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Treasury recovers $1.3B in unpaid taxes from high-wealth tax dodgers
- big-green-man 2y agoAn entire 0.1% of the yearly interest payment on our government debt, this should solve a lot of problems.
- ggm 2y agoReddit conversation implies this is the lowest, easiest, least contestable fruit imaginable. Strongly implying a lot more is within reach if the government tried a little harder.
- anon291 2y agoAnd this will fund all two minutes of the government.
- xandrius 2y agoMoaning even when something is positive?
- ETH_start 2y agoWhy is this positive?
- remus 2y agoSome wealthy people who were dodging their tax obligations are no longer able to do so.
- ETH_start 2y agoThat assumes there is a moral obligation.
- anon291 2y agoThe tax obligation for these wealthy individuals was 2.5 k per year on average. That's nothing. Either they actually are not high income earners, IRS did not do a good job collecting, or they're non residents caught in some bizarre American tax technicality.
- anon291 2y agoSo the government collected 1.3 B from 100k taxpayers who haven't filed taxes for six years. If we do the math this is 13000 per tax payer or about 2.5 k per year. So these high net worth individuals attempting to evade taxes owed... 2500 dollars each year. To me that signals that they're likely not residents or making their money in America and had tax liability for some marginal reason. That's the only way you owe 2.5 k per year on a high income. But yes, when you do the math, it does seem a little ridiculous. I pay a lot more in federal taxes. Either IRS failed to collect the full amount owed, of these were people caught in some bizarre technicality where they owed chump change to the government and didn't know.
- jerkstate 2y agowrong, it funds two hours. Yay!
- philiphodgen 2y agoTwo questions to ask yourself: 1. Why am I hearing this? 2. Why am I hearing this NOW? Try to drop your pre-existing beliefs about the topic for a moment (rich people bad, FedBots evil, etc) and ask why this attempt at persuasion has been brought to your attention. Who benefits from the agitation that occur in your mind when you read this?
- toomuchtodo 2y agoI’m satisfied very wealthy people who owed taxes paid them. I pay all my taxes, I expect the same from the other top 40% of Americans who have a federal income tax liability. Why would I not be happy to hear this news? This is what I voted for. “Promises made, promises kept.”
- h_tbob 2y agoWhy, out of curiosity, do you care if others pay tax?
- toomuchtodo 2y agoFor the biblically inclined like yourself, start at Romans 13:6-7, Matthew 17:24-27, and Matthew 22:15-22. Matthew was a tax collector before being called to become one of Jesus' disciples. My own secular belief system is in shared contribution to the cost and support of civilization. If I alone pay, that is insufficient. We must all pay what is due for the system to effectively function.
- defrost 2y agoBeacuse the US IRS has been underfunded to a greater and greater degree over the past decades and only recently has seen the benefit of increased funding allowing the resources to investigate and pursue the tax dodgers that have always been there. You're hearing current reporting on the current results of recent funding increases. You didn't hear this a year, two years, or five years ago .. because it hadn't happened yet. It's not that deep a mystery.
- nullc 2y agoI'm kinda dubious of the crowing when it doesn't come with a baseline figure of what they would have expected to collect in the same timeframe without the program. A common way high net worth people end up delinquent is that they had a windfall like selling a business or appreciated property which they managed poorly or which was genuinely complicated (e.g. due to international issues), resulting in a temporary liquidity problem or just uncertainty over what they needed to pay. Particularly with the low interest rates historically it was just no big deal to be a bit delinquent while you work things out or solve your liquidity... but still be on track to eventually pay it. I wouldn't be too surprised if a careful analysis showed most of this recovery was already expected based on historical behavior and that if there was any excess higher interest rates were the main driver.
- ein0p 2y agoIn the last 3 years yearly IRS budget grew by more than 2 billion. So another way to read this news is, US taxpayers lost $700M.
- remus 2y agoI don't think that really adds up as you've not considered any other tax income, so I dont think you can say "US taxpayers lost $700M"
- ein0p 2y agoThe increase in funding was to “go after the rich”. I kind of was expecting a lot more ROI, by like an order of magnitude
- jerkstate 2y agoDidn't the IRS get $80 billion in new funding with the "inflation reduction act"? this seems like a huge L.
- Wytwwww 2y ago> Didn't the IRS get $80 billion No, I think it was $5667 billion. Where do people come up with this nonsense? Did you even check what their annual budget was? Also the IRS budget was still lower in 2023 than it was back in 2009 (inflation adjusted) and has been declining continuously until ~2020.
