A recent study conducted by Syracuse University found that, in 2022, low-income individuals were significantly more likely to be audited by the IRS under President Joe Biden’s administration compared to wealthy and middle-class earners, according to The Washington Free Beacon.
The findings contradict reporting from Nov of last year in The New York Times that claimed: “wealthy Americans and businesses will bear the brunt of that scrutiny, not, as Republicans have suggested, working families.”
The data, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by the university’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a nonpartisan organization, revealed that those who made less than $25,000 per year faced the highest chance of being audited, with 1.27% of families who received the earned income tax credit being audited.
In comparison, only 0.19% of the general taxpayer population was audited, meaning those in the lowest income group were 550% more likely to be audited.
Even those who reported over $1 million in income faced a lower chance of being audited, with just over 1% receiving a regular audit.
The IRS conducted a total of 626,204 audits out of 164 million in the 2022 fiscal year, with the majority of audits being conducted on those in the lowest income group.
This information raises questions about the IRS’s auditing strategy, as the agency is set to receive $80 billion in funding for new hires from the Biden administration.
Republicans have claimed that, despite White House assurances, middle-class and low-income Americans will face more audits due to the hiring of 87,000 new IRS employees.
Danny Werfel, nominated by Biden to lead the IRS, has been urged to prioritize transparency and disclose how the agency selects taxpayers for increased audits.
Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) posted a link to the Free Beacon’s report and wrote, “Giving the IRSN more power to go after working Americans is the last thing we should do.”
