Washington, D.C. — Under the status quo, the United States will lose about $7 trillion in revenue over the next 10 years from taxes that are owed but not paid, largely from the wealthiest Americans. Over the past decade, the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) ability to enforce tax laws has been severely diminished by budget cuts and staff attrition, and the agency lacks the modern technology needed for effective enforcement and quality taxpayer service. Lacking enough experienced enforcement personnel to examine complex tax returns, such as those of wealthy individuals and large corporations, the IRS has focused a greater share of audits on low-income workers, with adverse implications for inequality and racial equity as well as federal revenues.
The Biden administration has proposed a major initiative to strengthen tax enforcement and make it more equitable by shifting enforcement resources in the direction of wealthy Americans and corporations. The key elements of this initiative are pending in Congress.
Please join the Center for American Progress and a distinguished panel including current and former Treasury and IRS officials to discuss the status of this initiative in the Build Back Better legislation, as well as where we go from here.
Please submit any questions for our distinguished panel via email at [email protected]. Live captioning will be available on Zoom and on the YouTube livestream.
WHO
Panelists:
Fred Goldberg, former Commissioner, Internal Revenue Service (1989–1991)
Chye-Ching Huang, Executive Director, Tax Law Center, New York University
Jacob J. Lew, former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury (2013–2017)
Natasha Sarin, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy, U.S. Treasury Department
Moderator:
Jean Ross, Senior Fellow, Economic Policy, Center for American Progress
WHEN
Wednesday, November 3, 2021, 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. ET
WHERE
You must RSVP at this link to watch the livestream event.
For more information or to speak with an expert, please contact Julia Cusick at [email protected].