax laws while other businesses, including many immigrant businesses, follow the rules?

And let's get real. The type of so-called small businesses that osr and DT thump their chest about aren't literal mom and pop organizations like my firm with less than 10 full-time employees including the owners. Or my accountant's office for that matter. They are owners of regional car dealerships and small factories that employed hundreds of people and whose owners are millionaires and the landed gentry of their small towns. Plus regular $3,000 a plate Republican fundraiser types which, when we strip away these fake populist working for the little guy BS nostrums that they so embarrassingly trip over themselves pretending to care about, that's what it really comes down to.

That's why Republicans offered an amendment to not use the funds to target those making under $400k a year with audits, and every Democrat voted against it.

News flash. $400,000 a year, or even half that amount, is bloody rich. I'm about as hardcore a populists you can find around here and would have happily voted against it.

I unironically know people in San Francisco who can only afford small apartments at $200k per year. The easiest way to fix this would be to allow people to deduct state and local taxes from their incomes. That would force red states to actually put people ahead of corporate profit instead of stealing from the rest of the country.

I've never really bought into this false equivalency that people who live in the most expensive neighborhoods in the country are somehow relegated to middle class because the cost of living only affords them an apartment. I can't seriously consider anyone earning multiple hundreds of thousands a year simply middle class because they live in Manhattan and can't afford a house or Brownstone as opposed to renting. Location location.

That said, I'm all about the salt deduction. Republicans oppose it basically because they want to squeeze and starve state and local taxation on a general religious principle that Saint Ronald supposedly established that all taxes are bad bad and tax cuts are inherently morally good.

To be considered rich you should be able to easily buy  a single family home in the area you are living in otherwise the definition has no means

No, that's ridiculous.  A Manhattenite earning a quarter mil or even half a million a year isn't "not rich" because they still can't afford a house there.

[Saint Milei]

Abolish the IRS