Rich Neal: “Let me congratulate Mr. Smith, incidentally, on his recent elevation to become the chairman of the Ways and Means…”

“Let me congratulate Mr. Smith, incidentally, on his recent elevation to become the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. We look forward to a productive session during the next couple of years. Mr. Speaker, I include into the Record a blog post by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities summarizing the fact check that has repeatedly debunked the false claim that we just heard a few seconds ago, that the IRS is going to hire 87,000 new agents immediately. [From Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, January 9, 2023] House GOP's First Bill: A Misleading Gambit To Protect Interests of Wealthy Tax Cheats (By Chuck Marr) House Republicans have announced that their first legislative priority is to rescind nearly all of the Inflation Reduction Act's $80 billion in ten-year funding for the IRS, while repeating falsehoods and inflammatory rhetoric about how that funding will be used. While the Republicans have launched a campaign about a false ``army'' of 87,000 agents, the debate should focus on one accurate and alarming number: the IRS has 2,284 fewer skilled auditors to handle the sophisticated returns of wealthy taxpayers than it did in 1954. The decade-long, House Republican-driven budget cuts have created dysfunction at the IRS, where relatively few millionaires are now audited.…”