'Obamacare' cops: $1 billion to force new tax compliance

16,000 new IRS agents to be required under health-care reform

Posted: March 28, 2010
7:24 pm Eastern
By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2010 WorldNetDaily

Collecting taxes under the Democrats' newly passed health-care plan will cost the federal government more than $1 billion a year in salaries alone, Republicans in Congress estimate.

The legislation will require the IRS to hire as many as 16,500 additional auditors, agents and other employees to investigate and collect billions in new taxes imposed on Americans, according to a House Committee on Ways and Means Committee Republican report prepared March 18 for ranking members Reps. Dave Camp, R-Mich., and Charles Boustany, R-La.

In March 2009, the federal government's average annual salary was $42,035 for tax examiners, $91,507 for internal revenue agents and $63,547 for tax specialists, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics "Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2010-11 Edition."

Averaging the three pay grade averages yields an estimated $65,696 per IRS worker hired, assuming an equal number of tax examiners, internal revenue agents and tax specialists.

Together, the 16,500 new IRS personnel needed to collect taxes under the new legislation will cost the federal government somewhere in the realm of $1.1 billion

The IRS media office objected that the Joint Committee on Taxation publication JCX-18-10 issued March 21, "Technical Explanation of the Revenue Provisions of the Reconciliation Act," does not specify any number of IRS personnel that must be hired to implement the tax provisions of the bill.

Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, disagrees.

"The Internal Revenue Service will see its largest expansion since withholding taxes were enacted during World War II to enforce the glut of new tax mandates and penalties included in the Democrats' latest health care plan," reads a statement on Brady's congressional website.

Brady is the ranking Republican on the Joint Economic Committee.

"We need thousands of new doctors and nurses in America, not thousands more IRS agents," Brady insists. "In addition to more complicated tax returns, families and small businesses will be forced to reveal further tax information to the IRS, provide proof of 'government approved' health care and submit detailed sales information to comply with new excise taxes."

By 2016, the IRS will be required under the "Obamacare" legislation to monitor the health insurance status of individuals and businesses to determine if the insurance purchased as reported on tax returns meets the level of coverage required by the law. In cases of noncompliance fees and penalties are to be assess.

The IRS could not give WND any indication how the Democrats' new legislation would implement the "bounty hunter" program President Obama suggested would track down abusers and collect evaded taxes on all government health programs, including Medicare and Medicaid.

The IRS further did not respond by publication deadline to WND's request for information regarding the likely number of additional personnel the IRS would have to hire to implement Obamacare, the immediate tax consequences the IRS would have to monitor and audit, and the likely cost to the IRS of implementing the new health legislation.

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