Lamborn Cosponsors Legislation that Redirects New IRS Funding for Middle-Class Audits to Border Patrol

Washington, D.C.- Congressman Doug Lamborn joined Congresswoman Claudia Tenney in introducing the Diverting IRS Resources to the Exigent Crisis Through (DIRECT) Funds for Border Security Act. The legislation stops Joe Biden’s new IRS army from launching audits of middle-class families and instead invests those funds in additional Customs and Border Protection Agents to secure the Southern Border. 

As part of the partisan Inflation Reduction Act, the IRS received $45.6 billion for additional enforcement activities. These additional audits will primarily target lower- and middle-income Americans, contrary to President Biden’s claims. The bill also failed to invest enough in the Taxpayer Advocate Service, which is what could improve the responsiveness and delivery of services to American taxpayers. As Biden is focused on targeting law-abiding American families to pay for his costly new legislation, he has ignored the crisis on our Southern Border. Already in FY22 there have been over 2.1 million border encounters, the highest fiscal year total ever, with one month’s worth of data still yet to be reported. In less than two years, the Biden administration has already surpassed the total number of encounters from the entirety of the Obama administration.

“Instead of the Biden administration weaponizing the IRS to go after middle class Americans, we should be devoting more resources to the actual danger occurring at our Southern Border,” said Congressman Lamborn. “I was glad to join my colleague, Congresswoman Tenney, in support of this legislation as we need to ensure that our Customs and Border Protection Agents have adequate funding to deal with the unprecedented humanitarian and security crisis created by the Biden Border Crisis.”

“The Biden administration’s failure to secure the border and enforce our immigration laws has created an unmitigated disaster at our Southern Border that is impacting communities across the country,” said Congresswoman Tenney. “Meanwhile, President Biden and Democrats in Congress are ignoring the problem and instead giving tens of billions of dollars to the IRS, not to improve its services but so they can audit an additional 700,000 working-class Americans. Joe Biden’s priorities could not be more twisted. Americans don’t want more IRS audits; they want a secure border and safer streets. The DIRECT Funds for Border Security Act will deliver just that by providing CBP with the money needed to hire new agents.”

Specifically, the DIRECT Funds for Border Security Act would rescind all of the unobligated funds under the partisan Inflation Reduction Act for new IRS enforcement activities and re-appropriate these funds for CBP to hire additional agents to secure the Southern Border.

Representatives Lance Gooden (TX-05), Randy Weber (TX-14), Dan Crenshaw (TX-02), Pete Stauber (MN-08), Buddy Carter (GA-01), Jay Obernolte (CA-08), Markwayne Mullin (OK-02), Steve Chabot (OH-01), Gregory Steube (FL-17), and Chris Jacobs (NY-27) all joined the legislation as original cosponsors.

The full text of the bill is available here.