I haven't mentioned the defunding of the Internal Revenue Service nearly enough on here. Like a lot of topics, it gets lost in the midst of the greater conflagrations we live within.
But check out these two bits of summary information I grabbed from a recent MSNBC show (I think it was All In with Chris Hayes, but I'm not sure):
Yes, the number of audits of millionaires has dropped to almost a quarter of what it was in 2012, and there are more millionaires now than there were in 2012, in case you were wondering. So per capita of millionaires, it's even worse.
The upshot of those lost IRS staff and audits: "it would not be outlandish to believe that the actual tax gap could approach and possibly exceed one trillion dollars per year."
I have posted a few times over the years about cuts to the IRS, and it's easy to see the techniques used by the Right to undermine the institution and get us to this point. First there was the "IRS staff going on luxury training trips" accusation. Then there was the "IRS is biased against conservative groups" gambit a few years later.
As multiple people have pointed out, Republicans are all for defunding the police when the police are the IRS.
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