Thanks to investments made by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the IRS recently announced that it plans to aggressively pursue 1,600 millionaires and 75 large businesses that owe hundreds of millions of dollars in back taxes.

This is on top of the $38 million in back taxes it recovered from 175 high-income earners earlier this year.

Republicans in Congress have spent decades demonizing and defunding the IRS, leading to severe budget cuts that have left the agency overburdened and understaffed. As a result, the agency hasn’t had the resources to audit wealthy taxpayers at high enough rates. Instead, their audits have focused on the poor and the middle class.

The five most audited counties in the U.S. are primarily African-American, low-income, and in the Deep South. In a cruel twist of fate, the main reason these communities are audited at such high rates is because they’re low-income -- and this is exactly what Congressional Republicans want.

The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) can be claimed by low- and middle-income workers if they meet certain criteria; it’s the government's largest anti-poverty program, paying out over $60 billion to low-income families each year. Thanks to over a decade of Republican pressure to combat “fraud” and the gutting of the IRS budget, EITC audits have increased dramatically, while audits on the rich have fallen.

The Inflation Reduction Act provided $80 billion in funding for the IRS to fix this problem and enhance enforcement efforts. It’s also being used to improve the overall IRS experience for everyday taxpayers by reducing call times, processing returns faster, and issuing refunds faster. In fact, the IRS increased phone assistance by more than 2 million calls this year from the year before.

As MAGA Republicans try to make good on their plans to defund the IRS in order to protect their wealthy, tax-cheating donors, the rest of Congress must fight back and go on offense instead.

Demand Congress increase, not cut, funding for the IRS by adding your name now.