PrairiePundit

 CLG News: The IRS reportedly plans to cut half of its 90,000 workforce When I was a student at the University of Texas Law School I lived in an apartment complex right next to a huge IRS facility in Austin.  I suspect there were other such facilities around the country. And: DOD says it’s found $80 million in waste to trim from Pentagon budget with help from DOGE

 Red State: Buh-Bye! Trump Admin Closing 110 IRS Offices, Nobody Sad Except DC Bureaucrats and Biden Sycophants ...   The failed Biden administration felt that the agency should be expanded so they could further hassle you, but the Trump Team—along with Elon Musk and the DOGE—have a different plan and have been busy scaling back our bloated federal bureaucracy: The U.S. DOGE Service, which has led the Trump administration’s cost-cutting efforts, has established a  strong foothold  in the GSA and other agencies. The GSA is working with federal agencies to “fully optimize the federal footprint,” acting press secretary Will Powell said. “We’ll share more information on specific savings and facilities as soon as we’re able.” The IRS in recent years opened more assistance centers as part of a push to improve customer service using additional funding made available through the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. [ Editor's note: The ridiculously named "Inflation Reduction Act" w...

 The Federalist Wire: A staffer from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) reportedly arrived Thursday at the headquarters of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to review the agency’s operations, sources told Reuters. Gavin Kliger, the DOGE aide, reportedly requested a description of what each IRS business unit does, what it plans to deliver in the next 90 days and what risks each unit currently faces, according to the outlet, citing two people familiar with the matter. It is unclear whether Klinger accessed any IRS systems, but sources told CNN he was just “getting a lay of the land at the moment.” “The Internal Revenue Service will be looked at like everybody else. Just about everybody’s going to be looked at. They’re doing a hell of a job. It’s an amazing job they’re doing,” President Donald Trump told reporters Thursday. He clarified he does not plan to “close” the IRS. “That force he’s building — I call it ‘the force of super-geniuses’ … They’re very smart p...

 American Action News: Republican Florida Rep. Byron Donalds said Friday on Newsmax that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is getting a taste of its own medicine as the Trump administration launches a full-scale audit. Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency aide Gavin Kliger visited the IRS headquarters Thursday to assess the agency’s operations and review future plans and risks of each business unit. In an appearance on “Rob Schmitt Tonight,” Donalds said he applauds DOGE’s initiative as overdue accountability. “If this is the only thing that gets accomplished, it’ll be mission accomplished for Donald Trump and for his team because for far too long the IRS has had no problem peering into the books of every American, rich or poor, middle-income America,” Donalds said. “They love doing this stuff. But it’s time for them to be held accountable to make sure that everything that they’re paying for is fully accounted for.” Donalds also criticized the Democrats, suggesting th...

 DC Daily Journal: Joe Biden apparently believes that Americans are not paying enough in taxes.  While he says he is targeting people making over $400,000 a year there is no assurance that the IRS will limit its increased audits to those taxpayers.

 Warner Todd Huston: Joe Biden and his left-wing party insisted that bloating the IRS’s budget with an $80 billion bump would bring in a massive return in taxes from “the rich.” Well, so far, they have lied. Not only are they not exactly targeting “the rich,” but they also haven’t even recovered 1/16th of their budget in missing taxes. The IRS recently boasted that it has recovered an additional $360 million in taxes from “the rich” with billions in new budget dollars. They bragged that the agency’s enhanced enforcement ability, aided by that monstrous budget bump of $80 billion (yes, billion with a “b”), has been a great boon to the federal treasury. The IRS is claiming that it has been able to squeeze out an additional $360 million in taxes. ... Let’s just look at the Return on Investment (ROI) here, shall we? We, the people, just put a hefty $80 BILLION into the IRS, and they got us an ROI of $360 million in taxes. That tax take isn’t even a 1/16th of the bloated bump in the IRS...

 Daily Caller: Biden IRS Launches Audit Into Conservative Org That Helped Tank Nominees For Key Administration Posts ...  “This sudden request by the IRS is not random,” AAF President Tom Jones stated. “The IRS is demanding ‘[c]orrespondence files, emails and information posted on a website that relates to current public elected officials’ – clearly a sign that they are targeting our research and education activities. It’s a deliberate attempt to punish and suppress AAF’s activities. It is surely no coincidence that AAF—the very organization that exposed the weaponization of the IRS—is now the target of it.” ... The group has been critical of several Biden nominees leading them to withdraw. 

