LETTER TO THE EDITOR: The House never wins!

To the editor: The IRS staff's goal is to bring in the money needed to fund the government-money needed to build infrastructure, support education, provide health services for the elderly and meal programs for the young, and give tens of millions of struggling Americans a fighting chance to improve their lives. When oligarchs escape taxation, they rob all of these programs and more. Every year, the IRS publishes data on the 'tax gap,' which is the difference between the taxes the IRS estimates are due and what it actually collects. The 2024 IRS report estimated that the tax gap for 2022, the most recent year available, was $696 billion, which is roughly equal to the combined 2024 budgets for the State Department, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Education, Department of Agriculture, and the Department of the Treasury. Charles P. Rettig, who was the IRS commissioner in 2021, said that the actual number was 'about $1 trillion in unpaid taxes every year.' For perspective, the tax gap in 1975 was only $40 billion. Make America Great Again: The lion's share on the tax gap comes from those who make money from money. There is no third-party reporting, which means they can structure and hide their income to keep the IRS in the dark. So, what's actually happening is American democracy gets to provide for society only what the fiscal constraints imposed by tax-evading oligarchs will allow. Richard Gallagher Ellensburg