IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel said that with a boost in federal funding and the help of artificial intelligence tools, the agency has new means of targeting wealthy people who have “cut corners” on their taxes.
“If you pay your taxes on time it should be particularly frustrating when you see that wealthy filers are not,” Werfel told reporters in a call previewing the announcement. He said 1,600 millionaires who owe at least $250,000 each in back taxes and 75 large business partnerships that have assets of roughly $10 billion on average are targeted for the new “compliance efforts.”
I love that Republicans seem to have fully embraced a fear campaign based in the idea that if the rich can be forced to obey the law that yOu mIghT bE nExT as though they aren’t also the people who gave police broad, sweeping powers to kick in our doors for any or no reason, to seize our money and then make us prove that we didn’t commit crimes to get it, to engage in warrantless mass surveillance, to establish huge swaths of America where the 4th amendment just doesn’t count if you “look like an illegal immigrant”, to establish fetus checkpoints at state borders, to make a dog’s opinion legally admissible in court if and only if that dog thinks you’ve committed a crime, and they’re trying to let the police into your bedroom to make sure you’re fucking correctly (in a cishet christian way).
We who have been overpoliced our entire lives know what they mean when they say “they might come for you next”. They mean that the police might overstep their bounds as thieftakers and thugs to keep the minorities in line and start coming for Real Americans (cishet white men) just because of a few little felonies.
Wow, that was wonderfully said.