• ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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      29 days ago

      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
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        29 days ago

        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
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          29 days ago

          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
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            28 days ago

            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
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              28 days 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 The article does mention that Republicans in congress recently rescinded more than $20 billion in additional IRS funding, which does suggest that the net benefit was far less than $1.3 billion and might even have been negative.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.