(DailyVantage.com) – On January 7, after a week-long battle with members of the Freedom Caucus, Rep. Kevin McCarthy narrowly won the election for the House Speaker role. With the 118th Congress situated, Republicans wasted no time getting the ball rolling.
On Monday, January 9, the House voted on a bill to roll back IRS funding for new agents. The Family and Small Business Taxpayer Protection Act passed 221-210 on party lines.
IRS on the chopping block on first day of legislative work under Speaker McCarthy https://t.co/HU4sngTiRx
— Fox News (@FoxNews) January 9, 2023
In 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act contained a provision approving $80 billion for technological upgrades and hiring 87,000 new agents. The bill didn’t go over well with GOP members then, and it’s still a point of contention today. With the Republicans holding the House majority, the lawmakers had no problems introducing and passing the legislation, which Reps. Adrian Smith (R-NE) and Michelle Steel (R-CA) co-authored.
The bill doesn’t seek to claw back all the funding, just approximately $72 billion. The remaining $8 billion would fund the hiring of “customer service and IT improvements because IRS is in desperate need of reform,” Smith said in a statement to Fox News Digital. The move would remove funding for the agents, saving “middle-class families from audits they cannot afford.”
The provision of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 drew a lot of ire, with GOP members saying it was the Democrats’ way of securing funding to pay for their Green New Deal. The Left merely insisted it was a means to cut back on tax evasion.
The Family and Small Business Taxpayer Protection Act will have several hurdles to overcome before it reaches President Joe Biden’s desk — if it ever does. Democrats still hold a majority — albeit slim — in the Senate, so Republicans will need a few of their liberal peers to switch sides on the matter.
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