FROM:
POLITICO Massachusetts Playbook: Boston’s mayoral race by the numbers
excerpt:
UNDER PRESIDENT BIDEN'S LEADERSHIP, THE IRS PROCESSING IMPROVED, THE BACKLOG OF RETURNS WAS ELIMINATED...AUDITING WEALTHY TAX CHEATS RECOUP THEIR COSTS...HOW MUCH $$$ DO YOU HAVE TO MAKE TO CHEAT ON YOUR TAXES?
THANK YOU SENATOR ELIZABETH WARREN!
— “You could be headed for ‘IRS hell’ after Trump cuts, Mass. Sen Warren warns,” by John L. Micek, MassLive: “Ever tried to get an actual human on the phone at the Internal Revenue Service? If you have, you know it’s an exercise in futility and frustration, often punctuated by the muttering of dark oaths. And now that the Trump administration has started laying off more than 6,000 IRS employees in the middle of tax season, it’s about to get worse. Much, much worse. Because there are more cuts to come. U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren has some words to describe the job cuts at the agency Americans love to hate. But the ones she has in mind she can’t say out loud.”
excerpt:
All told, the IRS is expected to shed about 6,700 employees, which barely scratches the surfaces of the roughly 84,000 people who work there, according to U.S. News & World Report.
But the workers who were shown the door audited tax forms and collected back taxes, so they will be missed, the online outlet reported.
“The particular irony here is that over the last three years, Congress has authorized more money to the IRS so they can answer the phone and help people be able to fill out their taxes and get their tax refunds in a timely fashion,” she continued.
The IRS went on a hiring spree after an infusion of funding from the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act, leading agency honchos to conclude that they could boost revenue by $850 billion over the next decade thanks to more efficient collections, Government Executive Magazine reported.
“And all of that has gone away,” Warren told MassLive.
Warren’s comments came ahead of a packed town hall in Framingham last weekend, where she derisively referred to Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk as “co-presidents.”
Musk is helming the quasi-governmental Department of Government Efficiency, which has taken what critics say is an indiscriminate weed-whacker to the federal bureaucracy to pay for $4.5 trillion in tax cuts that will mainly benefit the wealthiest Americans.
You can count Warren among the staunchest and most outspoken of those critics. She grilled Health & Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. during his confirmation hearing and voted against the White House’s cabinet picks.
- Read More: In pugnacious exchange, Mass. Sen. Warren grills RFK Jr. over ties to law firm suing vax maker
Republicans on Capitol Hill are “spineless” for not standing up to Trump, his unelected adviser, and a brash wielding of executive power, she fumed.
“They are afraid of co-presidents Donald Trump and Elon Musk,” she said. “Musk has been quite open in saying that if the Republicans don’t toe the party line, he will fund Republican primary challengers to take them out. So many of those Republicans just want to keep their heads down.”
But back to the IRS.
Because some Massachusetts residents can file their federal income taxes through the government’s Direct File website, they may be spared some heartache this tax season, Warren said.
Still, “it’s not for everyone,” she continued. “If your taxes are more complicated, you can’t use it. But it will help many tens of thousands of people file their taxes for free, securely ... and people will get help that way.”
But “anyone who’s got a problem, they’re missing a document, [or] the numbers don’t add up for some reason? I fear they are about to enter IRS hell.”
And what of the effective demise of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the government watchdog she proposed while still a professor at Harvard Law School?
“There is literally no cop on the beat,” she said.
Warren told MassLive she has the resistance mapped out. It’s a three-pronged attack that includes the courts, the Congress, and people on the street.
Doing that, Warren would later tell a cheering crowd in Framingham, sends the message that “we want an America that works for all of us, and we are willing to fight [for it].”
- Read More: Mass. Sen. Warren hits Trump’s decision to stop work at consumer watchdog bureau she proposed
Read more analysis from John L. Micek
- The other Mass. budget battle you should be watching | Bay State Briefing
- The surprising reason why hundreds of bills are stuck in the Mass. Legislature | John L. Micek
- ‘It scares the heck out of me’: Advocates mull local impact of GOP budget plan| John L. Micek
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