Republicans have been clamoring to rescind billions of dollars in additional funding provided for the Internal Revenue Service as part of last year’s Inflation Reduction Act. They succeeded to an extent as part of the recent deal between House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden to raise the debt limit, which also clawed back $21.4 billion from the tax agency.

A new study suggests that deal could be costly. Researchers at the Treasury Department, Harvard University and The University of Sydney looked at IRS data for about 710,000 in-person audits. They found that audits generate a substantial return for the government — and while audit costs rise for those with higher incomes (because wealthy people typically have more complicated tax filings) the returns rise even more. Every additional dollar spent on auditing taxpayers in the top 10% of earners generates more than $12 in revenue for the government.