The IRS calls for more employees to bolster audit capabilities – By Jessie Bur (The Federal Times) / May 22 2021
The Biden administration’s American Families Plan — released in late April and designed to fund educational opportunities and support families’ childcare needs — will rely on the IRS being able to significantly expand its workforce, according to the tax compliance agenda released by the Department of Treasury on Thursday.
That agenda notes that declining budgets and a shrinking workforce have meant that the IRS has been unable to fully audit and pursue individuals and companies that are not fully paying their taxes, causing the federal government as a whole to lose out on a portion of the revenue it should be taking in.
“In real terms, the IRS’s overall budget declined by 18.5 percent between FY 2010 and FY 2021. The IRS’s enforcement budget decreased by 15 percent over this time period, leading to a 20 percent decline in the IRS workforce. These losses have been most significant for revenue officers who collect taxes (50 percent decrease) and revenue agents who audit complex returns (35 percent decrease),” the report states.
“Today, the IRS has fewer auditors than at any time since World War II. As experienced employees have retired, the IRS has been unable to replace departing workers with new revenue officers and with agents of comparable training and skills necessary to pursue the most complicated noncompliance cases.”
