The Inflation Reduction Act (which apparently has nothing to do with inflation) included $79.6 billion more dollars for the IRS over the next 10 years. This has created a lot of commotion along the lines that IRS auditors are going to be everywhere.
Let me point out a few things that should reduce anybody’s anxiety over this concern:
- The spending increase is over the next 10 years during which the baby boomers in the IRS are retiring in record numbers.
- Currently, the IRS has some 8,000 revenue agents. The headcount 10 years ago was 13,000 and in the mid-1990s it was over 15,000. The expected new hirers will bring the levels of revenue agents up to about 17,000 at the end of the 10 years.
- Training new agents will take close to one year and will require the IRS to remove some of their better agents from the field. This means everyday people are not going to see any expansion of IRS audits for the next several years.
- The federal government has rarely demonstrated the ability to be effective at anything it does. The IRS is no exception and can’t even answer their own phones.
The idea that IRS auditors are going to be banging on everybody’s door is very much overblown.
