Originally published via Armageddon Prose Substack:
One might recall — if one strains oneself reaching back all the way in ancient history to a year and a half ago — the Brandon entity and its various handlers pledging that the new 80,000-strong army of IRS agents it procured funding for would only be targeting the ultra-rich.
Peruse the following letter, dated August 2022, from the Secretary of Treasury, infamous floppy-titted wildebeest Janet Yellen, to IRS Commissioner Rettig:
“The Inflation Reduction Act includes much-needed funding for the IRS to improve taxpayer service, modernize outdated technological infrastructure, and increase equity in the tax system by enforcing the tax laws against those high-earners, large corporations, and complex partnerships who today do not pay what they owe.
These crucial investments have been a focus of the Biden Administration since the President’s first day in office, and I was heartened to see the legislation pass the Senate this weekend.
Notwithstanding the changes that arose because of Republican challenges during the Byrd process, I write today to confirm the commitment that has been a guiding precept of the planning that you and your team are undertaking: that audit rates will not rise relative to recent years for households making under $400,000 annually. Specifically, I direct that any additional resources—including any new personnel or auditors that are hired—shall not be used to increase the share of small business or households below the $400,000 threshold that are audited relative to historical levels.
This means that, contrary to the misinformation from opponents of this legislation, small business or households earning $400,000 per year or less will not see an increase in the chances that they are audited.”
A year and a half later…
Via Wall Street Journal:
“The Internal Revenue Service got an audit of its own in time for Tax Day, and two irregularities jump out. President Biden’s plan to hire a new army of tax collectors is falling flat, and the agents already at work are targeting the middle class.
Those are two findings of the IRS’s watchdog, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (Tigta). The report examines IRS progress on mandates from the Biden Administration backed by tens of billions in new funding. The first supposed goal was to audit more ultrawealthy and fewer middle-class filers, but it’s not going so well.
By last December the IRS decided that it wouldn’t begin tracking its progress until later this year. That’s because the agency has been slow to shift its focus to high-income taxpayers, who make up a small share of total filings. Its April 2023 strategic plan pledged that future audits would disproportionately target individuals making at least $400,000, but “did not include specifics on how the IRS was going to ensure it met this commitment,” says Tigta.
The most recent data suggests the IRS is still focused on the middle class. As of last summer, 63% of new audits targeted taxpayers with income of less than $200,000. Only a small overall share reached the very highest earners, while 80% of audits covered filers earning less than $1 million. Don’t forget to save those charitable-giving receipts.”
Why, who ever heard of a government lying about its intentions to push through nefarious legislation?
Slap me silly and call me Suzy!
The obvious reasons for targeting the working and middle classes via IRS lawfare and leaving the upper crust untouched (save for those who step out of line like Donald Trump), even though they almost by definition commit the lion’s share of tax fraud per capita, are multi-fold:
- The ultra-wealthy have themselves sleazy accountants and lawyers — often recruited from inside the belly of the IRS beast to cash in post-“public service” — whose basic job is to make collecting unpaid taxes difficult
- The ultra-wealthy de facto write the laws by various machinations — but not for free. In return, they enjoy the privilege of keeping their well-heeled corporate state bureaucrats on a tight leash; their dogs don’t bite the hand that feeds
- Digging around in the finances of the ultra-elite is sure to uncover malfeasance that implicates not just private actors but government actors as well, like which Senator might have been buying children from Jeffrey Epstein, for instance. It’s a mutual interest thing for all parties involved to not go looking for what one does not want to find
The moral of the story here is that it turns out the accurate prediction that the new IRS battalion would be weaponized against the peasants was not “misinformation,” as Janet Yellen characterized it, but rather “malinformation” — true information that simply ran counter to state interests and therefore must be rebuked.
Related: ‘Malinformation’: The Newest Weapon in the Censorship Regime’s Arsenal
Ben Bartee, author of Broken English Teacher: Notes From Exile, is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs.
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