Low-income Americans ‘are easy marks’ for IRS, ATF, DEA while Biden pardons son for tax fraud, gun and drug crimes
On Sunday, Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter for tax fraud and other crimes even as he continues to subject American taxpayers to harsh crackdowns for lesser offenses.
Hunter Biden in September pleaded guilty to nine counts of tax evasion, including three felonies and six misdemeanors. He was also convicted of three felonies related to illegally purchasing a firearm after he falsely claimed on the gun application that he was not using illegal drugs.
Despite stating multiple times that he would not pardon his son, Joe Biden issued a sweeping pardon for Hunter this week that absolves him of his tax, drug,and firearm violations and any other crimes he may have committed since 2014. In the meantime, American taxpayers remain targeted by Biden's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
Biden, who will vacate the White House on January 20th, leaves a legacy of aggressive tax policies. His administration, for example, has ordered taxpayers to report transactions of $600 or more on third-party payment platforms to the IRS. At the same time, Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act armed the IRS with $78 billion and 87,000 more employees, which the Biden-Harris administration claimed was to crack down on wealthier Americans.
This was untrue, however, as the IRS increased audits on low-income families. According to a report from Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), in 2022 the IRS subjected low-income taxpayers to “unbelievably high” audit rates — over five times more than nearly everyone else. On the other hand, just 1.1% of millionaires — those who earned a million dollars or more in positive income — were audited.
Low-income Americans ‘are easy marks’
The report explained that lower-income wage earners “are easy marks in an era when the IRS increasingly relies upon correspondence audits yet doesn’t have the resources to assist taxpayers or answer their questions.”
While the chance of a millionaire being audited increased to 2.8% last year, this still left nearly 700,000 millionaires who escaped scrutiny.
Furthermore, despite the Biden administration repeatedly vowing to only increase taxes for those making $400,000 or more, a corporate tax embedded in the Inflation Reduction Act has hit the lower-income class hard.
“As a result of the policy, those with incomes below $200,000 would pay almost $17 billion in combined additional tax in 2023, according to a Joint Committee on Taxation analysis published July 29,” reported CNBC. According to the analysis, only 4%–9% of tax revenue from the Act’s $80 billion in spending will come from businesses making above $500,000.
Furthermore, Biden’s proposed budget plans include a $7 trillion tax hike that would impact the lower and middle classes by letting Trump’s 2017 tax reform expire.
“President Biden’s $7 trillion tax increase on small businesses and families means fewer jobs, higher prices, and handing our competitive advantage to China,” said House Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith (MO-08). "Far from going after the wealthy, these are tax hikes that hit workers, mom-and-pop business owners, seniors nearing retirement, and family farms and ranches. And with the IRS getting another $104 billion and an expanded ability to approve penalties, Democrats will be on the fast track to collect your life savings.”
Small businesses ‘won’t fight back’
National Taxpayers Union Foundation Executive Vice President Joe Hinchman told the New York Post why Biden’s IRS has been targeting small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).
“They won’t fight back,” said Hinchman. “We’ve seen this play out before. . . . [T]he IRS says, ‘We’re going after the rich,’ but when you’re trying to raise that much money, the rich can only get you so far.”
Hinchman explained that the IRS typically goes after SMBs also because they don’t have the financial bandwidth to challenge the agency in court.
“The approach here is to double the IRS workforce, take the leash off, and see how much they can collect,” Hinchman added. “I think they’ll collect it but it will be quite painful.”
