2025 GOP shenanigans

This has been a very concerning year so far for collecting tax revenue for the federal government. The commissioner of the IRS has changed several times in the last 9 months. Currently the acting commissioner is actually the Secretary of the treasury Scott Bessent. The most recent commissioner was Billy Long, but he only lasted several months. As a taxpayer I am concerned about this lack of consistency in its leadership. With a national debt approaching 37 trillion dollars we need an effective and fair IRS to collect revenue for the federal government.

There is a great deal of concern over our inflation problem. The definition of inflation or the cause of inflation is too many dollars chasing too few goods and services. COVID is definitely to blame for much of this problem, between PPP loans (most were not needed) and stimulus checks. There was so much money out in the economy that inflation hit 9 % at its highest point in the last 5 years and currently it's at about 2.9 percent. With a national debt that is out of control, and for some crazy reason congress just passed tax cuts for the richest American's and laid off 20 percent or more of the IRS. This is only going to make things worse for us middle class taxpayers that pay a higher percentage of our income to the federal government. With elaborate tax schemes and complex business arrangements we need a strong IRS to take on these sophisticated wealthy individuals who only care about their own interests and could care less the debt we are leaving our children.

What can we do to reduce our national debt? First, fund the IRS and hire back all the employees that were fired over the last 9 months. Secondly, get rid of special interest loopholes that only benefit the wealthy an example of this is the State and local tax deduction that was recently raised by the one big, beautiful bill act to $40,000. This only benefits the wealthy homeowner and does nothing for poor renters who cannot even come up with 20 percent down payment to purchase a first home. Thirdly, we need to get rid of the step up in basis that the rich use to pass wealth to their children tax free. Fourth, would be to get rid of the maximum taxable earning $176,100 for social security tax and start taxing billionaires and all w2 income no matter how much the rich complain.

In order to reduce our debt, we need to trust our IRS with our personal information. Anyone working in the United States, whether here legally or illegally needs to pay their share of taxes. Recently there has been requests to the IRS for tax information on taxpayers who are undocumented workers. This information should always remain confidential. They have received ITINS that allow them to receive legit w2s and not resort to using other people's social security numbers, this is a WIN WIN for America. Every one working withing our borders should the right to pay taxes to the IRS and not worry about that information being used against them. As a guy who works in the real day to day economy here in southern California, the real tax cheats are not undocumented workers working in the economy it's the rich with their elaborate complex tax schemes that even the IRS cannot figure out what is going on.