Political rhetoric is rarely meant to be taken literally, shouldn’t be taken seriously, and often isn’t even meant to have any connection to the real world.
At best political promises are aspirational—"I will try to do something like this."
Usually they are filled with puffery—"I will aim kinda/sorta in this direction and you will like it."
But often they are simply con jobs—"I don’t mean this at all, but you like to hear it."
Joe Biden’s promises regarding the IRS expansion he pushed through were of the last type. Joe wanted $80 billion more for the IRS in the "Inflation Reduction Act," which was a tall order.
The IRS is very unpopular, but he wanted a ton more money to expand it. So he promised that the bigger IRS would just go after the big guys. Everybody hates the rich, so he got the money.
The specific promise was that the new IRS auditors wouldn’t go after anybody with incomes below $400,000. Few people make more than $400,000, so the number sounded good enough.
"Not my problem," said the little guys. "What do I care?"