Inflation Reduction Act’s Impending Harm

I concur with Keith Larson’s letter about the Inflation Reduction Act’s impending harm to the lower to middle class, and I wish to expound on the additional deleterious effects of this bill.

Though people of all income levels are being audited less often due to the dwindling Internal Revenue Service workforce, the legislation will offer the agency additional funding for new hires. As David Siegel mentioned in his letter, this will likely lead to additional auditing of wealthier individuals. However, they will not be the primary targets for inspection. According to a 3/9/22 CBS news report, the “IRS audits the poor at 5 times the rate as everyone else, analysis finds”

Poorer communities lack the financial and legal resources to defend themselves in the face of any audit. Wealthier people, however, have access to the better tax/legal consultants to exploit tax loopholes and reduce additional IOUs.

It becomes blatantly clear why Biden, at one time, proposed legislation to monitor bank accounts over $600. The administration claims that the lower $600 threshold prevents the affluent from dividing their money into multiple accounts to avoid potential IRS tracking. The obvious ramification is that it conveniently gives the IRS an excuse to also examine bank accounts of impoverished individuals. Though there might not be analyses of every single transaction made, it still increases overall scrutiny of the poorer classes’ finances.

The Inflation Reduction Act in retrospect is not going to focus on the wealthy elites. It will instead prey upon the lower-middle classes.

–Wing Yun Ho, Casto Valley