  BizPacReview: A new report has been issued by the official watchdog of the Internal Revenue Service unsurprisingly admitting that the $80 billion given to the IRS by the Biden administration potentially means more audits for average Americans. The watchdog claims the audits will occur if the IRS doesn’t take immediate action to prevent it and there is little indication they are inclined to do so. “Last year, the Inflation Reduction Act — which was not actually designed to reduce inflation — gave the IRS $80 billion in new funding. That funding would be used to hire 87,000 new agents over the next decade and to increase tax enforcement,” TheBlaze reported. “In response to criticism from Americans of all political views , the Biden administration promised that none of the money would be used to increase the number of audits on American households or small businesses earning less than $400,000 per year,” the media outlet continued. ... That is apparently turning out to be yet ano...

 Washington Examiner: Internal Revenue Service auditors continue to target middle-income earners despite promises by the president and his team to turn agents loose on those earning $400,000 and higher. Its budget swelled $80 billion by Democrats hopeful of exposing fraud by the rich, a new audit shows that agents are still mostly chasing down families and businesses with incomes of $200,000 or less, half the president’s promised target. What’s more, the Treasury inspector general report said that the IRS hasn’t even expanded auditor training to help new agents uncover the more sophisticated tricks used by higher-income earners to dodge taxes. “Our analysis disclosed no significant increase in the number of high-income individual return audits,” said the inspector general. ... There are likely to be political consequences for misleading voters about IRS targets. 

 Breitbart: ... The allegations include: 1. According to the informant, during a meeting he had in Ukraine with Burisma executives in late 2016 or 2016, a top Burisma official named Vadim Pojarskii said Burisma had hired Hunter Biden to “protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems.” 2. Two months after the first Burisma meeting, the CHS and another associate had a meeting with Zlochevsky at an outside coffee shop. When the CHS told Zlochevsky that Shokin’s investigation would have an “substantial negative impact” on his company’s prospective IPO in the United States, Zlochevsky replied something to the effect of “Don’t worry Hunter will take care of all of those issues through his dad.” 3. The meeting with Zlochevsky took place around the time Vice President Joe Biden “made a public statement about (former) Ukraine Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin being corrupt, and that he should be fired/removed from office.” 4. Zlochevsky told the CHS, “it took 5 (million) to pay one...

 Clarice Feldman: We have seen for some time how off-the-rails the FBI has become, a danger to a free society. More and more evidence now shows it’s not just the FBI. Every federal employee with a badge and gun seems to think he’s a law unto himself. This week the spotlight is on the IRS, and the Congress has to step up and rein the agency in. While Matt Taibbi was testifying before Congress on the administration’s extensive censoring of social media content, the IRS  appeared at his door , ostensibly to question him about his taxes, but obviously to intimidate him for showing up government censorship. Mr. Taibbi has told Mr. Jordan’s committee that an IRS agent showed up at his personal residence in New Jersey on March 9. That happens to be the same day Mr. Taibbi testified before the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government about what he learned about Twitter. The taxman left a note instructing Mr. Taibbi to call the IRS four days later. Mr. Ta...

 Just the News: New IRS whistleblower letter suggests DOJ interference in Hunter Biden probe dates back years The allegation was made in a May 20 whistleblower letter to IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel. ... The SSA came forward in late April, alleging that federal prosecutors had engaged in "preferential treatment and politics" to prevent charges from being filed against Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden. The whistleblower further alleged that his entire team had been sidelined after he made protected disclosures. He also asserted that Biden appointees had limited the ability of Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss to pursue charges against his son by refusing to grant Weiss permission do so within their jurisdictions. That claim appeared to undercut testimony from Attorney General Merrick Garland, who had contended that Weiss enjoyed full freedom to pursue the investigation and to bring charges in another jurisdiction should the need arise. ... It is more than passi...

 Just the News: Two different whistleblowers from two separate law enforcement agencies in two separate high-profile criminal cases are raising a disturbing new question for Congress: Is the Biden administration seeking to squash those who report wrongdoing or challenge its official narratives? Just 24 hours apart, the plights of a decorated FBI intelligence analyst and a decorated supervisory IRS agent burst onto the national scene with detailed accounts alleging they have endured retaliation and reprisal for blowing the whistle. The publicly unnamed IRS agent – once a star on the Swiss bank tax evasion cases that stunned the world – was unceremoniously dumped along with his entire team from the Hunter Biden tax probe just a few weeks after alleging there was Justice Department political interference in the high-profile matter, his lawyers reported to Congress. The removal stunned lawmakers who just a week ago won assurance from the IRS chief there would be no reprisals. It also s...

