Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) chairs the Senate Budget Committee, where the slim Democratic majority is pushing for real IRS reform that would enable the nation’s revenue collector to target tax evaders in the upper income levels.
It’s the government’s failure to collect appropriate and commensurate taxes at the top income tier that has tilted the burden of funding America to the 99 percent, even as the one percent grows richer and more powerful.
Pushing the hashtag #wealthytaxcheats on social media, the Senate Budget Committee is fighting to level the tax playing field through auditing and enforcement. Sens. Whitehouse, Wyden, Sanders, Stabenow, et al aren’t attempting to alter the law or enact change that makes the rich pay a greater tax percentage — they are instead pushing to give the IRS the tools to collect revenue from wealthy individuals and corporations that the existing law already compels them to pay — but which they find ways not to.
[NOE: By way of contrast, tax-the-rich advocate and Disney heiress Abigail Disney is lobbying to raise the tax rates on the rich to previous levels.]
The Senate Budget Committee’s Democratic lawmakers want to clamp down on the wealthy’s current ability to elide their tax responsibilities through sophisticated lawyering and a paucity of enforcement by an IRS that doesn’t have the wherewithal (the teeth) to combat the “wealthy cheats.”
Committee member Sen. Jeff Merkley shared testimony by Yale University Professor of Law & Finance Dr. Natasha Sarin, who said the U.S. is being hurt two ways because the wealthy aren’t abiding by the law.
“When we fail to hold #WealthyTaxCheats accountable, we make our system less fair for all,” Merkley captioned his post.
When we fail to hold #WealthyTaxCheats accountable, we make our system less fair for all. pic.twitter.com/rxkCGBZAxa
— Senator Jeff Merkley (@SenJeffMerkley) November 19, 2023
Dr. Sarin says the damage the wealthy tax cheats cause is twofold. First, there is the sheer economic damage. Second is that a pervasive sense of unfairness in the system is toxic to the functioning of democracy, in which fairness lies at the heart.
MIT economics professor Dr. Nathaniel Hendren testified to the nuts and bolts advantages of increasing the IRS’s ability to target the wealthy, saying that his research shows $12 in recovered funds from the “from the very wealthy for every $1 spent auditing them.”
We can recover $12 from the very wealthy for every $1 spent auditing them.@nhendren82 breaks down new research showing the IMMENSE return on investment of holding #WealthyTaxCheats accountable. pic.twitter.com/zpEMKAED05
— Senate Budget Committee (@SenateBudget) November 16, 2023
