Democrats Push Back Against IRS Budget Cuts

While President Trump’s budget proposal includes $239 million in cuts to the IRS, Democrats are pushing back with a request of their own for the tax-collecting agency.

Forty-eight Democrats signed onto a letter that was sent to the House Appropriations financial-services subcommittee, requesting a $12.9 billion boost to the IRS for fiscal 2018.

“The decline in taxpayer service and enforcement and the instability of underlying IT systems that support them threaten to undercut the basic voluntary compliance fabric of our tax system,” the letter stated.

“An increase in funding for the IRS will reverse the short-sighted and damaging budget cuts which have increased our national debt, left the IRS ill-equipped to combat refund errors and fraud, drastically reduced taxpayer services, dangerously reduced audits, and limits the IRS’s ability to implement new laws passed by Congress.”

During his confirmation hearing, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin noted the continuous cuts to the agency’s budget, stating, “I don’t think there’s any other government agency that has gone down 30 percent, and especially for an agency that collects revenues, this is something that I’m concerned about.”