The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), the watchdog that oversees the IRS, released a report disclosing the amount of tax revenue the agency collected in 2022.

In the last fiscal year, the IRS reeled in a record-breaking $4.9 trillion from Americans.

According to The Epoch Times, the record-high tax revenue largely resulted from “automated collections processes and aggressive audits that saw taxpayers hit with billions in additional taxes after examination.”

“During FY 2022, U.S. taxpayers filed more than 161 million individual and 12 million business income tax returns. Return filings resulted in about $4.9 trillion of total tax revenue collected during FY 2022, which is about $790 billion more tax revenue than FY 2021, and the most revenue ever collected by the IRS,” the TIGTA report read.

“Trends in overall tax revenue impact trends in enforcement revenue. The IRS collected $72 billion in enforcement revenue in FY 2022, an increase of 26 percent compared to $58 billion collected in FY 2019. Enforcement revenue collected reached a historic high of nearly $75 billion in FY 2021, while from FY 2013 to FY 2020, enforcement revenue was just over $59 billion,” the report continued.

“The IRS budget increased approximately 11 percent, from $11.3 billion in FY 2019 to $12.6 billion in FY 2022. The IRS ended FY 2022 with 72,648 full-time equivalent employees, a slight decrease from the number of full-time equivalent employees in FY 2019. The revenue collection was driven substantially by automated collection processes. About 74 percent of FY 2022’s enforcement revenue was collected within the Collection notice stream and Automated Collection System (ACS). The ACS, which was responsible for $10.6 billion revenue in FY 2019 and $11.5 billion in revenue in FY 2022, collected approximately $3.8 million per full-time equivalent in FY 2022, while revenue officers within Field Collection collected on average $2.7 million each,” the report read.

The TIGTA report cited the Inflation Reduction Act for boosting the IRS’ budget for enforcement personnel.

“The Inflation Reduction Act was signed into law in August 2022 and increased funding for IRS operations by nearly $80 billion over 10 years. The IRS has stated in its Inflation Reduction Act Strategic Operating Plan that it plans transformational change for taxpayers, including rebuilding its workforce, modernizing its information technology systems, and addressing the growing Tax Gap. This law specifically provides the IRS with nearly $46 billion for enforcement activities, which could be used for hiring more enforcement personnel, and $3 billion for taxpayer services,” the report read.

“While the IRS is poised to continue increasing its reliance on automated systems to squeeze more tax dollars from taxpayers, it’s also looking to hire another 3,700 tax enforcers as it spends an extra $46 billion of the recent $80 billion (later reduced to $60 billion via debt ceiling negotiations) funding boost on enforcement,” The Epoch Times noted.

The outlet discussed the hotly-contested debate of issuing more audits for those earning under $400,000 per year.

From The Epoch Times:

The question of whether the IRS will use some of the $60 billion or so funding boost to increase tax enforcement of people making less than $400,000 has been a contentious issue.

IRS and Treasury Department officials have pledged not to increase audit rates for this group of Americans, while Republicans and others have argued that this pledge is either false or wishful thinking.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has directed the IRS not to raise audit rates above historical levels for this group of taxpayers, while IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel has repeatedly made the same pledge.

But the IRS watchdog recently cast doubt on this promise, warning that Americans making less than $400,000 could inadvertently get caught in an enforcement dragnet because the IRS doesn’t clearly define “high-income” and its enforcers use an outdated $200,000 high-income threshold as their default.

During recent testimony on Capitol Hill, Mr. Werfel appeared to acknowledge the possibility that audit rates could rise for Americans making less than $400,000 per year.

During an Oct. 24 hearing, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) pressed the IRS chief to explicitly guarantee that the IRS wouldn’t raise audits on Americans making less than $400,000.

Read the full TIGTA report HERE.

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