That backlash poses an existential threat to the IRS, even if it doesn’t result in a Congressional rollback of the IRA

THE MOST VISIBLE WAY CONGRESS can sabotage the IRS over the next decade is by simply passing bills that rescind the $80 billion allocated by the IRA. The actual success of those measures is questionable, given that Democrats control the Senate and the White House and just passed this funding last August. A stand-alone repeal of funding from a Republican House would serve as little more than signaling to the public that under a Republican trifecta, that is their priority. However, there are more arcane measures at Congress’s disposal, most prominently the appropriations process. Congress carving away at the IRS’s base funding through appropriations is the slower, less bombastic measure. But ultimately, it is the agency’s most existential threat. In fact, even under a Democratic trifecta, last year’s omnibus spending package cut nearly $300 million from the agency’s budget. So immediately, money from the $80 billion meant to supplement the agency’s existing budget is, in effect, supplanting lost base-level funding. The hypothetical argument from Republican lawmakers to the IRS might be “You got $80 billion. Spend it. You don’t need as much in your appropriations,” said Holtzblatt. “But the $80 billion was premised on the assumption that [the IRS] would continue to get annual appropriations.” The result, Holtzblatt said, is “if you carve out appropriations, you lose the ability to add on to taxpayer services and enforcement.” The stealth attack on base-level funding and a frontal assault on the new funding could happen simultaneously. Republicans could hold government funding, or legislation to increase the nation’s debt limit, hostage to conditions that include peeling back some of the $80 billion. At the same time, the IRS budget could be ground down in appropriations. Republicans could burn the candle at both ends.