- jerkstate 2y agohttps://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IN/IN11977 https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IN/IN11977
- Wytwwww 2y agoAre you using a time machine to post your comments from 2031? Because they are only supposed to get that much over the following 10 years. And they already lost 25% of that:https://www.grantthornton.com/insights/newsletters/tax/2024/hot-topics/mar-26/irs-loses-billion-in-funding https://www.grantthornton.com/insights/newsletters/tax/2024/... Their total budget in 2023 was $16 billion and it's generally not increased (or it's even cut) yearly. So it's not keeping up with inflation and GDP growth without additional funding like the "Inflation Reduction"(since everyone knows that you can reduce inflation by spending even more money..) Act.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoIf I am understanding this article, this is from a drive to chase down tax debts or delinquent tax payments that were already identified previously. In other words, this is just performing collections, which is straightforward. Personally I doubt there will be some breakthrough finding of significant tax underreporting, because most high wealth people are sophisticated enough to carefully follow the law and maintain evidence for it all.
- remus 2y ago> In other words, this is just performing collections, which is straightforward. No bad thing surely? Take the easy wins where you can get them and then go after the harder stuff.
- jerkstate 2y agocool, this will run the government for.. (checks watch) almost 2 hours! news flash, folks, every billionaire in the USA, combined, has a combined net worth of about 5 trillion dollars. making billionaires not exist by confiscating all of their wealth (and crashing the stock market in the process) would fund the government for around nine months. not saying that the ultra-wealthy shouldn't pay their fair share, but we only have 2 real choices: dramatically cut spending and/or dramatically increase productivity/gdp. raising taxes is just window dressing and mostly just hurts people who have a w2 income.
- anonzzzies 2y agoBut billionaires do not pay their fair share; you don't need to raise anything and just get from them the same % as from others. The fact that they can legally avoid paying them is a problem. And sure, maybe it's a drip in the bucket, still doesn't mean it shouldn't happen.
- jerkstate 2y agook, but at least admit that it's social policy, not fiscal policy, and won't do anything to balance the budget.
- anonzzzies 2y agoYes, I agree. A lot of things are needed to fix the actual budget/debt issues. Not sure if anyone has solutions for that; must be a popular research topic.
- jerkstate 2y agowe only have 2 real choices: dramatically cut spending and/or dramatically increase productivity/gdp
- Frieren 2y ago> won't do anything to balance the budget. Many goverment expenses come from corruption, from expensive payments for health care (that exists because billionaires put money into politicians pockets, to overspending in the military that also come from kickbacks, etc.). So, reducing the numbers of billionaires reduces corruption and overspending. (And even what is spend can be done so more efficiently, money going to teachers and nurses instead of profits for big corporations). Cutting on corruption has a big impact into goverment spending. Billionaires and inequality increase corruption, as there is easy money used to bribe politicians. End one and the other follows.
- kemotep 2y agoAs noted elsewhere in this thread, this is peanuts compared to the deficit let alone the debt. Deficit hawks need to look into Land Value taxes in my opinion. There is an estimated 1.4 billion acres of private property. At an *average* of $10,000 per acre, that would raise 14 Trillion Dollars in revenue. Split 50/50 with the States, 7 Trillion to the Federal Government and 7 Trillion divided between the States proportionally, that would cover nearly all government spending. The Federal budget for 2023 was 6.1 Trillion Dollars, including a 1.4 Trillion Deficit. 7 Trillion covers that with hundreds of billions left over to start making debt payments. Now the vast plurality of this land is farm land so at 10,000 an acre would be an onerous burden. So we would probably not get to that average and still need additional revenue or otherwise not be able to abolish all other taxes.
- scoofy 2y agoA federal land value tax would just flip the tables so much in California... I hate to say it but people would literally lose their shit. As long CA has 52 representatives and 54 electoral college votes, any federal property tax will be a major party re-alignment event. I'm a left-wing debt hawk, and I really have no answer to the current unsustainable freight train of debt. I suspect inflation is the current plan, but we really, really have slowly building problem that will eventually cascade. When I does, I only hope that I'm invested in an anti-fragile position.
- kemotep 2y agoIdeally the Land value tax would be the only tax. Payroll taxes might be necessary for social security and Medicare but otherwise the idea would be that it replaces income taxes, corporate taxes, and so on. But this would be a direct tax and require a constitutional amendment like the 16th to implement. It really isn’t happening. But without something radical like the single tax, we will need to increase taxes and implement austerity to deal with the deficit and debt.
- scoofy 2y ago>Ideally the Land value tax would be the only tax. The problem is that land value has become completely disassociated with value. You could get rid of all income taxes, and by adding a land value tax, effectively half the homeowners in CA wouldn't be able to afford the taxes on their own property. Is that bad policy in CA? Sure, it definitely is, but it is the policy, and it would unleash a major short-term crisis.