Press Releases

WICHITA – Rep. Ron Estes (R-Kansas) released the following statement after voting against the Democrats' tax-and-spend bill.

"Kansans are suffering under rampant inflation in Biden's recession – the last things they need are higher taxes and more runaway government spending," said Rep. Estes. "This bill aims to garner $20 billion from working Americans making less than $400,000 through a massively-expanded IRS. It's more of the same disastrous policies that have put us in a recession."

Background:
The House passed the so-called Inflation Reduction Act 220-207 along party lines.

Today, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released new analysis on a Senate amendment that failed along party lines last week that would have prevented new audits on taxpayers making less than $400,000. They said, "CBO has not completed a point estimate of this amendment but the preliminary assessment indicates that amendment 5404 would reduce the 'non-scorable' revenues resulting from the provisions of section 10301 by at least $20 billion over the FY2022-FY2031 period."

A previous Congressional Budget Office analysis makes clear that under this plan, audit rates will "rise for all taxpayers," and the policy "would return audit rates to the levels of about 10 years ago." The Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress' official tax scorekeeper, says that from 78% to 90% of the money raised from under-reported income would likely come from those making less than $200,000 a year. Nearly half of the audits would hit Americans making $75,000 per year or less, and only 4% to 9% would come from those making more than $500,000.