FWIW the US federal budget for 2024 is going to be about $6.8 trillion dollars. So that $1.3 billion is about 0.019% of the total budget. I'd call that a slap on the wrist for the billionaire class except that you can actually feel a slap on the wrist.

[–] spidermanchild@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

That's entirely the wrong denominator for this comparison. IRS doesn't write the budget nor do they write tax law, they just collect.

[–] ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Fine, revenues are $4.9 trillion. My point is that $1.9 billion is literally a drop in the bucket - hardly an example of the IRS "going after rich people".

[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

But ... It's an increase, right?

Are we okay with incremental improvements, or will only big bang headline news story type improvements be okay?

[–] ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

Is it an increase? The article @macattack cited does not give any data on how much the IRS collected from high-income earners before this additional push supposedly funded by the Inflation Reduction Act. The article does mention that Republicans in congress recently rescinded more than $20 billion in additional IRS funding, which does suggest that the net benefit was far less than $1.3 billion and might even have been negative. It seems like the kind of breathless article the impact of which relies on people not well understanding the difference between a billion and a trillion.