Most Americans Don’t Buy Claims Biden’s 87,000 New IRS Employees Will Target the Rich

Most Americans don’t believe the Biden administration’s claims that the 87,000 new Internal Revenue Service (IRS) workers it’s hiring will target the wealthy, a Convention of States Action / Trafalgar poll found.

The IRS plans to hire 87,000 new employees through a $78 billion cash influx from Congress that was passed through the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, but Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen promised the IRS wouldn’t use its newfound resources to target low- to middle-income households or small businesses.

Voters don’t believe those claims, the poll found: Only about 31% of voters believe the IRS will actually use its new resources to focus on auditing large corporations and rich people.

A majority of voters believed that the IRS would now target middle-class Americans and small businesses (33%), cash, tip and app workers (3.2%) or political opponents (15.9%), the poll found, while 16.4% were unsure.