GOP campaigns against the IRS, vowing to slash its funding

WASHINGTON (AP) — IRS pleas for more funding from Congress — made over the years by one leader after another — finally paid off this summer when Democrats tucked an $80 billion boost for the agency into their flagship climate and health care law.

Fortified with a new funding stream, the IRS is making plans to clear a massive backlog of unprocessed tax returns, upgrade technology that is decades out of date and, yes, hire more auditors.

But, as GOP candidates across the country are making clear, the battle over IRS funding has only just begun. They are making attacks on a larger IRS a central part of their midterm election pitch to voters, warning that the Democratic legislation will bankroll an army of auditors that will harass middle-class taxpayers rather than help them.

“If you pass it, they will come — after you,” says an ad running in an Iowa House race that spoofs a scene in the “Field of Dreams” movie. Instead of baseball players emerging from a field of corn, it’s black-suited IRS agents.

The GOP’s warnings are generally alarmist and misleading. The agency is not hiring an army of 87,000 “new agents” to target low- and middle-class Americans. Many hires will be used to replace some 50,000 IRS employee retirements in coming years. Others will become customer service representatives answering taxpayer phone calls.

Some of the IRS hires will be added to the ranks of sophisticated auditing teams that spend thousands of hours poring over complicated returns, but the Biden administration has also made clear that small business or households earning $400,000 per year or less will not see an increase in their chances of being audited.

“The purpose of the funding is to modernize a severely underfunded agency to provide the American people with the customer service...