Non sequitur is Latin for “it doesn’t follow.” Cutting the IRS budget while claiming to want to reduce the federal deficit is a non sequitur. Or, to put it in the vernacular, “doesn’t make a lick of sense.”
Non-partisan studies show that every dollar the Internal Revenue Service spends for audits, liens and seizing property brings in more than $10 to the treasury. This 10-to-one ratio of recovery to spending has prompted the administration to increase its IRS budget request.
Not on your life, Republicans respond. The House already has voted to cut the current IRS budget by $600 million this year and wants an even bigger cut next year.
Do the math. A $600 million reduction will reduce tax collections by at least $4 billion, according to IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman. Wouldn’t it make more sense to increase the IRS staff and collect more from the crooks and deadbeats who will avoid paying what they owe unless someone goes after them?
Because the IRS budget was boosted last year, collection of past-due accounts amounted to $57.6 billion. Much of this came in from levies and liens issued against taxpayer property and asset seizures. It takes employees to implement such actions. If the budget is cut, the staff will be reduced, collections will fall.
(The IRS staff was increased under President Obama from 91,000 in 2008 to 100,500 this year. The other part of that story is that the bureau had 117,000 employees in 1992 — 19 years ago — and hired more in 2000, when the budget was balanced.)
But don’t harsh collection policies amount to harassment? Well, yes. But the only people being “harassed” are those who owe more than $10,000 in unpaid taxes and have ignored IRS notices. The plain fact is that when tax cheaters get away with cheating, the national debt rises along with the interest bill — and every American is worse off.
SO CAN’T REPUBLICANS do math? Sure they can. In this case, however, they have their eyes fixed on a different target. They want to weaken the IRS because it is due to play an important role in the implementation of the health care program.
The IRS will administer the tax credits for businesses that provide health insurance for their employees, as well as credits individuals will earn when they buy coverage for themselves.
The IRS also would be the agency that would enforce the requirement that everyone have health insurance coverage starting in 2014.
Republicans have pledged to repeal the health care law or do everything they can to sabotage its implementation. Cutting the IRS budget falls under the fall-back part of that political promise.
Making the president look bad by putting roadblocks in the path of his prize program is more important, on the Republican scale of values, than reducing the deficit. From that perspective, attacking the IRS is a logical tactic — even if it does reward tax cheaters and drive up the deficit.
But is it something to be proud of?
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
