Biden has drawn fire for tips from the IRS targeting service industries on the new plan

By Casey Harper (Center Square)

The IRS has said it will follow the service industry’s advice in a new effort to increase collections, drawing criticism from President Joe Biden.

The IRS issued new guidance this week for a “voluntary tip reporting program” for service industry employers.

The plan allows for “monitoring of employer compliance based on actual annual tip revenue and tip data from an employer’s point-of-sale system and allowance for adjustments in tipping practices from year to year.”

The IRS encourages employers to allow this monitoring because “employers receive protection from liability” and it makes them less likely to receive a “compliance review” from the IRS.

“Participating employers demonstrate compliance with the program’s requirements by submitting an annual report after the end of the calendar year, which reduces the need for compliance review by the IRS,” the IRS said.

Republicans blast Biden with new plan.

“Stop the press. There’s no need to raise the debt limit,” said Rep. Thomas Massey, R-Ky. “Biden is following the tips of those billionaire waitresses,” he added, apparently referring to Biden’s call for a billionaire tax.

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The effort comes the same week Biden insisted in his State of the Union address that no one making less than $400,000 should pay higher taxes.

In the speech, Biden called for “the richest and largest corporations to start paying their fair share” and proposed quadrupling the tax on corporate stock buybacks from 1% to 4%, a proposal critics say would cost countless jobs.

“Look, I’m a capitalist, but pay your fair share,” Biden said. “The idea that in 2020, 55 of America’s largest corporations, the Fortune 500, made $40 billion in profits and paid zero in federal taxes … folks, that’s just not fair.”

Biden also talked about the 15% minimum tax on book income passed in the Inflation Reduction Act in his speech.

A more aggressive IRS is not new. Biden has made it clear since taking office that this is a key part of his agenda. The president pushed for greater IRS enforcement to fund some of his spending as an alternative to raising taxes. The main thrust of that plan came from the previous Democrat-led Congress funding 87,000 new IRS agents to audit Americans and thus increase revenue.

“Joe Biden’s radical war on the working class has just expanded to educated workers,” said the Ways and Means Committee chairman, adding that more proof that working-class Americans who earn less than $75,000 are at a loss in 710,000 new IRS audits under the new supercharged IRS. face,” said Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo. “While the president made a big game of going after billionaires in his partisan State of the Union address, it’s clear the White House is doubling down on the crazy and prioritizing going after hard-working middle-class employees.”

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House Republicans voted earlier this year to defund Biden’s additional IRS agents, but that bill almost certainly won’t become law on Biden’s watch.

“When Biden says the IRS is going after millionaires and billionaires, he clearly means waitresses are living off tips,” said Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo.

Syndicated with permission from Center Square.