Internal Revenue Service Appropriations, FY2019 (CRS Report for Congress)
| Release Date |
Revised March 4, 2019 |
| Report Number |
IF10966 |
| Report Type |
In Focus |
| Authors |
Gary Guenther |
| Source Agency |
Congressional Research Service |
| Older Revisions |
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Summary:
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has two main statutory
responsibilities: to collect most of the revenue needed to
fund the federal government and to enforce federal tax laws
and regulations. In FY2017, the agency processed 245.4
million tax returns and other documents and collected $3.4
trillion in gross revenue.
Appropriations typically provide most of the funds
available for obligation by the IRS: in FY2017, 94% of
those funds ($11.235 billion) came from appropriations.
The remaining 6% ($710 million) consisted of
reimbursements from other government agencies, offsetting
collections, user fees, and unobligated balances from
previous years. Under current law, the IRS is free to use
these miscellaneous funds as it sees fit, without
congressional approval.
Historically, the agency’s appropriated funds have been
distributed among four accounts: taxpayer services (TS),
enforcement, operations support (OS), and business systems
modernization (BSM). As shown in Table 1, enforcement
accounts for 43% of the $11.431 billion in enacted
appropriations for the IRS in FY2018, followed by OS
(32%), TS (22%), and BSM (1%). Congress added $320
million (3%) to the IRS budget in FY2018 to pay for the
cost of implementing the tax revision law (P.L. 115-97).
