For Immediate Release
Monday, July 19, 2021
Contact: Sam Quigley
sam@patrioticmillionaires.org
Patriotic Millionaires: GOP Stripping IRS Funding from Infrastructure Bill is “Deeply Disappointing and Utterly Unsurprising”
“The conservative establishment has spent the last 10 years deliberately underfunding the IRS so their wealthy donors could get away with paying as little tax as possible”
Washington, DC – Yesterday, Senator Rob Portman announced that increased IRS funding has been taken off of the table as a funding mechanism for the bipartisan infrastructure deal. This pullback from the working group’s previous funding agreement comes in response to pressure from conservative anti-tax advocacy groups and donors. In response, Stephen Prince, Vice Chair of the Patriotic Millionaires and owner of National Business Products, Inc., issued the following statement:
“This decision is deeply disappointing and utterly unsurprising. The IRS is in desperate need of increased enforcement capacity, with the gap between what is owed to the US government and what is actually paid expected to reach up to $7 trillion over the next decade, but Senate Republicans have once again decided to protect wealthy tax cheats at all costs.
Their decision to throw a wrench in the bipartisan infrastructure bill by backing out of funding mechanisms that had already been agreed upon is entirely consistent with the last decade of Republican priorities. The conservative establishment has spent the last 10 years deliberately underfunding the IRS so their wealthy donors could get away with paying as little tax as possible.
The vast majority of Americans file simple tax returns that computers can analyze and approve. The complex ones that wealthy Americans file, on the other hand, must be analyzed by actual IRS agents. Without the funds to provide those agents, the chances of our incredibly complicated returns ever being reviewed are practically zero.
Imagine living in a state where the police force has cars that will only go 100 miles per hour, and rich people have cars that can all go 150 or more. The police can’t even think about catching us, so who do they chase? Everyone else.
It’s time for the media to stop treating Republican claims of fiscal responsibility as credible when they aggressively fight at every opportunity to allow billionaires and corporations to get away with hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of illegal tax evasion. They pretend to care about the debt, yet ignore the fact that every dollar spent on tax enforcement yields up to ten dollars in increased revenue. This is an inexcusable failure of one of the most basic tasks of good governance, and should be treated as such.”
For further comments or questions, please contact Sam Quigley at sam@patrioticmillionaires.org.