Democrats call for largest IRS budget to improve service as Trump calls for cuts

March 30 at 4:23 PM

If President Trump is such a good dealmaker, why is he proposing to cut $239 million from the moneymaking but ailing Internal Revenue Service?

Does this businessman know the IRS provides excellent returns on investment? For every dollar the agency spends, it collects $4. Its enforcement activities do even better: $1 returns $6.

Yet, if Trump’s spending plan takes effect, the general trend of punitive IRS budgets at the hands of a Republican-dominated Congress will be exacerbated, much to the detriment of fed-up taxpayers and frustrated employees.

In a letter to the House Appropriations financial-services subcommittee Wednesday, 48 Democrats called for a different approach — boosting the IRS budget to $12.9 billion for fiscal 2018, which begins in October. That would be a $1.7 billion increase over this year.

Trump’s proposed $239 million decrease isn’t much in comparison, but it comes on top of years of cuts. The high point, $12.1 billion, was in 2010.

Read more at the Washington Post