Sponsor
David Schweikert
Representative · R-AZ
The bill strengthens IRS analytic capacity to boost enforcement effectiveness, revenue recovery, and workforce skills — but does so while increasing audit risk, raising privacy and bias concerns, and adding personnel costs and potential workforce‑turnover tradeoffs.
Taxpayers and the federal government may see increased recovered revenue because improved analytics focus enforcement on offshore evasion and other high-risk noncompliance.
Low‑risk filers are more likely to avoid unfair or unnecessary audits because analytics can improve IRS audit selection to target higher‑risk taxpayers.
Junior IRS staff and the broader federal analytics workforce will get training, mentorship, and a pathway for fellows to transition to permanent roles, improving public‑sector data science capacity and retention.
Many taxpayers could face more audits, assessments, and collection activity if analytics identify additional tax liabilities, increasing financial and compliance burdens.
Use of advanced analytics and AI for enforcement raises privacy and surveillance concerns for individuals and firms if models lack transparency, controls, or clear limits on data use.
Concentrating analytic capability risks model errors or biases that could disproportionately harm certain taxpayers unless there is rigorous validation, testing, and bias mitigation.
Based on analysis of 4 sections of legislative text.
Creates an IRS fellowship to hire data scientists for audit selection, analytics, and enforcement and requires annual ROI reporting to Congress.
Representative · R-AZ
Creates a temporary IRS Fellowship Program to recruit data scientists and related tax professionals into a task force that will improve audit selection, analytics, and enforcement, including offshore/FACTA-related work. The Commissioner of Internal Revenue must set up the program by September 30, 2026, hire a minimum cohort size, set term lengths and pay ranges, allow conversion to permanent IRS jobs, and report annually to Congress on program outcomes and return on investment. The Secretary of the Treasury may appoint a lead program officer, and the Commissioner must issue implementing rules (with Secretary approval). The program requires annual reporting on costs, applicant counts, predicted revenue impacts, and recommendations for change, but it does not itself appropriate funding or change the tax code.
Official title: To require the Internal Revenue Service to establish a fellowship program within the Internal Revenue Service to recruit qualified data scientists to partner with tax law specialists and provide insights and identify emerging and complex issues in tax administration, ranging from data acquisition and quality through developing advanced analytics, statistics, and models to improve core tax administration activities in services and enforcement.
Introduced March 18, 2026 by David Schweikert · Last progress March 18, 2026