The Honorable Congressman Cline:

I disagree with you and your fellow Republicans' plan to defund the proposed new IRS agents mentioned in the President’s State of the Union message.

The 87,000 new IRS employees that President Biden has proposed under the Inflation Reduction Act are to replace the agency’s loss of personnel through previous attrition and to address the expected needs over the next 10 years. They will be processing the backlog of returns that have piled up because of budget funding cuts over more than 10 years. The audits are to be targeting those earning over $400,000 annually, not most middle-income folks.

This income is needed to help reduce the deficit that Republicans are so concerned about.

We can reduce spending, but a large population and ever-evolving economy needs a baseline amount of government spending and support for the greater good and ongoing national prosperity. Funding the IRS for modernization and additional personnel pays for itself tenfold by collecting the revenue already owed under the current tax code.

These additional IRS personnel should come as welcome relief to all taxpayers – they will help the agency run more effectively and securely, offer better taxpayer interactions with the agency, and recover chronically evaded revenue by tax cheats. As a law-abiding taxpayer I find it ludicrous and dishonest that any elected official would try to overturn this legislation. Take a stand for taxpayer support and taxpayer accountability and fund the IRS as legislated in the Inflation Reduction Act.

Mary Martin, Boyce