Funding Bill Freezes $20 Billion of IRS Enforcement Cash

Roughly $20 billion of IRS enforcement money remains frozen in draft legislation to fund the government released Tuesday by congressional appropriators.

The so-called continuing resolution, expected to advance through Congress this week, aims to avert an end-of-week government shutdown by extending funding through March 14. Republicans inserted the freeze on IRS modernization funding in an earlier continuing resolution, and Democrats were unsuccessful in cutting it out.

The rider effectively puts a temporary hold through the duration of the continuing resolution on roughly $20 billion of the enforcement funds the IRS got in the Democrats’ 2022 tax-and-climate law.

That law initially ...