> If for example, each person you hire to the IRS can bring in 100x (or more?) the cost of having them on the payroll, wouldn't that be a no-brainer? IRS audit

> If for example, each person you hire to the IRS can bring in 100x (or more?) the cost of having them on the payroll, wouldn't that be a no-brainer? IRS audits and enforcement disproportionately target small business owners and lower middle class. People that have just enough money that it is worth trying to shake them down, but not enough that they can afford to fight it. The average is about $5 returned for $1 spent on enforcement, but that is a finite pool - the sweet spot I mentioned above. Throwing more money at enforcement would just end up lowering the recovery ratio. We are better off just scrapping the whole enforcement branch and putting that money into extending proactive capture (collect taxes on money before people receive it) and making filing easier to increase compliance.