Dem Sen. Coons: ‘Legitimate Case’ IRS Has Abused Audits, But It Needs More Agents

On Tuesday’s broadcast of CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) said that “there is a legitimate case to be made that, in some instances in the past, the IRS has overused its audit authority” but defended additional IRS funding enacted by the Biden administration without legislative guarantees it won’t be used to audit taxpayers making under $400,000.

While discussing increased funding for the IRS, co-host Joe Kernen asked, “You don’t worry about weaponizing the IRS again, Senator? You saw what happened. You were there for Lois Lerner, weren’t you? Maybe you weren’t.”

After Coons said that he was there for Lerner, Kernen asked, “Do you dispute that the Obama administration weaponized the IRS, like so many agencies seem to have been weaponized? If you had ‘Patriot’ in your name, you were audited. Now, you put 80,000 new agents or whatever it is, you don’t see any reason that some people might not — might think that that’s going to be intrusive and not get to the end result that we’re looking for?”

Coons responded, “Yes, there is a legitimate case to be made that, in some instances in the past, the IRS has overused its audit authority. But the dramatic cut in the staffing to the IRS under the previous administration resulted in a growing tax gap. Somewhere in between those two points, making sure that audits are appropriate, credible, transparent, and professional, and providing adequate resources for appropriate audit levels, somewhere in the middle there is the right result.”

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