If they don't know automatically, it's only a failure of automation or lack of interfacing with credit agencies and state records. They certainly have the powe

If they don't know automatically, it's only a failure of automation or lack of interfacing with credit agencies and state records. They certainly have the power to know all those things, and they will find all that out, if they choose to audit you. But forget about the IRS automatically collecting what could possibly be relevant from everyone. If some of that stuff isn't automatically reported, there's no reason to force reporting, The IRS would operate as it already does, choose a percentage to audit and get those records from that percentage (0.6% of total filers or 933k people, including 15% of people who make over $15mil) anyway. (That panopticon you're worried about? Don't worry, it's only watching approximately a million people per year, no big deal, right? I realize 1 million is not 327 million, but I have difficulty getting upset about broader financial surveillance (you could even make it optional, so only people who think they're likely to get audited would opt in) when 1 million people per year already get that treatment, plus harassment (granted some of them brought it on themselves, but many did not and just made stupid errors that a better system would have avoided completely, or didn't make any errors and the IRS is just fishing) The vast majority of people only end up reporting stuff the IRS already knows about (W-2, 1099, marital status and children that were already reported for the last N years, etc.) What good does it do to have people manually file the same information employers and financial institutions already file? If the IRS is not getting some information, and someone's going to lie and tell them it's all good when they get a summary and tax bill, they're going to lie on their taxes even if they're preparing them manually. All the current system is, is a hand-out and make work scheme for tax preparation people and companies.