WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) today joined a group of her Republican colleagues in discussing the proposed expansion of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in the Democrats’ spending bill that would provide $80 billion in additional funding to the agency for tens of thousands of additional enforcement agents, and audits of small businesses and individuals across the country.
HIGHLIGHTS:
WHAT THE IRS NEEDS VS WHAT IT DOESN’T: “I was also the funder for the IRS when I was chair of that subcommittee in Appropriations. This is what the IRS needs: their computer system was created in 1962. They’re writing off of old code. So they do need improvements, but they do not need $80 billion worth of agents knocking on everybody’s door.”
IRS APPROVAL RATINGS, HISTORY: “The IRS, and I guess this is no surprise, has a 37% approval rating among the American people and has that history of targeting not just organizations, but individuals by using their power.”
COST, HEADACHES HARMFUL TO SMALL BUSINESSES: “When you look at small businesses, we have 113,000 small businesses in West Virginia that would be impacted by this…the invasion of privacy into individuals and small businesses is something that we hear about every day, and I think would devastate our economies. And think of the cost that this is going to be to small businesses. Not only just being audited, but the time and energy and money it takes to answer…When you saw the average amount of recouped tax in some of the smaller businesses in some of the lower incomes, it’s $20, $25. It’s going to cost them thousands of dollars to be able to answer this.”
BIDEN’S BROKEN PROMISE: “Many of you know that I started the physical infrastructure negotiations with the president. We tried to get him to help us do a fee…something on electric vehicles since they pay no gasoline taxes. ‘No, no, no, we can’t do anything that would impact anybody making under $400,000 a year.’ This hits right at the belly of those small businesses and individuals.”