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“Already” feels like it’s doing a lot of the work there. The budget had been decreasing for most (the entirety?) of the last decade and only recently was increa

“Already” feels like it’s doing a lot of the work there. The budget had been decreasing for most (the entirety?) of the last decade and only recently was increased: https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/the-need-to-rebuild-the-depleted-irs https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/the-need-to-rebuil... But overall, I agree that way too much of federal policy is doled out as tax credits/deductions/penalties or what have you, but there are other reasons for that, which for me have little bearing on whether the IRS should be properly funded enough to after the biggest tax cheats.

poink 4y ago
Seems like the argument here is whether "properly funded" for the IRS should stipulate a sane tax code. I'm fine with temporarily juicing the IRS's budget to whatever if it means we go after more tax cheats and get more revenue (I understand that the IRS is fundamentally productive re: the government's budget), but I also know that an organization never willingly gives up budget, and $13.7b isn't small potatoes, even for the US. Feels like we could do the job for that, all other problems being solved. (FWIW, the IRS could easily go after "the biggest tax cheats" right now. They don't need $13.7b to do that. They don't go after them because they're maximizing revenue, which I understand, but it's not like their choice of targets makes a material difference in our deficit, and I'm very worried that giving them more money will just give them more resources to "maximize revenue" and they'll simply never get to "the biggest tax cheats" because they'll never have "enough" revenue)