Wednesday, Jul. 17, 2024
Did Joe Biden hire ‘85,000 new IRS agents to harass hard-working Americans’?
In May 2021, the Biden administration approved hiring 87,000 new Internal Revenue Service employees by 2031, but only a fraction are agents and the majority are filling expected vacancies.
Tennesse Sen. Marsha Blackburn said in a speech at the RNC, Biden has hired 85,000 new IRS agents to “harrass hardworking Americans.”
But more than half of the agency’s current employees are eligible for retirement and are expected to leave the agency within the next five years. The IRS will be able to net 20,000 to 30,000 more employees from the new funding.
In 2022, among the IRS’ work force of 79,000 employees, 10,000 are actually agents. Within that, 8,000 are revenue agents who audit tax filings and 2,000 investigate potential tax crimes.
The IRS announced Thursday, it collected $1 billion in back taxes from wealthy tax cheats, through the Biden administration’s tax package signed in 2022.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Sources
- CBS News Americans think they pay too much in taxes. Here's who pays the most and least to the IRS.
- Time Why Republicans Keep Spreading the ‘87,000 IRS Agents’ Lie
- Internal Revenue Service Inflation Reduction Act of 2022
- New York Times Fact-Checking the Misleading Claim About 87,000 Tax Agents
- ABC News IRS collects milestone $1 billion in back taxes from high-wealth taxpayers
About fact briefs
Fact briefs are bite-sized, well-sourced explanations that offer clear "yes" or "no" answers to questions, confusions, and unsupported claims circulating online. They rely on publicly available data and documents, often from the original source. Fact briefs are written and published by Gigafact contributor publications.
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