GOP Senators Want More IRS Spending Oversight

Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID), ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee, this week urged the Treasury Department to detail its plans for how the IRS will spend $80 billion in new funding it received through the Inflation Reduction Act signed into law this summer.

Congressional Republicans have railed against the additional IRS funding, more than half of which is earmarked for increased enforcement efforts. Under the Inflation Reduction Act, $25 billion in funding will go toward operational support, nearly $5 billion will go toward upgrading technology and $3 billion will be used to enhance taxpayer services.

“The recent boost of nearly $80 billion in supplemental funding for the IRS is devoted disproportionately to enforcement, and likewise disproportionately lacks emphasis on oversight and the need for IRS accountability and transparency to all Americans,” Crapo and other GOP senators wrote this week. “Taxpayer services and oversight, unfortunately for taxpayers, received disproportionately little attention.”

House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who is poised to become speaker if Republicans win back the House in the November elections, has said the first bill Republicans would advance in the House next year would repeal funding for hiring more Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employees.