300

IRS recovers $4.7 billion in back taxes, braces for cuts under Trump and GOP majority (www.pbs.org)

submitted 4 days ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

35 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Summary

The IRS announced it has recovered $4.7 billion in back taxes and criminal proceeds since receiving $80 billion in funding through the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.

This includes $1.3 billion from wealthy tax dodgers and $2.9 billion from criminal investigations.

Despite these gains, the IRS faces funding cuts: $1.4 billion was rescinded earlier, and $20 billion is frozen or redirected under recent budget deals.

Republicans, under a new majority, aim to further reduce IRS funding and renew Trump-era tax cuts. Trump has nominated Billy Long as the next IRS commissioner, drawing criticism from Democrats.

top 35 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[-] henfredemars@infosec.pub 42 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

As sure as the rising and the setting of the sun, billionaires will cut their own taxes.

Every one of us suffers by their existence.

[-] FenrirIII@lemmy.world 9 points 4 days ago

We shouldn't suffer their existence

[-] IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 24 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

IRS investigators (circa Jan 20) now ~~randomly~~ arbitrarily audits low income people...

🙃

[-] ryathal@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 days ago

Low income people have already been automatically audited for a long time.

[-] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 20 points 4 days ago

randomly

Nope. It will be targeted. This is what regulatory agencies will exist for (those that continue to exist). They will be used as a cudgel against perceived enemies.

[-] IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 4 days ago

arbitrarily is what I meant

[-] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 4 days ago

Yeah, but that's why I mean... It won't be that either. It will be targeted.

[-] SuperSpruce@lemmy.zip 16 points 4 days ago

I'm definitely missing the whole story, because getting $4.2B back from $80B in funding is terrible ROI. Where is all of this money going?

[-] Not_mikey@slrpnk.net 28 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

They received $80B but haven't spent it yet. Looks like they've spent $7B so far , and it looks like the Republicans rescinded $20B of it already.

Still not a great ROI but they could be spending the money on building infrastructure to recover more. I'm guessing they require some pretty good software to catch the cheats and that costs a lot to create but less to maintain. That plus general growing pains might mean they'll take a bit to ramp up, but we might start seeing more ROI gains in the following couple years.

Also they're using some of it to improve operations like creating the new free tax portal so you don't have to pay through turbotax, h&r etc. So that'd be nice, maybe not worth $1B, but nice

[-] MutilationWave@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago

Hopefully the new tax portal is great. That alone would be worth 1B. Just sending everyone a disputable bill or check would be easier and cheaper of course but we can't have that.

[-] NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 7 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

They had to staff up which has a delay on impact. The money was supposed to last awhile and historically every dollar given to the IRS results in more money back. The more complex cases take longer to get results from as well. Those rich folks have very complex set ups to avoid paying taxes.

And as mentioned, they also built that tax portal which will likely expand and will save tax payers millions of dollars instead of going to turbotax etc.

[-] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 4 points 3 days ago

Gotta steal somehow. If you can make the police go away, stealing gets easier, cosier. it's like the Republicans way of making a nest

[+] shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip -78 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

New headline: Thugs managed to steal $4.7 billion that they would previously have been unable to steal.

Taxation is theft.

[-] Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works 46 points 4 days ago

Taxation is theft.

Always one of you silly buggers commenting these kinds of stories isn't there.

[-] Phil_in_here@lemmy.ca 12 points 4 days ago

But you don't understand, see, he didn't consent to being taxed, therefore it's theft.

Be kind to them, they were kidnapped and imprisoned for many years since birth. The earlier years involved many forms of humiliating torture.

[-] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 29 points 4 days ago

Man, I remember middle school...

[-] Crazyslinkz@lemmy.world 29 points 4 days ago

Why?

Roads, schools, fire department,...

The large one defense budget (possible theft here)...

Why do you think "taxation is theft"?

[-] socphoenix@midwest.social 44 points 4 days ago

Because they want the benefits of a civilized society but think they shouldn’t have to pay for them

[-] whostosay@lemmy.world 8 points 4 days ago

I bet it's that the think they will one day own the benefits of a civilized society, and want to preemptively pull the ladder up while making money off the backs of everyone else. You know, like a parasite.

