913
submitted 5 months ago by girlfreddy@lemmy.ca to c/news@lemmy.world

The IRS plans to end a major tax loophole for wealthy taxpayers that could raise more than $50 billion in revenue over the next decade, the U.S. Treasury Department says.

The guidance and ruling being announced Monday includes plans to essentially stop “partnership basis shifting” — a process by which a business or person can move assets among a series of related parties to avoid paying taxes.

Biden administration officials said after evaluating the practice that there are no economic grounds for these transactions, with Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo calling it “really just a shell game.” The officials said the additional IRS funding provided through the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act had enabled increased oversight and greater awareness of the practice.

“These tax shelters allow wealthy taxpayers to avoid paying what they owe,” IRS commissioner Danny Werfel said.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] nkat2112@sh.itjust.works 167 points 5 months ago

The officials said the additional IRS funding provided through the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act had enabled increased oversight and greater awareness of the practice.

Thank goodness for that!

And, yes, do it!

This is the way.

[-] Blackbeard@lemmy.world 117 points 5 months ago

Indeed. Also, Republicans have already proposed dramatic cuts to the IRS, so we should be under no illusions about what will happen to this loophole and Direct File if Trump & Co. take control in November.

[-] vxx@lemmy.world 29 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

They have been gutted for a decade. It was a genius move to circumvent their complete failure by using the inflation reduction act.

[-] dumples@midwest.social 47 points 5 months ago

Every dollar invested in the IRS give more than that in taxes from cheaters. Worth it

[-] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world 28 points 5 months ago

Yeah, it's a whopping 600% in general and DOUBLE that for auditing the top 10%!

If you're for the government being fiscally responsible (rather than pretending that macroeconomic systems are identical to household budgets) you want rule changes like the one mentioned in the headline as well as more funding for auditing and other enforcement of existing IRS rules.

[-] girlfreddy@lemmy.ca 14 points 5 months ago

... for rich people.

Because historically it's been the middle class and poor that get audited, never the rich.

In fact the IRS could just drop every investigation into those and focus on the rich every time.

[-] Cryophilia@lemmy.world 14 points 5 months ago

I'm down for also investigating the upper middle class. Some small business owners are scummy tax cheats whose entire success rests on stealing wages from their workers and taxes from the government. They need to be put out of business to open up market share for honest companies.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] NateNate60@lemmy.world 144 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

The IRS processed 162 million tax returns in FY 2023. If they raise $50 billion, then that means $308 for every taxpayer in America, courtesy of the IRS.

Honest taxpayers rejoice. Tax cheats, go cry about it.

[-] collapse_already@lemmy.ml 63 points 5 months ago

Really it has no impact on most of us. I have never used a partnership tax basis shift and almost certainly never would have. It is going to cost a bunch of obscenely wealthy jerks some money and cost the rest of us nothing. Win-win.

[-] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world 44 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Really it has no impact on most of us

No NEGATIVE impact, you mean.

Taking money that would otherwise just be passed back and forth between billionaires and hectomillionaires hurts nobody.

Investing that money in any of the thousands of critically underfunded parts of the government (education, infrastructure including Internet, antipoverty programs, and public defenders being some of the most important ones) could be absolutely TRANSFORMATIVE, especially for those most in need and/or most abused by the current status quo.

[-] deo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 5 months ago

i'm a big fan of "hectomillionaires" (the term, not the system that allows hectomillionaires to exist to the detriment of us all, of course)

[-] uis@lemm.ee 2 points 5 months ago

What about decamillionaires and kilomillionaries? Gotta love metric system.

[-] P1nkman@lemmy.world 7 points 5 months ago

Kilomillionaire literally means 1000 millions, aka a billion (short system) or a milliard (long system).

[-] uis@lemm.ee 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Correct. Now let's wait for american scared of metric.

[-] NateNate60@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago

I do think the long system makes more sense. That being said, I will not be using it.

—James Grime, mathematician, Numberphile

[-] DrunkEngineer@lemmy.world 16 points 5 months ago

That $50 billion is over a 10 year period.

[-] NateNate60@lemmy.world 22 points 5 months ago

$30.80 a year is still $30.80, and that is literally money that requires no extra work or payment on the part of the honest taxpayer.

load more comments (3 replies)
[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 89 points 5 months ago

What say you, "no new taxes, just close loopholes" Republicans?

[-] starchylemming@lemmy.world 30 points 5 months ago

but they worked to hard to create those loopholes.

don't you value honest work?

[-] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 27 points 5 months ago

"We have been dead for 20 years."

[-] ryper@lemmy.ca 18 points 5 months ago

"There are so many other loopholes, we should focus on the ones poor people use"

[-] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 16 points 5 months ago

Which republicans might those be? The only ones I hear about are “exploit the loopholes and cut taxes for the rich” kind.

[-] BigMacHole@lemm.ee 46 points 5 months ago

That's SOCIALISM!

-Fiscally Responsible Republicans who rely on Food Stamps.

[-] uis@lemm.ee 7 points 5 months ago

Food Stamps.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] Varyk@sh.itjust.works 41 points 5 months ago

Kick ass, IRS. Between this, tye free filing program and the new automatic taxes, I'm ecstatic about cheering them on.

load more comments (10 replies)
[-] scytale@lemm.ee 36 points 5 months ago
[-] henfredemars@infosec.pub 15 points 5 months ago

My dad be like the job creators need that money so it can trickle!

[-] cultsuperstar@lemmy.world 34 points 5 months ago

Is there a way for Republicans to block this? Because if so, they'll block it.

[-] Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world 14 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Under Trump and Republicans, they were actively defunding the IRS and forcing them to reduce staff. Can't audit a billionaire when theyre shorthanded.

Even though every dollar invested in the IRS is a multiplier.

[-] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 6 points 5 months ago

They could refuse aid to Ukraine until the new rules are scrapped like they did last time

[-] Prior_Industry@lemmy.world 22 points 5 months ago

I wonder how many low income earners in America are getting riled about this right now.

[-] Drewski@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 5 months ago

The IRS always says they're gonna target the wealthy, but most of their audits are lower income people because they're easier targets.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] Suavevillain@lemmy.world 14 points 5 months ago
load more comments (1 replies)
[-] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 11 points 5 months ago

I’ll believe it when it happens. And if it does, I won’t expect it to stand if the admin flips in November.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] uis@lemm.ee 9 points 5 months ago

Wealthy taxnonpayers

[-] kibiz0r@midwest.social 8 points 5 months ago

After watching Finding The Money, terms like “raise” and “revenue” applied to taxes seem deliberately misleading.

[-] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 7 points 5 months ago

What words would you use in their place?

load more comments (9 replies)
[-] Sanctus@lemmy.world 6 points 5 months ago

Do it. Dont let your dreams be dreams.

[-] tiredofsametab@kbin.run 4 points 5 months ago

Could you also please allow those of us overseas to use silly things like retirement accounts without having it all be considered PFICs? I just wanna contribute to my current country's equivalent of an ISA/401K type of thing.

load more comments
view more: next ›
this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2024
913 points (100.0% liked)

News

23397 readers
1760 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS