Gotta wonder how many returns are gonna get run through unauthorized AI tools by IRS employees this year, leaking private financial information into future training sets.
Well Biden increased the IRS budget a lot, when the idiot was re-elected one of the first things he did was cut the IRS budget, took out Biden's increase plus some.
This was done to ensure the IRS cannot audit the very rich. That works because the auditing the rich is very expensive and you need highly skilled Auditors for that.
> That works because the auditing the rich is very expensive
But it is "profitable".
It is one of the very few things the government does that generates short-term "profits" - every dollar spent auditing the rich and collecting from them generates more money than is spent, and we have never been close to break-even.
If you truly want to run the government like a business, increasing funding to IRS audits and collections is one of the hallmarks of what you would do.
EDIT: a lot of what the government does, and it should be everything the government does, is profitable, but it's more like "we spend this money, it increases GDP on some timescale, and then we get more taxes from it". This is short-term because it is more direct. The IRS audits bring in more tax revenue quite directly.
Started in the second half of Biden's presidency. The republicans argued that the IRS was already overfunded in the first half and refused to allocate additional budget for them.
This isn't just a Trump thing, it's a Republican party thing.
The ultra wealthy were already safe; it's much cheaper for the IRS accuse a middle class household with a couple W2s and a Doordash 1098 of inadequately tracking their mileage and fuel receipts than it is to review the reams of paperwork they'd receive when auditing any of the ultra-rich.
Meanwhile, even in an alternate reality where IRS was occasionally seizing some billionaire's entire life savings for cause, the proceeds would fund the federal government's operations for just a few hours. Hours! No amount of collected taxes make a difference when congress spends 2-3x what they collect!
This was done to ensure the IRS cannot audit the very rich. That works because the auditing the rich is very expensive and you need highly skilled Auditors for that.
So, this is working as planned by Trump.
But it is "profitable".
It is one of the very few things the government does that generates short-term "profits" - every dollar spent auditing the rich and collecting from them generates more money than is spent, and we have never been close to break-even.
If you truly want to run the government like a business, increasing funding to IRS audits and collections is one of the hallmarks of what you would do.
EDIT: a lot of what the government does, and it should be everything the government does, is profitable, but it's more like "we spend this money, it increases GDP on some timescale, and then we get more taxes from it". This is short-term because it is more direct. The IRS audits bring in more tax revenue quite directly.
This isn't just a Trump thing, it's a Republican party thing.
Meanwhile, even in an alternate reality where IRS was occasionally seizing some billionaire's entire life savings for cause, the proceeds would fund the federal government's operations for just a few hours. Hours! No amount of collected taxes make a difference when congress spends 2-3x what they collect!
It's tragic how well this fucking strategy keeps working in this country.