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The ultra wealthy elite are generally already under intense scrutiny and accordingly tend to pay an army of tax layers and accountants to ensure everything is b

by cheald 4y ago

The ultra wealthy elite are generally already under intense scrutiny and accordingly tend to pay an army of tax layers and accountants to ensure everything is buttoned up. Poorer people are significantly more likely to be audited: https://trac.syr.edu/tracirs/latest/679/ https://trac.syr.edu/tracirs/latest/679/ - I suspect that it's not that the IRS likes going after poorer people specifically, but that they're more successful in extracting money from people with less money to pay professionals to structure their finances and tax strategy or to defend themselves from an audit.

jeremysalwen 4y ago
From the article linked you can see that the number of millionares audited has been steadily going down in recent years. The article explains it as: > A critical limitation in the IRS’s ability to audit millionaires is the availability of IRS revenue agents. Only this class of auditors, given sufficient training and experience, are qualified to examine complex tax returns – the types of returns typically filed by high-income individuals and large-scale businesses. > With severe budget constraints, IRS has tended to trade off the replacement of revenue agents with hiring more tax examiners. These certainly are paid less, but they are also less knowledgeable. While revenue agents used to outnumber tax examiners, this has slowly shifted over time. > Since the end of FY 2010, the number of IRS revenue agents has dropped by 41 percent. Initially, the number of tax examiners also fell although not at the same rate. By FY 2016, tax examiners began to outnumber revenue agents for the first time. During FY 2020 and FY 2021, major increases took place in the hiring of tax examiners. Thus, the number of tax examiners has regained all of their lost ground and were actually 1 percent higher than in 2010. See Figure 4 and Table 3.
csomar 4y ago
It's neither the ultra-wealthy or the poor the government is after. It's the middle-class who owns businesses. Middle-class working a salaried job pay well over their fair share of taxes. They can't, for the most part, do any deductions. Middle-class who owns a business (think a Coffeshop, a dental clinic, a small construction contractor, etc...). These medium-small businesses are ripping the IRS big time. With mundane things like claiming everything as deductible, to accepting some cash on the side, to doing the odd unreported transaction, etc... There are some restaurants in the US that accept only Cash. I don't think the owners of these joints knows what the IRS stands for.
- swiley-gin 4y ago
  There is no group the current elites hate more than the middle class. The middle class pays enough attention and has just enough power to make them uncomfortable when they do nasty things. The goal of the current elites is to either materially destroy the middle class or to make them poor.
daniel-cussen 4y ago
It's generally still not buttoned up. Looks buttoned up. Doesn't make one fuck of sense. What is going on? IRS has limited staff for those cases, can only really nail 200 a year.

by cheald 4y ago

jeremysalwen 4y ago

From the article linked you can see that the number of millionares audited has been steadily going down in recent years. The article explains it as: > A critical limitation in the IRS’s ability to audit millionaires is the availability of IRS revenue agents. Only this class of auditors, given sufficient training and experience, are qualified to examine complex tax returns – the types of returns typically filed by high-income individuals and large-scale businesses. > With severe budget constraints, IRS has tended to trade off the replacement of revenue agents with hiring more tax examiners. These certainly are paid less, but they are also less knowledgeable. While revenue agents used to outnumber tax examiners, this has slowly shifted over time. > Since the end of FY 2010, the number of IRS revenue agents has dropped by 41 percent. Initially, the number of tax examiners also fell although not at the same rate. By FY 2016, tax examiners began to outnumber revenue agents for the first time. During FY 2020 and FY 2021, major increases took place in the hiring of tax examiners. Thus, the number of tax examiners has regained all of their lost ground and were actually 1 percent higher than in 2010. See Figure 4 and Table 3.

csomar 4y ago

It's neither the ultra-wealthy or the poor the government is after. It's the middle-class who owns businesses. Middle-class working a salaried job pay well over their fair share of taxes. They can't, for the most part, do any deductions. Middle-class who owns a business (think a Coffeshop, a dental clinic, a small construction contractor, etc...). These medium-small businesses are ripping the IRS big time. With mundane things like claiming everything as deductible, to accepting some cash on the side, to doing the odd unreported transaction, etc... There are some restaurants in the US that accept only Cash. I don't think the owners of these joints knows what the IRS stands for.

swiley-gin 4y ago
There is no group the current elites hate more than the middle class. The middle class pays enough attention and has just enough power to make them uncomfortable when they do nasty things. The goal of the current elites is to either materially destroy the middle class or to make them poor.

daniel-cussen 4y ago

It's generally still not buttoned up. Looks buttoned up. Doesn't make one fuck of sense. What is going on? IRS has limited staff for those cases, can only really nail 200 a year.