One need only look to the actions of the new Republican majority in Congress. The first order of business for them was to defund the IRS. The last Congress and the Senate passed legislation designed to modernize the IRS infrastructure, enable the replacement of retiring IRS personnel, and to hire more auditors.
The ostensible rationale for the Republican majority was that the new funds were intended to result in the hounding of small business through more auditing of those returns.
The legislation passed in the last congress recognized that the uber rich underreport their income by about 20%, depriving the country of needed revenue that then must be made up on the backs of the middle class in taxation and on future generation because of the need to borrow. No wonder there is public support for the sentiment of viewing the IRS as an enemy.
The lack of fairness and justice in the ways in which we tax income gives rise to that perception. When people of color in this country experience policing of their communities, the call to “defund the police” was heard. Just as defunding the police is no solution to the problem of institutional racism in the criminal justice system, “defund the IRS” (the tax police) is no solution to the problem of the inherent unfairness in the way we pay for government and its services.