IRS collects milestone $1B in back taxes from high-wealth taxpayers

During Fiscal Year (FY) 2023, the IRS collected nearly $4.7 trillion in gross taxes, processed almost 271.5 million tax returns and other forms, and issued about $659.1 billion in tax refunds. [1]

IRS’s actual expenditures were just over $16.1 billion for overall op­erations in Fiscal Year (FY) 2023. [2]

[1] https://www.irs.gov/statistics/soi-tax-stats-irs-data-book

[2] https://www.irs.gov/statistics/irs-budget-and-workforce

Good to set into context, thank you

More context:

- The US Defense Budget alone is $842 billion for 2024 [1] - The US has given over $90 billion to Israel and Ukraine in 2024 [2]

All funded by debt. $1 billion here is theater to make us feel good about "sticking it to the rich"

We talk about getting the rich to "pay their fair share" as if the whole tax system isn't designed to get that money into the hands of whoever is greasing our politicians' palms. Good ol' military industrial complex.x

[1] https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/332687... [2] https://www.cfr.org/article/us-aid-israel-four-charts

How is it all funded by debt? OP says the IRS collected $4.7T in taxes. So the military budget is 17% of the collected taxes, and the aide to Israel/Ukraine is <2% of all the collected taxes.

Why does debt matter?

In 2023 the US had a deficit of $1.7T which we borrowed to cover by issuing Treasury bonds.

You could debate which part of the $6.4T was funded by debt, but it seems reasonable to say that foreign aid is not a mandatory expenditure. That also doesn't mean it's not worth borrowing for.

There is a helluva lot of fat to cut in the budget. Ukraine aid should not be the first port of call.

It is not mandatory by law. But if you want to keep being a superpower it very much is. Projecting your power and maintaining your commitments is a major part of that.

> it seems reasonable to say that foreign aid is not a mandatory expenditure.

Is it reasonable to say though? How is staying on top of global power structures not mandatory for the US? It was in the last 80+ years or so the highest priority.

The benefits of being a superpower are up for debate. Being a nuclear power is all that is needed for the security of US interests. There is significant need for investment locally.

It was even worse:

“Removing the effects of announced student debt cancellation that the courts ruled illegal, the deficit totaled $2.0 trillion in FY 2023”

https://www.crfb.org/blogs/2023-deficit-hit-17-trillion

> if you want to keep being a superpower

Foreign aid is about avoiding war. The hope is the belligerents will end things themselves, or at the very least delay the point where we have to ship soldiers.

Foreign aid is often direct (and somehow legal) bribery.

The US pays over 1T in interest for its debt per quarter at this time [1]. Pretty much all collected income taxes go into debt servicing. Debt matters because if you keep doing this you run out of taxes to service the debt and then people will stop lending (buying your debt) while you still have to repay the debt you accumulated before so you will devalue your currency and have real inflation when nobody will hold cash at all. Other countries that went into this state got by with using USD instead of the national currency, the US won't have such an option.

1. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A091RC1Q027SBEA

> The benefits of being a superpower are up for debate.

What? Nobody debates this.

American excellency is a real thing. No country even comes close right now. I say this as an American expat.

I think that chart is annualized debt payments plotted quarterly, i.e annual interest is ~1T.

You are right, I stand corrected - it's only half of the federal income tax collected (which was ~2.2T in 2023).

I see $90B in economic aid to Israel, but under the graph titled,

> Israel Is the Largest Cumulative Recipient of U.S. Aid Total aid from fiscal years 1946 to 2024

!!!

It's also worth noting that usually military aid numbers include the cost of the hardware we send over. It's a $300 aid package to Ukraine, but we are sending old M1 tanks and a small bit of the existing ATACMS inventory we've been stockpiling since the 80's.

Why does the US need to be the world hedgemon though? Other countries do just fine without being that way

Google “BRICS” to see how nations are trying a new way to work cooperatively instead of imposing their will on each other

My bad, posted the wrong link.

Should have been:

https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/article/37...

Our biggest ally!