TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis published a proposed bill in a move to fight back against a planned expansion of Internal Revenue Service personnel. The recently passed federal Inflation Reduction Act includes funding to grow the IRS by 87,000 staff.
Patronis’ legislative proposal is described in statements from the CFO as “part of his Four Part ‘IRS Protection Plan to Fight Back against a Shakedown Targeting Florida.‘” Patronis announced he would be working with state lawmakers to pass legislation fighting the growth of the IRS and the $80 billion taxpayer “appropriation” signed into law by President Joe Biden.
Part of the plan by Patronis includes creating an IRS “transparency site” where Florida residents will be able to “report potential discrimination and targeting activities by IRS agents.”
Referring back to how “the IRS targeted conservative groups in 2013, and we cannot let that happen in Florida.” The CFO said the best way to fight “public corruption,” was “transparency,” calling it “the best disinfectant.” His proposed legislation creates a system allowing Florida’s state chartered banks to report IRS activities so that state officials can “understand the severity and frequency of federal agents accessing Florida’s banking information.”
Patronis said in a statement that he was concerned with potential discrimination against Floridians by the federal tax authorities, and would use the proposed system to “fight back” and promised to “make this information available to the appropriate committees in Washington that provide oversight of the IRS.”
The Inflation Reduction Act is described in a one-page explainer by Senate Democrats as being made to “close tax loopholes used by the wealthy” through a 15% corporate minimum tax and a 1% fee on stock buybacks, in addition to enhanced IRS enforcement. Changes to stock portions of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 will be effective after Dec. 31, 2022.
The explainer says the bill will protect families and small businesses making less than $400,000 per year, in addition to reducing the total federal deficit by $300 billion or more. In a similar fashion, the White House said “no family making less than $400,000 per year will see their taxes go up by a single cent.”
Portions of the funding going to the IRS will be used, according to the law, for upgrades to the technology, systems, “operations support,” and infrastructure of the federal agency.
