The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has been the target of many false claims in recent weeks in connection with funding it will receive from the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.
A tweet about the IRS recently went viral claiming Congress voted to make its members exempt from tax audits.
“In order to safeguard democracy, Congress has voted to exempt itself and its members from upcoming IRS audits,” the tweet from @ThatmattersNews said. As of Aug. 22, it had more than 18,000 likes and nearly 11,000 retweets.
BREAKING
— News That Matters (@ThatmattersNews) August 17, 2022
In order to safeguard democracy, Congress has voted to exempt itself and its members from upcoming IRS audits pic.twitter.com/TVK3Cboc1c
VERIFY viewer Ron emailed us to ask if it was true.
Has Congress voted to make its members exempt from IRS audits?
No, Congress has not voted to make its members exempt from IRS audits. The tweet was satire.
The viral tweet came from an account called News That Matters that is known for posting satirical content. After the post about congressional audits went viral, a different tweet was pinned to the top of the profile acknowledging the account is satire (satirical examples from the account here, here and here).
“REPORT A new study shows that a shocking number of American adults have trouble spelling the word ‘satire,’ let alone recognizing it,” the tweet said.
REPORT
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