40 Acres and a Mule: Danny Werfel Back on the Hill Today

This morning at 10:00 am eastern, Danny Werfel is back on the Hill.  This time he is testifying before an appropriations subcommittee about the IRS 2025 budget request and its Strategic Operating Plan.  Not a whole lot in there about exempt organizations.  There’s mention of increasing enforcement of tax laws against wealthy taxpayers and this little tidbit about disparate enforcement rates against Black people:

Addressing Racial Disparities in Enforcement

Above all, we are rebuilding trust in enforcement. When researchers from the U.S. Department of Treasury and several academic institutions published a study that found that Black taxpayers were three to five times more likely to be audited than other taxpayers, we dedicated resources to quickly evaluate the extent to which our exam priorities, automated processes, and the data we rely on contributed to this disparity. Our findings supported the conclusion that Black taxpayers are audited at higher rates than other taxpayers. We are overhauling compliance efforts to advance our commitment to fair, equitable, and effective tax administration and hold ourselves accountable to taxpayers we serve. We are investing IRA resources in research that can help identify disparities across dimensions of race, ethnicity, age, gender and geography, and we are using that research to continuously refine our approaches to compliance and enforcement.

That probably won’t come up, unless some of the members go off on a silly distracting rant about the IRS being “woke.”  You can watch the hearing below.

darryll k. jones