M*******s
发帖数: 4074 | 1 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-09/the-irs-has-n
The IRS Has New Favorite People to Audit
The taxman is actually getting less ferocious, unless you live overseas
by Ben Steverman 9:34 AM EDT April 9, 2015
If you’re scared of an audit by the IRS, there’s less to fear these days.
New data show that budget cuts at the IRS mean the agency is investigating
fewer wealthy taxpayers.
An average taxpayer’s chance of being audited has tumbled 23 percent in
three years, in line with an IRS budget that’s dropped an inflation-
adjusted 17 percent since 2010. Only 0.9 percent of individual taxpayers
were audited last year, the lowest proportion in seven years.
Even in this era of IRS austerity, wealthier people still face more scrutiny
than average. If you make $200,000 to $1 million annually, your chances of
an audit are around 2.2 percent, more than double the average. It's even
higher for the extra-wealthy—people who earn more than $1 million are
audited at a rate of around 7.5 percent. But those rates are dropping, and
precipitously:
The only major group that saw an increase in their chances of an audit last
year? Taxpayers living overseas. New laws and regulations on investments
held overseas have made their tax filing much more difficult.
While this may help individual taxpayers relax, fewer audits mean less tax
revenue, in both the short and long term. Last year IRS audits of
individuals uncovered $11.9 billion in unpaid taxes, 15 percent less than
the year before. Fewer audits in 2014 could also mean more cheating in
future years. Academic studies show that having gone through an audit causes
taxpayers to report more taxable income for years to come; the threat of
another audit keeps them honest. IRS Commissioner John Koskinen estimates
that budget cuts mean the government is losing at least $2 billion in
revenue per year. "It's a classic example of being penny wise and pound
foolish," he said in a March 31 speech.
For now, though, a growing economy is more than making up for what the IRS
is losing from lower audit rates. The IRS still managed to boost its net
collections by 8 percent last year, to $2.7 trillion. | w*******g
发帖数: 9932 | 2 this is probably targeting rich dudes overseas. Small potatoes won't even
worth the effort. |
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