Has the IRS budget decreased in real terms in recent years?
Funding for the Internal Revenue Service has fallen 21% in real terms over the past ten years, according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington think tank. “Underfunding [IRS] enforcement empowers tax avoiders and evaders...while hurting honest tax filers,” a CBPP researcher told Congress in February.
Since 1989, the agency's staff has shrunk 36%, despite an increased taxpayer population, new tax measures, the globalization of corporate activity and an expanded role in administering social programs.
The IRS's 2020 funding request of $11.47 billion was comparable to funding levels in the early 2000s.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the IRS examined 46% fewer individual income tax returns between 2010 and 2018, and reduced funds and staff allocated to enforcement activities by 30%.
