Democrats Reject Ban on Middle-Class Tax Hikes in ‘Inflation Reduction Act’

Senate Democrats, on a party-line vote, rejected an amendment to their “Inflation Reduction Act” that would ban Internal Revenue Service (IRS) funds from being used to go after working and middle-class Americans with audits and tax hikes.

On Sunday, Senate Democrats passed the Inflation Reduction Act which includes $80 billion for the IRS to target mostly working and middle-class American households, squeezed by inflation, with more audits.

The Joint Committee on Taxation has reported that 78 to 90 percent of the taxpayer money raised via new audits and investigations as a result of the legislation would come from American households earning less than $200,000 a year. Meanwhile, just four to nine percent is expected to come from households earning more than $500,000 a year.

Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID) offered an amendment that would ban any of the new IRS funds from being used to target Americans earning less than $400,000 annually. Crapo said the amendment ensured that President Joe Biden would not break his promise to not raise taxes on Americans earning less than $400,000 a year.

The amendment, though, was rejected by all Senate Democrats on a party-line vote. The passed legislation, instead, only suggests that Congress does not “intend” to raise taxes on households with annual incomes of less than $400,000.

The Inflation Reduction Act is seemingly a violation of a promise Biden made to American taxpayers in his most recent State of the Union (SOTU) address in March.

“And under my plan, nobody earning less than $400,000 a year will pay an additional penny in new taxes. Nobody,” Biden said at the time.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.