Posted on 08/12/22
| News Source: JPost
Senator John Neely Kennedy (R-LA) claimed on Thursday that the recent economic bill passed by the Senate would double the size of the IRS and that it will have "more agents, or soldiers, than the entire Israeli army." The claim was made in a live television interview with Fox News.
According to a 2021 assessment by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the IDF has approximately 169,500 active personnel.
The IRS currently has about 80,000 employees according to the Associated Press. This includes much more than just enforcement officers; there are clerical workers, customer service representatives and others. The AP further cited Natasha Sarin, the Treasury Department's counselor for tax policy and implementation, explaining that the Inflation Reduction Act is meant to fund increased efforts to crack down on high-level tax evasion.
Janet Holtzblatt, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center and former Treasury official said that the nearly $80 billion promised by the bill will also pay for general improvements at the agency, such as tech updates.