DA - IRS Tradeoff - Michigan 7 2023 STARTER

IRS TRADEOFF DA
NOTES
This disadvantage argues that the plan requires the IRS to spend valuable resources taxing the wealthy and corporations. Those are the toughest tax battles for the IRS to fight because the wealthy/corporations are the most equipped to evade taxes (legally and illegally) and hire swarms of accountants and tax lawyers to defend those evasion strategies. The IRS will struggle to win those fights, and spend hundreds of person-hours and tons of resources that would be better spent accomplishing the IRS’s current set of goals.
A few specific notes:
In order to win this DA, the negative has to win that fiscal redistribution requires taxation. My assumption is that is somewhat controversial.
This is a net-benefit to the taxes PIC. The taxes PIC also requires winning the definition of fiscal redistribution that includes taxes.
I recommend reading democracy vs non-climate affs and climate vs affs that don’t have an explicit route to solving climate change
The affirmative thumpers are great. Versus those, the negative needs to win that the IRA’s recent infusion of cash overcomes the historical problems with IRS tax enforcement (complexity, old tech, insufficient workers, etc.)
Subsequent versions of this file should focus on links to specific tax schemes that affirmatives advocate, and impacts that are not so easily solved by affirmatives.
If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me at brickerb@umich.edu.
1NC’S
1NC---Democracy
IRS modernization will succeed now based on careful sequencing that avoids distractions [like new “social programs”]. That restores IRS credibility.
Elder 23, tax professional at Caplin & Drysdale (Niles, “High Hopes for IRS Funding Boost,” Talking Tax Podcast, transcribed by Brett Bricker and AI)//BB
So last week, you may recall we heard from some Bloomberg tax reporters about what the IRS has on its to do list for 2023. We're going to stay on that theme this week. But this time we'll be hearing not from journalists, but from a tax professional. Niles elder is a member at the firm Caplin and Drysdale past chair of a committee at the ABA tax section, and a fellow at the American College of tax counsel, he's keeping a close eye on the $80 billion infusion of cash that the IRS will be receiving, and what that will mean for taxpayers, Elbert spoke with Bloomberg taxes, Jeff Leon about how the new aggressively funded IRS will behave in 2023, he gets to what he thinks will happen in a bit, but first announced talks about what he hopes will happen, you know, what we want, particularly, you know, I think those of us who, you know, spend our lives dealing with the services that they're able to stick to their core mission, and not get sidetracked as they have in recent years by having to administer social programs, you know, there was the PPP loans, child tax credit payments, etcetera. That's my hopes, what might actually happen, the first thing that, you know, I would expect to see at the service is hiring, the ranks of the IRS top to bottom are severely depleted, you don't have enough revenue agents, you don't have enough appeals officers, you don't have enough revenue officers, you don't have enough special agents. And you certainly don't have enough, you know, customer service personnel that's impacted every aspect of the agency. IRS knows this. They've been begging for funds for many years now. So that's the first thing, you know, part and parcel, Jeff, with hiring comes training. I don't know exactly what the numbers are. But there's been a significant depletion of seasoned IRS employees who were working with, you know, the agency for many years, they're gone. So, you know, I would certainly anticipate there's going to be a lot of that happening in 2023. In addition to that, the IRS has been beaten over the head, about, you know, the lack of customer service, almost at every level, you know, they're processing issues, there have been just pure communication issues. It's incredibly difficult, unfortunately, to get in touch, you know, with a customer service rep when you have a problem. And then along with that, you've probably heard, because it's certainly no secret that there's a tremendous backlog of unprocessed tax returns. And so the service, you know, in order to sort of get back on its feet needs to take care of those unprocessed returns. Yeah, so there's a lot of things that are going on right there. So what do you feel is the mindsets at the IRS right now, especially with the promise of new money and stuff like that? I mean, how do you feel that they're approaching things now? Well, again, this goes back to the beginning, my hope versus wants, Jeff, now, I say this, you know, fully well, knowing right now you have an Acting Commissioner, Chuck Reddick, who was the former commissioner stepped down in November, we have, you know, an Acting Commissioner. And you know, just in terms, at least in my experience, in terms of trying to run a large organization, and, you know, the politics that come into play, particularly with respect to this government agency, it will certainly help to get a confirmed Commissioner. But still, since you don't know how long you know, it might take to get confirmation to go through the organization, I would certainly suspect is doing a substantial amount of strategic planning. It is a tremendous amount of money. And you've got to figure out how to get the most bang for your buck. So you can't rush into anything. I am hoping that they are doing substantial strategic planning, and part and parcel with you know, trenches trying to figure out how to get the most bang for your buck is how also to get the best talent possible. And one of the downsides, you know, to having obviously to administer a government agency is that you can be challenged in terms of the the resources and the funds that you have available to bring in the talent that you would want it Jeff, it is paramount. We hear about it every day on TV on radio. There's so much contention about, you know, the way the IRS operates, if you want to tamp that down so that the service can focus on its core mission. That And the service needs to show competency. They need to be able to get particularly the politicians in Congress to back down. Now, that is a very high hurdle, to be sure. But that's what they need to do. And they can do it by showing competency. I mean, again, because of the political issues that are going on, on