President Biden and Democrat Charlie Crist have said that they don’t support calls to defund the police. And a law that both men supported provides funding for the IRS to potentially hire tens of thousands of new employees — mostly in customer service, not tax auditing, bureau officials have said. But a Florida GOP ad makes distorted claims about both issues.
As the Department of Justice investigates his handling of highly classified documents, former President Donald Trump spoke for nearly two hours in a rally in Pennsylvania that was filled with false, exaggerated and misleading statements.
After Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes funding to increase staff at the IRS, social media posts falsely claimed members of Congress “voted to exempt themselves from IRS auditing of their personal finances.” An IRS spokesperson told us “there is no such special exemption,” and we found no such vote had been taken.
The IRS Criminal Investigation division’s “Adrian Project” educates the public about the IRS through community outreach sessions with high school and college students. Posts on social media are sharing a video from one of the sessions to falsely claim it shows agents in training. The images were posted by a New Jersey university in 2017 and earlier this year.
The Inflation Reduction Act includes $79 billion for the IRS. Social media posts misleadingly claim the IRS will now hire “87,000 new agents” to investigate average citizens. But most new hires will provide customer services, and enforcement efforts will be aimed at “high-income and corporate tax evaders,” a Treasury Department spokesperson said.
To help detect unreported income and narrow the gap between federal taxes collected and owed, the Biden administration has proposed expanding annual reporting requirements for banks and other financial institutions to include the total amounts of money flowing in and out of all business and personal accounts worth at least $600.
Asked whether he believes federal law requires him to give Congress his tax returns, President Donald Trump responded, “There’s no law whatsoever.” He’s wrong about that.
A website known for spreading misinformation writes that a man who cited religious reasons for not paying his income taxes “has won an historic lawsuit against the IRS.” That’s misleading. One charge was dropped, but four others have yet to be determined.
Sen. Ted Cruz has repeatedly gotten basic facts about the Internal Revenue Service wrong when delivering one of his favorite applause lines, calling for its abolition.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani praised New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for holding “people accountable who were responsible” for the “stupid” bridge lane closings — adding that’s something President Barack Obama “failed to do with Benghazi” and “failed to do with the IRS.”