Among the new powers the IRS would assume, the report says: The authority to confiscate tax refunds, to impose fines of over $2,200 per taxpayer, and to verify whether taxpayers' health insurance coverage is "acceptable."
One measure of the scope of the IRS' new responsibilities under the healthcare overhaul: The agency might have to hire as many as 16,500 additional auditors, agents, and other employees in order to administer the program, according to Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., the ranking Republican on the Ways and Means Committee.
"It is a very dangerous expansion of the IRS' power and reach into the lives of virtually every American," Camp said in a statement released Thursday afternoon.
The Ways and Means report portrays healthcare reform as having a wide-ranging impact on how the IRS operates, including:
* IRS agents would be tasked with determining whether Americans had obtained the insurance coverage required under the individual mandate.
* Individuals could be fined $2,250 or 2 percent of income, whichever is greater, if you are unable to prove you have "minimum essential coverage."
* The IRS would be empowered to confiscate tax refunds if necessary.
* Audits probably would increase as a result of the legislation's new requirements.
* The budget for IRS operations will balloon by $10 billion in the next decade in order to administrate the new program.
* Nearly half of the new individual mandate taxes will be paid "by Americans earning less than 300 percent of poverty, $66150 for a family of four.
