Free Republic

IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel faced a grilling by lawmakers on Capitol Hill this past week, where he hinted that there's a chance that the agency will—contrary to its repeated pledges—increase tax audits of Americans earning under $400,000.The question of whether the IRS will use some of the $80 billion or so funding boost to increase tax enforcement of people making less than $400,000 has been a contentious issue.IRS and Treasury Department officials have pledged not to increase audit rates for this group of Americans, while Republicans and others have argued that this pledge is either false or wishful thinking.Treasury Secretary...

Acting IRS commissioner Danny Werfel’s promise to suspend taxpayer-funded bonuses to IRS officials might not be fully realized because it will violate a contract between the scandal-plagued agency and a public-employee labor union.“In this unprecedented budget situation, I do not believe the IRS should pay performance awards this year to employees, managers or executives,” Werfel wrote in an email to IRS employees this week.“This is not a reflection of the quality or performance of the work done by you and your colleagues, but rather an unfortunate byproduct of the difficult budgetary situation we find ourselves in,” Werfel wrote. The IRS...