A Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report has found that increasing the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) funding by $40 billion over the next decade could lead to a $63 billion decrease in deficit, Government Executive reported Thursday.
CBO said that the IRS's staffing and resource issues could be resolved by allocating $4 billion to the agency annually. Additional investments could also help increase the amount of collected taxes to $103 billion in 10 years, the report states.
Taxpayers “may be more likely to comply with tax laws” if they perceive a higher risk of being apprehended due to renewed focus on IRS resources and assets, CBO noted.
“Trends are unlikely to reverse in the near future,” according to the report. “The disruptions stemming from the 2020 coronavirus pandemic will reduce the IRS’s enforcement activities and pose new challenges for taxpayers in complying with tax laws.”
From 2010 to 2018, IRS funding dropped by 20 percent while its workforce also decreased by 22 percent. Tax and corporate returns for that period also declined by 46 and 38 percent, respectively.
