Madeleine Dean: “In the past year, you might have noticed a difference while doing your taxes. If you called IRS with a question, you…”

“In the past year, you might have noticed a difference while doing your taxes. If you called IRS with a question, you waited on the phone for maybe 5 minutes instead of 30 or more from years past. If you got your tax refund in a reasonable amount of time, there is a difference. If you are one of the Americans who attempted to evade taxes and ended up paying your fair share, you can thank the Inflation Reduction Act for that. This historic legislation has enabled the IRS to be better funded, better staffed, and better at getting hard-earned money back to the people. My constituents have noticed. When we legislated $80 billion over the next decade to modernize IRS, Republicans set out spreading disinformation and fear: agents coming out to get you. They were wrong. They knew that was not the case, but they wanted to demonize IRS anyway. Instead, what happened? We saw improvements. In one of the most immediate results from a bill I have ever seen, wait times are down to 4 minutes across the country. Tax returns are arriving without months-long delays. In my own office, we had more than 250 cases open at any one time, trying to help constituents. Now that number is below 60. Again, Republicans launched an attack on IRS funding during their manufactured debt ceiling crisis of the last few weeks. Thankfully, their success against IRS was limited. They were able to claw back only a small portion of that funding that we set forward.…”