Ranking Member Hoyer Statement at the Fiscal Year 2025 Budget Request Hearing for the Internal Revenue Service

Congressman Steny Hoyer (D-MD-5), Ranking Member of the Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee, delivered the following remarks at the Subcommittee's hearing on President Biden's fiscal year 2025 budget request for the Internal Revenue Service:

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I also want to thank Commissioner Werfel for joining us on Capitol Hill today.

I look forward to hearing more from you about all that the IRS accomplished this year.

The agency made important progress in its effort to implement the Strategic Operating Plan that it laid out a year ago, and recently updated, to enhance taxpayer services.

We saw those initiatives yield impressive results this most recent tax filing season, with the IRS fielding one million more customer service calls than it did during the 2023 season. On average, callers only had to wait on hold for three minutes. That's a minute shorter than last year and twenty-five minutes shorter than the 2022 filing season – the last season before we secured additional IRS funding in the Inflation Reduction Act.

The 2024 filing season also saw the IRS make important technological advances to improve the taxpayer experience – from its paperless processing initiative to its new direct file pilot program.

As a longtime supporter of direct file, I was pleased to see the pilot program exceeded its target goal, with more than 140,000 taxpayers across twelve states participating.

Thanks to funding from the inflation reduction act, the IRS also improved tax enforcement for high earners, successfully collecting $520 million in legally owed back taxes from roughly 1,000 millionaires and billionaires.

These are just a few of the IRS' achievements from this year; I'm sure Commissioner Werfel will highlight many others.

I mention these accomplishments because they demonstrate what the IRS is capable of when it receives the resources it needs to carry out its crucial work.

If Congress withholds those resources, it puts all this progress in jeopardy.

Sadly, that is exactly what my friends across the aisle continue to do.

In the appropriations for fiscal year 2024, they rescinded more than $20 billion in Inflation Reduction Act funding for the agency.

Let's be clear about what underfunding the IRS means for American taxpayers.

It means IRS customer service hold times will climb right back up.

It means initiatives like direct file will be delayed or put on hold.

It means more high-earners will be able to get out of paying the taxes that they owe under laws that are already on the books.

Crucially, cutting IRS funding will add to our national deficit.

Every dollar we put into IRS enforcement of high-earners pays for itself many times over, as much as a twelve-to-one return on investment according to recent research from Harvard university and the Treasury Department.

Many of my Republican colleagues claim they care about fiscal responsibility.

If that's the case, then they ought to care about enforcing the law and collecting legally owed revenue. They ought to work with us to not only fulfill the administration's request for IRS funding but to secure additional resources to offset what was taken from the agency through the recent rescissions.

I look forward to hearing from the commissioner about why this funding is so crucial.

He can illuminate all that the IRS has accomplished with these resources in the past year as well as the consequences that underfunding the agency would have on the nation.

Thank you again for joining us.