Michael R. Strain, Columnist

Defund the Tax Police? Republicans Better Not

It’s fiscally irresponsible and morally suspect for GOP lawmakers to block IRS enforcement financing.

July 26, 2021 at 12:30 PM UTC

Michael R. Strain is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is director of economic policy studies and Arthur F. Burns Scholar in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of “The American Dream Is Not Dead: (But Populism Could Kill It).”

Assist the IRS.
Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

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By refusing to adequately fund the Internal Revenue Service, congressional Republicans are leaving hundreds of billions of dollars on the table each year and undermining the rule of law. Congress should give the IRS enough money to ensure that individuals and businesses pay what they owe.

The Treasury Department estimates that in 2019, taxpayers failed to file returns owing $52 billion, and that the IRS received $512 billion less than taxpayers owed due to underreported income. All told, the department estimates that the gap between federal taxes owed and taxes voluntarily paid on time amounted to $630 billion that year, in line with the annual tax gap over the past decade.