RASCOE: Do you have a sense of how much the agency will bring in in enforcement compared to other years - say, this year or next year? Do you have any estimates of that? So we have a lot of work to do - a big to-do list in order to make up for those years where we fell behind. We have the rise of the gig economy, and we fell behind. We have new currencies, payment platforms like PayPal, Venmo. We've had thousands of changes to the tax code. And while that period of time was going on, the world changed dramatically. The IRS budget was consistently cut year after year for over a decade that preceded the Inflation Reduction Act. WERFEL: Well, I think there is certainly enough funds there for us to make a major change and a major shift and put a major dent into the gap that has existed. Is that - do you have enough to do what you're saying you're going to do? And Congress, spurred by the GOP, took $21 billion of that back. RASCOE: Under the Inflation Reduction Act, your agency received about $80 billion in federal funds to improve customer service, upgrade technology, crack down on tax evasion. So we have to invest in new skill sets, new data tools, new expertise and more revenue agents so that we can unpack these many returns. Some of these returns are thousands and ten thousands of pages. Today and before the Inflation Reduction Act, we have roughly 2,600 IRS employees available to assess whether those 400,000 entities and individuals are paying what they owe. These are people that make $5 million a year or more, partnerships with 10 million or more in assets and corporations with $250 million or more of assets. There are roughly 400,000 filers that are our wealthiest filers. RASCOE: By going after higher-wealth individuals and corporations - these are people with a lot of resources who can really fight the IRS. We think the best interests of advancing a better tax system is two things - better services for honest taxpayers, in particular middle- and low-income individuals that often need our help in meeting their tax obligations in a complex set of tax laws, while simultaneously doing more to make sure that wealthy individuals, complex partnerships, large corporations are paying their fair share. WERFEL: I don't think it should be interpreted that way. RASCOE: Does this run the risk of being interpreted as a pullback by the IRS because a letter or a phone call might not carry the same weight as an official standing in your doorway? And so when people answer the door and they don't expect anyone to be there because the visit was unannounced, they're not sure at this point whether the person claiming to be an IRS revenue officer is actually an IRS revenue officer. WERFEL: Well, the main reason really boils down to the fact that we have a problem with scam artists that are posing as IRS employees. Can you talk about, what is the reason for this move? RASCOE: So IRS revenue officers are no longer making unannounced visits, except in a few unique circumstances. Commissioner Werfel, thank you so much for being with us. We turn to IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel to find out why. As a part of this effort, the IRS says it's actually rolling back a decades-old enforcement measure. Step up and pay like everybody else does. PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: That's why we have to rehire some IRS agents and not to do anything - not to try to make people pay something they don't owe. President Biden has said from the beginning that he wants to go after tax cheats.
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