Press Releases

After a week of Republican chaos, confusion and crisis, their first messaging bill shows they can’t run the risk of a stronger, fairer tax administration.

It’s bad for their donors and even bad for their own leader. This isn’t about middle class families or small businesses. It’s about Republicans putting their own political interests ahead of the country’s.

The American people know this scheme. It’s a two-tier tax system. Wage workers follow the rules while wealthy billionaires and corporations skirt their responsibilities. That’s what the Republicans have built.

Under their control, IRS funding has been stagnant, staffing levels have dropped, and far too many continue to get away with not paying their fair share.

Last year alone, $160 billion went unpaid from the top 1 percent. Yearly, we lose out on an estimated $600 billion in unpaid taxes. Over the next decade, this will cost our country an estimated $7 trillion. To put that in perspective, that’s about 3 percent of our GDP or ALL of the income taxes paid by the lowest earning 90 percent of taxpayers.

What could this money fund? The American people’s priorities.

The Child Tax Credit.

Universal Paid Family and Medical Leave.

Bringing down health care costs.

But instead, the Republicans want to look out for their own. Audit rates among millionaires have declined by 70% since 2010.

Low-income workers receiving the Earned Income Tax Credit are audited more often than taxpayers making over $1 million a year.

Just last week, the Ways and Means Committee uncovered that even in a mandatory program, if you are a wealthy taxpayer, you are held to a different set of standards.

It was also found that a former president of the United States paid more in foreign taxes than domestic. What kind of Commitment to America is that?

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and the Republican-appointed former IRS Commissioner both agreed. This funding would not change IRS’s treatment of taxpayers making less than 400,000. Rather, it would bolster IRS’s ability to hold the wealthiest taxpayers accountable.

Republicans have yet again put politics over the people, and I urge my colleagues to see right through this legislation, and vote no.

###