The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) faces a $20 billion funding gap for its tax enforcement activities due to what U.S. Treasury officials on Tuesday described as a legislative anomaly linked to a prior budget deal.
Treasury Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo said on a Nov. 26 call with reporters that the latest September stopgap funding bill that is keeping the U.S. government funded through Dec. 20 inadvertently duplicated a one-time $20 billion cut to IRS enforcement funding previously agreed upon in bipartisan negotiations on Capitol Hill.
Adeyemo urged lawmakers to reverse the second, inadvertent $20 billion cut, and unlock the frozen funds. He warned that otherwise there would be thousands of fewer audits of wealthy individuals and large corporations, that the IRS would have to freeze hiring, and that the loss of the money would increase the national deficit by $140 billion….