["House Republicans are using aid for Israel as a political pawn
in order to slash taxes for their wealthy donors," said Senate Finance
Committee Chair Ron Wyden.]
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HOUSE GOP WANTS TO PAIR ISRAEL MILITARY AID WITH IRS CUTS THAT HELP
RICH TAX CHEATS  
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Jake Johnson
October 31, 2023
Common Dreams
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_ "House Republicans are using aid for Israel as a political pawn in
order to slash taxes for their wealthy donors," said Senate Finance
Committee Chair Ron Wyden. _

Rep. Mike Johnson Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) was applauded after being
nominated for speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives on October
24, 2023. , Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

 

House Republicans released legislative text on Monday that pairs
around $14 billion in military aid for Israel with steep cuts from
Internal Revenue Service funding that has given the agency more
capacity
[[link removed]]
to pursue wealthy tax cheats.

The GOP bill
[[link removed]]
would strip $14.3 billion in funds from the IRS, a move that would
undercut the agency's renewed enforcement push and nix efforts
[[link removed]] to
build out a free digital tax filing system to compete with private
tax-prep firms, which have lobbied aggressively
[[link removed]]
against the IRS alternative.

While the House GOP's proposed IRS cuts were widely presented as
"offsets [[link removed]]"
for the new aid for Israel's military, such cuts would in fact add to
the federal deficit by depriving the agency of resources to collect
taxes from rich tax dodgers
[[link removed]] who are costing
the U.S. tens of billions in revenue.

"Every $1 you cut IRS funding will lose about $2 of revenue," noted
[[link removed]] Marc
Goldwein of the conservative Center for a Responsible Federal Budget.
"So that means this bill would add about $30 billion to the deficit."

The IRS said earlier this month that it has collected $160 million in
back taxes
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from millionaires this year thanks to new enforcement funding provided
under the Inflation Reduction Act. The agency also recently launched
[[link removed]]
an initiative aimed at cracking down on tax dodging by large
corporations.

Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) argued
[[link removed]] on social
media late Monday that "House Republicans are using aid for Israel as
a political pawn in order to slash taxes for their wealthy donors."

"Making it easier for rich people to cheat on their taxes isn't an
offset, it adds to the deficit," Wyden wrote.

House Republicans' bill comes in response to President Joe Biden's
request for $14.3 billion in military aid for Israel as part of a
broader $106 billion emergency funding request
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that also called for military assistance for Ukraine, disaster relief
in the U.S., and some humanitarian aid for Gaza that human rights
advocates say could bolster Israeli efforts to forcibly displace
Palestinians
[[link removed]].

The GOP legislation, which is likely dead on arrival in the narrowly
Democratic U.S. Senate, only contains funding
[[link removed]]
for Israel.

The bipartisan push to approve new military aid for Israel comes
despite warnings from legal experts that the U.S. could be complicit
in genocide
[[link removed]] and other
war crimes against Palestinians in Gaza.

Israel's bombing campaign has killed more than 8,000
people—including more than 3,400 children
[[link removed]]—and
sparked a humanitarian catastrophe
[[link removed]], displacing
more than a million Gazans, destroying or damaging roughly 40% of the
territory's housing units, and pushing the enclave's healthcare system
to the brink of total collapse.

The National Priorities Project cautioned
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in response to Biden's supplemental funding request that "more
military aid to Israel will mean more deaths."

"In the face of massive suffering in Gaza and disregard for
international law by the Israeli government, the U.S. must not provide
additional military aid or weapons that would cause more deaths," the
group said. "Instead, the U.S. should use its considerable diplomatic
strength to call for an immediate cease-fire."

===

Jake Johnson is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel
free to republish and share widely.

* House GOP; Aid for Israel; Tax Cuts for Wealthy;
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