Daniel Pilla writes about the prospects of more audits by the IRS:

In a letter to members of the United States Senate, Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Charles Rettig did his part to carry water for the Biden administration’s push for $80 billion in new funding to his agency. Rettig argued that the IRS does not have “the resources that it needs to ensure the tax laws are enforced fairly and that Americans receive the level and quality of service they deserve.” On the heels of this plea, the Senate passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which the president signed on August 16, 2022.
The IRS will get its $80 billion. Nearly $46 billion is going to enforcement. With that, the agency intends to hire nearly 87,000 new employees over ten years, the same window of time over which the $80 billion will be spread. (For context, the agency currently has about 82,000 employees. And so there is no way that, with normal attrition and retirement over ten years, the IRS will end up with a doubling of its workforce in that time.) The commissioner’s letter provides a glimpse into the administration’s thinking when it comes to tax policy generally, and IRS enforcement in particular. It isn’t encouraging.

Read the whole thing here.