Wednesday, June 09, 2021

Doesn't Seem Right Somehow

I'm just a city blogger, but...
Over the past 25 years, I.R.S. resources have been steadily cut, with the ratio of enforcement funding to returns filed falling by around 50 percent. Today, the I.R.S. has fewer auditors than at any time since World War II. Faced with resource constraints, it is no surprise that the agency is not able to appropriately focus scrutiny on complex returns, where noncompliance is greatest. Of about four million partnership returns filed in 2018, the I.R.S. audited only 140 of them. It did not pursue 300 high-income taxpayers who together cost the agency $10 billion in unpaid taxes over a three-year period when they failed to even file returns.