[-] EleventhHour@lemmy.world 21 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Taxes are the subscription fee one pays to live in a society. Don’t like that? Go live somewhere else.

[+] shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip -21 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

There is no land on this planet that has not been claimed by government goons, so there is nowhere else to go.

Edit: Okay, that is not quite true. But for the most part, it is. The only exception I'm totally aware of at the moment is Gornyasiga, which became Liberland. Now that I find to be an interesting project and something that seems like it would be interesting to participate in.

[-] catloaf@lemm.ee 14 points 4 days ago

All of Antarctica, though that's been designated entirely for science by international treaty.

Plenty of land is claimed but uncontrolled. Just get some like-minded people together and set up camp. I'm sure it'll go fine.

[-] yeahiknow3 9 points 4 days ago

Let me know after you move to a region with no taxes. I’ll come kill you and take all your stuff since there’s no justice system.

[-] prototype_g2@lemmy.ml 12 points 4 days ago

So you don't like schools, roads, public healthcare, having a police force to protect the citizens? You realize taxes pay for those right? And without them, if you get robbed, there will be no police to help you.

Also, did you know the bourgeoisie steal way more from you than the taxes you pay?

[-] MutilationWave@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Only one argument here- the police don't protect anyone, they protect rich people's property. It's been proven in court that they have no duty to "protect and serve" the people. If you get robbed right now, right this second, and call the police, they will come and take a statement from you, asking the value of the missing money and items, print it on a sheet of paper and file it in a drawer (or on a computer system).

[-] knightly@pawb.social 6 points 4 days ago

The concept of money is theft, taxation is how the money-printing thugs keep it from inflating itself out of existence.

[-] shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip -4 points 4 days ago

It sure doesn't seem to be working because it's still costing more and more all the time. So they're printing it faster than they're taking it away. But that's not surprising since the government doesn't tax itself.

[-] knightly@pawb.social 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

It sure doesn't seem to be working because it's still costing more and more all the time. So they're printing it faster than they're taking it away.

Precisely.

The government can either fix this by raising taxes or by reducing the rate at which it allows the banking industry to print money, and neither option is politically viable for obvious reasons.

But that's not surprising since the government doesn't tax itself.

This comment leads me to believe that you have some fundamental misapprehension as to how money and/or governments work.

Governments create money so they can pay people to do things. If a government tried to tax its own payments then it'd just be paying itself with dollars that never had a chance to circulate through the economy. Even in concept, this is a waste of time and energy. The only real effect would be artificially inflated numbers for government expenses and tax receipts, the total amount of economic activity enabled by those dollars and the total amount of currency removed from circulation would be zero.

The purpose of taxation is to take excess currency out of the economy, and you just can't do that by moving money from one government office to another.

[-] MutilationWave@lemmy.world 6 points 4 days ago

What in the world are you talking about? The government doesn't exist to profit, it's not a corporation despite shitty people's ideas that it should be run like one. Why would its revenue, which is all spent, be taxed? Are you saying taxes should be taxed? Where would the tax on government revenue even go?

[-] Seasm0ke@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago

Take it a step further. Private exploitation is still exploitation. Creating an ancap world without public monopoly on force will not remove exploitation or force from the world. Property is theft.

this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2024

300 points (98.7% liked)

News

23600 readers

3432 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil

Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.

2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.

Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.

3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.

4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.

Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.

5. Only recent news is allowed.

Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.

6. All posts must be news articles.

No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.

7. No duplicate posts.

If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.

8. Misinformation is prohibited.

Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.

9. No link shorteners.

The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.

10. Don't copy entire article in your post body

For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

rjc@lemmy.world

Thekingoflorda@lemmy.world

Tenthrow@lemmy.world

JonsJava@lemmy.world

gedaliyah@lemmy.world

little_cow@lemmy.world

jeffw@lemmy.world

enu@lemmy.world