Highlights: House Republicans are proposing funding $14 billion in aid to Israel by cutting additional money for divisions of the IRS tasked with making sure wealthy people and tax cheats pay their fair share, according to a new bill filed Monday.
The bill would also eliminate a task force intended to design a free direct e-file tax return system that could wind up competing with TurboTax—a change that the company, and politicians, particularly Republicans, have fought. Advocates have said such a system could save taxpayers billions of dollars, and millions of hours of prep time, per year.
The GOP’s latest bill matches $14 billion Biden’s funding request for Israel in number—but not in its proposed approach.
The thought of—as my colleague David Corn put it in Mother Jones‘ internal Slack channel—”letting billionaires cheat to pay for bombs to drop on civilians” is jarring, particularly given the more than 3,500 children that Gaza health authorities say have been killed by the Israeli airstrikes; heartbreaking photos and videos have shown kids covered in blood and dust and collapsing while coping with living through the trauma of war and losing loved ones.
What’s crazy is the IRS funding increase that Dems put through is basically supposed to pay for itself (unlike the fake promise that comes with tax cuts paying for themselves, which fails every time)
Much more than pay for itself! It will help decrease the budget defecit.
So just like many things Republicans do that they falsely claim will reduce the defecit, this “cost cutting measure” will actually increase the budget defecit.