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Floor Speech
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Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, as I am out and about across Tennessee, one thing I continue to hear from many Tennesseans and our small business owners is that one of the things they find very frightening is an IRS audit.
Now, for a lot of our small business owners, when they talk about this, they mention how time-consuming it is and how it means sleepless nights and financial uncertainty and needless harassment because they are all working hard, and they are trying to comply with the law.
As of last year--and I find this so very interesting. As of last year, nearly two-thirds of the IRS audits targeted Americans who were making less than $200,000, but in a misguided effort to fund the Biden- Harris administration's trillions in inflationary spending, the IRS recently doubled down on its pledge to ramp up audits on American taxpayers. We all know the administration had said no audits on taxpayers who are earning under $400,000, but bear in mind, two- thirds--two-thirds--of those audits were on taxpayers earning less than $200,000.
Regularly, when I am doing meetings in our 95 counties, I will hear from small business owners, farmers, and independent contractors all across the State who are worried about being targeted by the IRS. This is the same Agency that received $80 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act, which was brought to us by this Biden-Harris administration--$80 billion to go out and hire 87,000 new agents.
While IRS Commissioner Werfel recently promised that there would be ``no new wave of audits coming from middle- and low-income'' Americans--and that is a direct quote from him--a new report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration confirms that Tennesseans do have a reason to be concerned. Although the Treasury Department directed the IRS to exclude Americans making less than $400,000 each year from increased audit rates, the report found that the IRS has no plan to make this happen. You heard me right. Treasury directed the IRS to exclude those Americans making less than $400,000, but the Agency has absolutely no plan for how they are going to do that.
For example, they are using a novel definition of ``taxpayers' earnings''--it is ``total positive income.'' This phrasing has no statutory definition. According to the IRS, the term refers to ``the sum of all positive amounts shown for the various sources of income reported on an individual income tax return and, thus, excludes losses.''
To be sure, the confusing definition raises more questions than it answers: Will a small business owner or farmer be subject to more audits if his revenue exceeds $400,000 even if his profit is much less than that? Will a married couple with a household income of $400,000 face the same audit rate as a single person with the same income?
For months on the Senate Finance Committee, I pressed Commissioner Werfel and other Biden-Harris officials for answers, but time and again, they have failed to provide satisfactory explanations.
While disturbing, this lack of clarity should come as no surprise. The IG report found that the IRS has failed to define ``small business'' under the directive and develop a methodology for enforcing the $400,000 threshold, all while lacking basic documentation and transparency about its audit plan--there again, no plan.
In short, the Biden-Harris IRS is preparing to shake down Main Street, all while claiming to focus on tax cheats and millionaires and billionaires.
No doubt, the IRS audit plan is just the latest example of this administration's disastrous tax-and-spend agenda, which has seen our national debt increase by more than $7 trillion while pushing up prices across the board by 20 percent in less than 4 years. That is right. The current inflation rate from the time Joe Biden took office until today is actually 20.3 percent.
Unfortunately, this administration has forgotten a simple fact: Hard- working Tennesseans and Americans do best when they have more money in their pocketbooks, not less. With its reckless audit plan, the Biden- Harris IRS is doing its best to ensure that they take more money out of your pocket.
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