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Dems Beef Up Tax Enforcement, Border Enforcement, No

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Posted: Aug 12, 2022 12:01 AM

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Enforcing laws has not exactly been the Democrats’ strong suit in recent years. At the federal level, the Biden administration has blatantly gutted border and immigration enforcement and is even defying court rulings ordering them to resume enforcement. At the state and local level, prosecutors have essentially nullified entire sections of criminal and civil codes by refusing to prosecute many offenders, while in some states “progressive” laws require that even violent criminals are routinely released without bail.But the party has found one area of law where they appear to be aiming for zero tolerance: Tax law. The Budget Reconciliation Act, grotesquely mislabeled the Inflation Reduction Act, enacted over the weekend by the slimmest of margins in the U.S. Senate – by virtue of a tie-breaking vote cast by Vice President Kamala Harris – includes $45.6 billion that will more than double the Internal Revenue Service’s enforcement division. The bill adds some 87,000 new enforcement agents to the existing 78,000 already tasked with ensuring tax compliance. And, who knows? The extra cash heading the IRS’s way might even improve the public’s odds of getting their phone calls answered, which now stands at 1 in 50.Enforcing tax laws are, no doubt, important. We are all harmed by tax scofflaws who don’t pay their fair share. We are also harmed by tax loopholes that continue to exist, regardless of which party is in power, but you can’t punish people or companies for taking advantage of laws as they are written.Whether the newly recruited army of IRS enforcement agents focus on tax cheats who deliberately defraud the government, or harass honest taxpayers for minor errors or infractions remains to be seen. What is clear is the sharp contrast between the administration’s deter …

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