 Margot Cleveland: 6 Reasons The IRS Whistleblower Will Blow Open DOJ’s Biden Family Protection Racket  The IRS whistleblower should terrify those behind the DOJ’s Biden family protection racket. I suspect the DOJ was protecting the Biden family during the campaign because they wanted to defeat Trump.  Now that they have Biden as president along with the disasters Biden created they should be ashamed enough to enforce the law. 

 NY Post: IRS whistleblower alleges cover-up of Hunter Biden tax evasion in bombshell letter to Congress ... A lawyer for the official told a group of congressional committee leaders Wednesday that he wants to expose “preferential treatment” and false testimony to Congress by a “senior political appointee.” The unnamed whistleblower is “a career IRS Criminal Supervisory Special Agent who has been overseeing the ongoing and sensitive investigation of a high-profile, controversial subject since early 2020,” attorney Mark Lytle wrote to nine members of Congress. ... “My client has already made legally protected disclosures internally at the IRS, through counsel to the US Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, and to the Department of Justice, Office of Inspector General. The protected disclosures: (1) contradict sworn testimony to Congress by a senior political appointee, (2) involve failure to mitigate clear conflicts of interest in the ultimate disposition of the case, a...

 Fox Business: Twitter users erupt at IRS's calls for thieves to report stolen income: 'Good to know' Some users asked if getaway cars and ski masks are eligible deductibles ... "The IRS be like: Get money wherever you can, but I need my cut!" one Twitter user said. "This is the best thing I've learned in a while," an amused commentator wrote. ... "Does anyone know if you can deduct costs for the getaway car, masks, etc?" one user said. "In what section do you disclose that you are cheating on your tax return? Asking for a friend," another asked. ... The IRS says it does not turn over the reports of income from crime to the police. 

 Victor Davis Hanson: For much of 2017 through 2021, Americans suffered the “bombshell” and “walls are closing” mythologies first of Russian collusion, then of supposedly vast Russian social media investments to sabotage the election. From there we moved on to the Alfa Bank ping-pong fable, the supposed Putin bounties on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan that Trump was said to have ignored and, of course, the idea that Hunter’s laptop was just “Russian disinformation.” These were journalistic sins of commission, warping the news cycle to advance ideological agendas and win elections. There emerged, however, other real landmines of omission—things the media deliberately ignores, but have the potential to go off and blow up a presidency. Taxes Paid by Mr. 10 Percent? Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) mocks the Hunter Biden laptop scandal of a “half-fake” laptop. Yet such puerile flippancy only confirmed her own trademark arrogance and ignorance. Is she claiming the laptop wa...

 Daniel Greenfield: Last year, bills to stop funding non-profits that help illegal aliens enter this country were introduced in the House and Senate. The Stop Federal Funding for Human Trafficking and Smuggling Act and the Protecting Federal Funds from Human Trafficking and Smuggling Act have failed to make headway. Meanwhile, the problem has only gotten worse. Such bills would not be necessary if the IRS were doing its job. Instead, the IRS, which consistently targets conservative nonprofits, has refused to address the problem. The mass invasion of the United States of America would not be possible without a nonprofit sector that has taken in over a billion, from both the government and private donors, to subsidize the invasion, providing aid, shelter, legal support and transportation for the invaders. ... There is much more   Several different church-affiliated groups are seen as facilitating the illegal invasion of the US.  The IRS has not pulled their tax-exempt ...

Fox News: IRS targeted poorest taxpayers while millionaires went mostly unscathed in 2022: report White House argues that Inflation Reduction Act will increase audits against millionaires ... The rate of income tax audits for those in the lowest income bracket hit 12.7 per 1,000, compared to 2.3 per 1,000 among those in the highest – a nearly five-fold increase. The odds of a millionaire facing an audit were around 1.1%. ... The TRAC report claimed that the lack of attention toward millionaires resulted from "severe budget cutbacks over the years" that forced the IRS to shift its focus to "easy marks in an era when IRS increasingly relies upon correspondence audits yet doesn’t have the resources to assist taxpayers or answer their questions." ... It is apparently easier to audit those who cannot afford to hire a legal and accounting team to fight the audit. 

 CNBC: House Republicans vote to strip IRS funding, following pledge to repeal nearly $80 billion approved by Congress ... Passing along party lines, the bill would rescind tens of billions allocated to the agency over the next decade through the Inflation Reduction Act passed in August. The measure doesn’t have the support to pass in the Democratic-controlled Senate, and the White House opposed the bill in a statement released Monday. ... Other Republicans have pushed a bill to do away with the income tax and put a consumption tax in its place similar to state sales taxes.  Both bills will probably be a challenge for the Democrats who support the unpopular IRS.