Rich Neal: “He points out in the opening paragraph of a tax notes special. By the way, those of us in the tax world know what tax…”

“He points out in the opening paragraph of a tax notes special. By the way, those of us in the tax world know what tax notes means. He said that last year, this would be 2021, the Federal Government failed to collect $574 billion of taxes that were legally due but not paid. That is equal to more than most of the Federal deficit. If they want to reduce the Federal tax deficit, we should do a better job with tax compliance, which, after all, is the basis of a representative democracy. Mr. Speaker, 86 percent of the American people pay their taxes every year on time. Do you know why? Because they get paid in wages and it comes from withholding taxes, that is what it is about. The American people are wise to what is being presented here tonight. We live in a two-tier tax system. Wage earners follow the rules. Wealthy billionaires, they get to skirt their responsibilities. That is what we are being asked to vote on tonight. IRS funding has been stagnant, staffing levels have dropped. Have you tried getting an IRS office on the phone? How many times will we continue to let those at the top get away without paying their share? We lose out on--just think of it again--almost $600 billion a year in unpaid taxes. It is very sophisticated tax planning that is done by high-priced attorneys and CPAs. It is estimated that this could be up to $7 trillion because we score items over the course of 10 years. What might this funding pay for? How about Social Security?…”