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HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS: Democrats’ bill for beefed-up IRS means more audits for all, union exec warns - YouTube
Channel: Fox Business
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president biden will sign the so-called
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inflation reduction act at the white
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house today the bill is expected to
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supersize the irs 80 billion dollars
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multiplying the size or the annual
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budget of the irs that money spent
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toward enhancing tax enforcement
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enhancing we're using that word now
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hiring an additional 87 000 new agents
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joining me now national taxpayers union
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executive vice president brandon arnold
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brandon good to see you even the
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treasury secretary janet yellen who
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oversees the irs
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recently admitted
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she wrote that the agency's commissioner
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last week to clarify the funding plan
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but it's an admission in what she said
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that the money will go toward auditing
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people
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who make less than 400 000 a year
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yeah i mean the legislative language is
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advisory in nature it's non-binding it
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says let's not let's not affect those
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people let's not audit them and
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republicans in the senate in particular
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tried to strengthen that language they
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introduced an amendment saying no
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additional audits for people making less
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than four hundred thousand dollars
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unanimously rejected by democrats of
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course but here's the kicker had they
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passed that according to the cbo the
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congressional budget office it would
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have had a 20 billion dollar impact on
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the cost of the bill so how can a
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provision that has no impact to the
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amount of audits according to democrats
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have a 20 billion dollar impact
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according to the cbo it just doesn't
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make sense if you believe the democrats
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here's what janet yellen wrote
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um
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and liz i'll get your reaction to this
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she said the 80 billion dollars quote
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shall not be used to increase the share
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of small business or households below
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the 400 000 threshold that are audited
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and the journal wrote about this
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yesterday yellen is promising only that
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new audits won't be directed
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disproportionately at the middle class
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but she didn't dispute that thousands
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more middle-class and low-income earners
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will face scrutiny liz
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yeah i mean look it's very slippery
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language but the bottom line is there's
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no way that 87 000 new agents uh
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conjuring up the kind of money that the
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democrats are assuming can only go after
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very wealthy people in this country and
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by the way a substantial portion of very
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wealthy people already are being audited
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so unless these people are like super
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snoops and have have powers better than
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the average irs agent they're going to
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obviously have to broaden out their
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investigations into all income
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categories and i i i'm wondering whether
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our guest this morning thinks that that
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the numbers are at all realistic for
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what the irs can actually recover by
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amping up their numbers like this
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that's a great question you know the the
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question is yeah how much juice can you
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get out of a lemon and the answer is how
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hard are you willing to squeeze so how
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hard are they willing to squeeze
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taxpayers you know right now i think the
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most likely course of action here is an
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increase in audits of course but it's
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also an increase in the number of
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letters that they send off to small
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businesses taxpayers of all economic
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backgrounds saying hey we found
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something that we find suspicious or
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something that doesn't match up to the
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numbers that we have on record for you
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we think you owe an extra 200 bucks an
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extra 2 000 whatever that number is a
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lot of taxpayers don't want to fight the
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irs they don't have the time they don't
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have the money to fight the irs so
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they'll roll over and pay those
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relatively small amounts and that'll
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squeeze a lot of money out of taxpayers
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just by harassment even if the irs
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happens to be wrong in these instances
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and the taxpayers are 100 in the right
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they're going to see some revenue gains
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from that
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the democrats are still sticking to the
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claim that the middle class won't feel
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the impact of a beefed up irs but again
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janet yellen has said otherwise the
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congressional budget
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office has said otherwise mark tepper
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yeah and the joint committee on taxation
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says that 78 to 90 percent of the
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revenues are going to come from small
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businesses making less than 200 000 a
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year so that that sounds like less than
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400 000 to me uh brandon quick question
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to you where's the irs going to find in
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in today's job market with a three and a
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half percent unemployment rate where's
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the irs going to find 87 000 people who
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can fog a mirror let alone have a vast
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understanding of the most complicated
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code
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in the united states
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well yeah that's another great question
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because the irs is actually trying to
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hire people as we speak and they've done
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miserably at it they're way behind on
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their hiring targets that they started
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this year with in part trying to close
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some of this taxpayer uh
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assistance gap that they have because
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they're they're doing such a horrible
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job and answering the phones it takes
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them eight months to get back to people
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if you write them a letter asking a
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question about a tax issue that you may
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have they're trying to address that
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because our the congress gave them two
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billion dollars but they've done a lousy
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job not only of helping taxpayers but
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also bringing more staff on board the
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notion that they can hire 87
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000 new individuals even over the course
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of several years is highly suspicious
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brandon this is the very definition of
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big government getting bigger
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and that a waste of resources that 80
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billion dollars
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is going to expand the irs
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again i
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people who are conservative it's who do
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you think makes better decisions with
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your money and about your life and your
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health care is it you or is it some
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bureaucrat or some politician
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and this is again it's going the wrong
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way just final word
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yeah i mean the funny thing we're
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getting a pushback from the left right
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now saying it's not 87 000 new agents
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it's 87 000 new irs employees they're
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not necessarily agents and i find that
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ridiculous we know this is the federal
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government a number of these people are
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going to be sleeping at their desks or
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streaming netflix during the day but the
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fact is they're growing the government
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they're growing the reach of the
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government they're growing the impact
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that the government is going to have on
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small businesses and taxpayers of all
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stripes on a regular basis because this
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monstrosity has now been passed and will
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be signed into law today we're actually
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hoping that these people don't do
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anything that they do just sit around
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and watch netflix that's that's
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the best case scenario
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sadly
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brandon arnold great to see thank you so
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much we'll be right back
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