The Internal Revenue Service isn’t saying how it will spend all of its new $80 billion windfall from Congress, but the political shenanigans over a proposed new IRS tax filing system aren’t cause for comfort. The agency is employing progressives to study how to make the tax collector the first and last arbiter of how much Americans owe.
Most of the $80 billion will go to turbocharging audits, but the Inflation Reduction Act also earmarked $15 million to study a bad idea. Progressives led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren want to create what they call a “free direct efile tax return system,” which would put the agency in charge of both calculating and auditing taxes. This would end America’s longtime voluntary system that lets taxpayers determine their tax, subject to IRS review. The law instructed the IRS to hire an “independent third party” to examine the idea.
