DIRECT Act Pulls Unspent IRS Enforcement Funds to Hire New Border Agents

The newly proposed Diverting IRS Resources to the Exigent Crisis Today Act, or the DIRECT Act, is a straight-up budget reshuffle that impacts two major federal agencies: the IRS and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

The Swap: Unspent Audits for Border Patrol

Section 2 of the DIRECT Act gets right to the point: it cancels, or 'rescinds,' any money that Congress previously gave the IRS for its enforcement activities—specifically funds from Public Law 117-169, Section 10301(1)(A)(ii)—provided that money hasn’t already been spent or officially committed. Think of it like clawing back a budget line item that hasn't been touched yet. The bill then immediately takes that exact amount of money and hands it over to CBP. This isn’t a suggestion; it’s a direct appropriation. The only catch is that CBP must use 100% of these new funds for the salaries and expenses of hiring new agents and officers to secure the southern border. This is a direct, dollar-for-dollar transfer from tax enforcement capacity to border security personnel.

What This Means for Your Tax Life

For the average person, this bill doesn't change your tax rate, but it could change the likelihood of the IRS having the resources to check if you’re paying what you owe—or if your high-earning neighbor is. The IRS uses enforcement funds for things like upgrading technology to catch complex tax fraud, hiring specialized auditors, and conducting audits on large corporations and high-net-worth individuals. If you’re a small business owner or a middle-income earver, you might not see an immediate change, but the overall message is clear: the IRS’s ability to conduct future investigations is being reduced by taking away this unspent pool of money. The specific impact depends entirely on how much of that enforcement funding was actually left on the table.

The Real-World Impact on Government Capacity

On the flip side, CBP gets an immediate, earmarked cash infusion to boost its personnel numbers at the southern border. For CBP, this is a clear win, providing immediate funding for hiring and training new staff without having to wait for a new budget cycle. For the IRS, however, this represents a loss of capacity. If the agency was planning to use this money to finally modernize its ancient computer systems or launch a new initiative to go after sophisticated tax dodgers, those plans are now on hold. It’s a classic budgetary trade-off: strengthening one agency's personnel capacity by weakening another's enforcement arm. The bill is precise about its mechanism, but the long-term cost could be reduced compliance and potentially a wider 'tax gap' if the IRS can’t keep up with complex audits.