Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis said he would be “welcoming’ of a measure from Congress if he is elected president next year to defund the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
DeSantis officially announced his candidacy this week for the nation’s highest office and commented during a conversation with Second Amendment advocate and radio host Dana Loesch on The Dana Show.
During the interview, DeSantis was asked if he would sign a measure from Congress to abolish the IRS through funding measures and what he would replace the system with.
“Are you a fair tax, a flat tax, where do you stand on that?” DeSantis was asked by Loesch.
“So, the answer’s yes. I think the IRS is a corrupt organization, and I think it’s not a friend to the average citizen or taxpayer,” responded DeSantis. “We need something totally different.”
“I’ve supported all of the single rate proposals, I think they would be a huge improvement over the current system, and I would be welcoming to take this tax system, chuck it out the window and do something that’s more favorable to the average folks,” he continued.
DeSantis has frequently targeted the IRS for its crackdown on the middle class and what he deemed an unfair practices and said last August that an effort from the Biden administration to grow the IRS by 87,000 new agents was a sign of disrespect.
“Of all the things that have come out of Washington that have been outrageous, this has got to be pretty close to the top,” said DeSantis then. “I think it was basically just the middle finger to the American public, that this is what they think of you.”
Gov. DeSantis has continually highlighted that Washington is “going after you” and suggested that new agents would be more likely to target those who work hard to make ends meet through day-to-day, ordinary jobs or those with small businesses.
“They are going to go after independent contractors, they’re going to go after small business people, they’re going to go after someone that may be driving an Uber or a handyman or all these things,” added DeSantis. “Why would they do that? Because you’re not going to be able to contend with the audit, so they’re going to crush a lot of people by doing that,”
During a 2013 news appearance, DeSantis said from a “policy perspective,” he believes the IRS “is really past its point of usefulness.”
“I think we need to move to a fair or flat tax and give the government less power,” said DeSantis, then a member of the House Oversight and Judiciary Committee.
Governor DeSantis has become a target for his past support of a national sales tax
Before DeSantis announced his bid for the White House, several of his critics, including a super PAC that supports former President Trump’s 2024 campaign, aimed at the governor during his time representing Florida in the House from 2013 to 2018 over his support of a national sales tax.
“In Congress, Ron DeSantis backed a national sales tax, a 23% tax hike on almost everything you buy…from the gas station to the grocery store,” stated an ad from the leading super PAC, MAGA, Inc., aligned with former Presdident Trump’s candidacy in the 2024 race for the White House.
Although it was true that the governor supported a bill that proposed introducing a 23% federal tax bill, crucial details were omitted from the ad. Per the bill’s proposed national sales tax, all additional federal taxes, including income tax, would be eliminated if the legislation had passed.
HR25, also known as the Fair Tax Act, is a version of the legislation introduced in Congress several times since 1999. DeSantis was the bill’s co-sponsor in 2013, 2015, and 2017.
“In Congress, the governor supported the concept of a Fair Tax, a plan to lower the overall tax burden on an individual by replacing all federal taxes — including income tax — with a lower tax,” said DeSantis political team press secretary Bryan Griffin, in a statement. “The plan also sought to end the IRS, which at the time, was being weaponized by the Obama administration.”