Capitol Hill, you know, there are already efforts to undercut the annual budget. And, you know, there's the direct way of attacking it, by passing laws that, you know, would reduce that funding, but there's a sort of the indirect way of doing it, which is, you know, by just underfunding in the, you know, annual budget. So, you know, they're gonna have to make sure that they're showing that this, you know, this amount of money that's been allocated to them, is used as effectively as possible. And yes, most definitely, it'll be interesting to see what happens in the coming year, especially when it comes to money when it comes to what's the what happens next, and what is going on with Congress as well. But I'm taking a step back from the IRS, looking at the tax world a little bit more broadly, what do you feel will be the big tax trends in 2023? You know, I think it's probably, you know, going to be very much driven by what the IRS, you know, decides to do, we're looking at, you know, in an economy that potentially, you know, goes into recession, when that happens, you know, it certainly impacts, you know, the way the tax system functions, you know, then isn't necessarily, although I can't say that, you know, tax planning ever necessarily stops, if people aren't looking to, you know, try and find a way to offset or reduce your income or gains, then, you know, tax planning itself, can, you know, ratchet down, you know, there's not an insignificant amount of litigation, you know, that's going on right now, that may have some impact on various aspects of the tax system. And take, for instance, say, you know, taxation or reporting of offshore assets. There's a big case at the Supreme Court right now, this is Bitner case, where the court is going to have to decide in the case of a non willful violation of the F bar rules, what the appropriate, you know, penalty is going to be is also a lot of litigation going on, in the area of the Administrative Procedure Act, the IRS tends to do a lot of regulation by notice, as opposed to actually issuing, you know, regulations that, you know, might be required by statute. So, I mean, I think that's going to be something we haven't seen. They're always tax cases in a tax court. You know, it's fairly busy. But I'm not sure that we've seen the volume of significant, you know, cases, I think that we're seeing right now that, you know, would we have a real impact on the way the tax system operates? Crypto, notwithstanding the fact that cryptocurrencies have taken a bit of a hit, I would say probably over the last six months, it certainly seems that they're here to stay. More and more businesses are, you know, accepting of them, more and more investors are using or acquiring. And so, you know, is the current treatment that cryptocurrencies property? Is that really going to be the long term position? If it changes, then you have to shift gears? So, those are certainly trends that I think we're going to see, you know, in 2023, that, you know, are going to be important to large numbers of taxpayers, and, you know, they're important to taxpayers are certainly going to be important to the government, you know, as well, looking towards the New Year and everything like that. Is there anything else that you'd like to mention that maybe we haven't covered? Well, I mean, I think, you know, we can talk just about enforcement. For a moment, Jeff enforcement is incredibly important aspect of the tax system. I may be a tax lawyer, I may be a controversial or I may defend people who didn't pay their taxes. It doesn't mean I don't believe that everybody should pay their fair share, so that the system properly operates now, there are certain steps the service has to take before it really is fully functioning. So you know what we're going to see in what's going to hit the news particularly the tax break, it's going to be things like the conservation easement cases, or captive insurance arrangements or promoter examine nations which go hand in hand with one another, the service is going to want to make, you know headlines where it can't with crypto related type criminal cases. And, again, they've been pushing for a while employment tax cases, and I don't expect there's going to be, you know, any let down, they're going back to, again, my theme of Hope versus wants, it would be nice to see the service in a real way, move back towards domestic legal source type tax cases, we're talking about scams, embezzlement, just sort of garden variety fraud, because you don't see a lot of that, and when it goes unchecked, you know, people will do what they will do, they will continue to go after, you know, tax preparers in criminal cases. Because, you know, for every tax preparer who's investigated, prosecuted, and ended up going to prison, there are 1000s, often 1000s and 1000s of individual taxpayers, who no longer have, you know, a means of under paying their taxes, offshore enforcement remains a priority, I think we'll still see a fair bit of that. And then, you know, there are a number of other things that, you know, the service really has to move on to because, you know, for every aggressive tax strategy that they're dealing with, now, there are, you know, several others that are still, you know, sort of flying under the radar that first got to find and then they've got to find a way to address it, they're looking at multiple pension plans, and we're looking at Puerto Rico act 22 cases and, you know, a more than a handful of other, you know, aggressive, you know, planning structures. And so, you know, we're gonna see them make efforts, but, you know, in the, in the concept of, you walk before you run, they've got to get the hiring done. They've got to get the training done. They've got to clean up their act, and then, you know, they can move into other areas, and, you know, try and, you know, bring the IRS and the system along. That was Caplin, and Drysdale is Niles Elber. Speaking with Bloomberg tax reporter Jeff Lyon. And that's it for today's podcast. You can find up to the newest and latest tax and accounting developments at our website news dot Bloomberg tax.com. That website once again is news that Bloomberg tax.com. Today's talking tax was produced by myself, David Schultz. Rachel Daigle is our editor and executive producer is Josh block from Washington. I'm David Schultz. Thanks for listening.
***Insert Link***
Strong and credible IRS is key to democracy. The internal link alone turns solvency.
