Nearly Half Believe IRS Agents Will Be Used to Target Middle Class or the Left’s Political Opponents

Nearly half of Americans believe new IRS agents — the tens of thousands  Congress green-lighted via the Inflation Reduction Act — will target the middle class or the political opponents of those in power, a Convention of States Action/Trafalgar Group survey released Tuesday found.

“President Biden just signed the legislation allowing the IRS to hire 87,000 new employees. How do you believe those new employees will be used?” the survey asked likely general election voters.

Combined, nearly half — 48.9 percent — believe the new fleet of IRS agents will be used to target either the middle class or the political opponents of those in power. Of those, 33 percent specifically believe the new agents will be used to “audit middle class Americans and small businesses.” 

Just 31.6 percent believe the agents will be used to audit wealthy Americans and large corporations, and 3.2 percent believe they will target “cash, tip, and app paid workers.” Another 16.4 percent remain unsure. 

Nearly half of Democrats, 49.8 percent, believe the expanded IRS will audit the wealthy and large corporations, but Republicans and independents remain more skeptical. 

Over half of Republicans, 50.6 percent, believe the new employees will be used to target the middle class, and 30.6 percent of independents agree. Another 18.1 percent of independents believe the fleet will be used to target the opponents of those in political power, and 18.8 percent of Republicans agree. 

The survey was taken August 19-23 among 1,092 likely general election voters and has a +/- 2.9 percent margin of error. 

The House Freedom Caucus released a scathing statement earlier this month on the so-called Inflation Reduction Act urging Republicans to vote against it, noting that it “contains more than $700 billion in tax increases and over $400 billion in radical spending priorities.”

The statement gave details:

To finance their socialist agenda, Democrats are supersizing the Internal Revenue Service with $80 billion (six times the agency’s annual budget) to create an army of 87,000 new enforcement agents to target Americans with as many as one million additional audits per year on taxpayers earning less than $200,000 – the same middle-class suffering the most from the skyrocketing inflation of Bidenomics. The misnamed ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ is a disaster from every perspective and it must be defeated.

A Convention of States Action/Trafalgar Group survey released earlier this month also found voters expressing the belief that federal bureaucracies, including the IRS, are already too large and self-interested.