LETTER: IRS gets more money for more audits

In all of this discussion about the expansion of the IRS with thousands of new agents, the press never really seems to address the issue of why such an expansion is necessary. What is overlooked is that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 raised the standard deduction significantly, thus leading to a lot fewer people itemizing on their tax return. Fewer people itemizing should mean a reduction in the IRS case load over the past few years. Something odd is going on here.