Anson and Kane 22, *associate professor in the department of political science at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, **assistant professor at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University (“Everyone loves to hate the IRS. That’s a problem. Our research found ways to increase public support for funding the agency,” Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/22/irs-underfunded-messaging-republicans-democrats/)//BB
With the 2022 tax season now officially over, many taxpayers are facing an unusual problem. The Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. federal tax collection agency, has warned filers of significant delays in processing federal tax refunds because of ongoing funding and personnel cutbacks at the agency. While most Americans rarely give much thought to the IRS, this year’s even slower customer service is likely to cause widespread dissatisfaction. Lukewarm public support for the IRS is nothing new. But research finds that continuing negative attitudes toward the agency could exacerbate a second ongoing problem: a steep decline in the IRS’s ability to enforce the tax code and collect revenue from tax cheats. Two things might boost public support for the IRS: information about its underfunding and appeals to Republicans’ and Democrats’ core values. That increased support might push Congress to invest in the U.S. central tax authority. Here’s what our research says. Why support for the IRS matters Political scientists find that a lack of support for central tax agencies is remarkably bad for democracy. The IRS plays a key role in supporting what social scientists call “state capacity,” or the U.S. ability to run a functioning government. Without the IRS collecting taxes and enforcing the tax code, the U.S. federal government would very quickly collapse into total dysfunction.
Public support for state capacity is to democratic modeling. Solves great power war.
Magsamen 18, et al, Center for American Progress vice president (Kelly, Max Bergmann, CAP senior fellow, Michael Fuchs, CAP senior fellow, and Trevor Sutton, CAP fellow, “The Case for a Democratic Values-Based U.S. Foreign Policy,” Center for American Progress, https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/security/reports/2018/09/05/457451/securing-democratic-world/)//BB
Reviving America’s strategic position in the world in the wake of President Donald Trump will require a foreign policy that both firmly embraces democratic values and systematically pushes back against authoritarian competitors such as Russia and China. The Trump presidency has already severely undercut the United States’ global standing, causing immense harm to the nation’s strategic position, credibility, and moral authority. Allies are losing faith in American leadership while illiberal regimes are growing in number, stature, and audacity. Trump’s rise reflects a pre-existing deterioration in the vitality of democratic systems, a global phenomenon which his presidency has now turned into a crisis. The damage cannot be reversed simply by electing a different president or reverting to previous foreign policy approaches. Instead, the United States must adopt bold new policies to regain the advantage in great power competition and help vulnerable democracies, including its own, resist authoritarian influence and strengthen a growing global democratic community. This report explains why a democratic values-based foreign policy is the right choice for the United States on both a strategic and moral level. It also offers specific policy recommendations as a roadmap for how the next administration could pursue a democratic values-based foreign policy. Today, democracy is under strain in America and threatened across the globe. The spread of democratic governance, which for decades seemed all but inevitable, has stalled and now faces serious setbacks. Across the democratic world, ordinary people have lost trust in their institutions of government and delivered stunning rebukes to their political establishments. These setbacks have also emboldened authoritarian regimes. Russia, China, and other illiberal states have sought to exploit the openness of democratic societies for their geopolitical advantage and have put forward an alternative autocratic model for politics and economic development that undermines liberal democratic values. America’s enduring security, prosperity, and strength depend on the survival and success of democracy—both at home and abroad—as well as on the resilience of institutions, rules, and norms that protect the liberal democratic values on which the United States’ global standing is built. Yet at the very moment when liberal democracy faces its greatest ideological challenge since the Cold War, President Trump has chosen to reject America’s historic role as leader of the world’s democracies. He has treated democratic allies as ideological foes and murderous dictators as respected friends and equals while stoking nativist and isolationist impulses among the American people. President Trump has also systematically denigrated democratic values and norms at home through unprecedented attacks on the press, the independent judiciary, and law enforcement, as well as political purges of civil servants.1 While U.S. democratic institutions have shown resilience in the face of his challenges, it is already clear that some of the damage Trump does will outlast his presidency. The critical question today is whether the United States after Trump will summon the resolve to lead, protect, and expand the world’s democracies or stand by and suffer the consequences as autocracy and illiberalism crack the foundations of the American-led global system. Advancing a values-based foreign policy after Trump will inevitably invite a vigorous debate over how—or even whether—values should factor into U.S. foreign policy. Critics will likely point to America’s prior foreign policy errors and shortcomings, for example, the use of democracy promotion aims to justify misguided foreign policies such as the invasion of Iraq; the broader U.S. failure to promote democracy in the Middle East in the wake of the Arab Spring; and Cold War-era support for dictators who sided against the Soviet Union. Critics may also point to the urgency of domestic challenges relative to foreign policy ones or fear of U.S. overextension abroad to argue that a values-based foreign policy is unwise or simply not possible. This report takes these critiques seriously. However, in reflecting on the stakes for U.S. leadership, present and future, it arrives at the conclusion that an American foreign policy shorn of American values would ultimately deliver less security and prosperity at home, while making U.S. leadership in the world less sustainable and impactful. This report asserts that an approach that embraces America’s core democratic values will allow the United States to compete more effectively with authoritarian powers such as China and Russia and will 

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