IRS: Sorry, but It's Just Easier and Cheaper to Audit the Poor

[CousinIT]

https://www.propublica.org/article/irs-sorry-but-its-just-easier-and-cheaper-to-audit-the-poor

Congress asked the IRS to report on why it audits the poor more than the affluent. Its response is that it doesn’t have enough money and people to audit the wealthy properly. So it’s not going to.

The IRS audits the working poor at about the same rate as the wealthiest 1%. Now, in response to questions from a U.S. senator, the IRS has acknowledged that’s true but professes it can’t change anything unless it is given more money.

ProPublica reported the disproportionate audit focus on lower-income families in April. Lawmakers confronted IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig about the emphasis, citing our stories, and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., asked Rettig for a plan to fix the imbalance. Rettig readily agreed.

Last month, Rettig replied with a report, but it said the IRS has no plan and won’t have one until Congress agrees to restore the funding it slashed from the agency over the past nine years — something lawmakers have shown little inclination to do.

On the one hand, the IRS said, auditing poor taxpayers is a lot easier: The agency uses relatively low-level employees to audit returns for low-income taxpayers who claim the earned income tax credit. The audits — of which there were about 380,000 last year, accounting for 39% of the total the IRS conducted — are done by mail and don’t take too much staff time, either. They are “the most efficient use of available IRS examination resources,” Rettig’s report says.

On the other hand, auditing the rich is hard. It takes senior auditors hours upon hours to complete an exam. What’s more, the letter says, “the rate of attrition is significantly higher among these more experienced examiners.” As a result, the budget cuts have hit this part of the IRS particularly hard.

[genxlib]

1. I assume their definition of "efficient" is different than mine

Yeah, you can do more of them but so what.

You can probably recover more in unpaid taxes from one billionaire than you can from all of the poor people combined.

Of course it is hard. The wealthy make it hard on purpose. Failing to pursue them only encourages the bad behavior.

[csziggy]

2. I find this line in the letter interesting in a bad way

“the rate of attrition is significantly higher among these more experienced examiners.”

It makes me wonder if the "experienced examiners" are being bought off by being offered higher paying jobs. It would be worth an investigation into where those examiners went after leaving the IRS, in my opinion.

[lame54]

3. Same reason the poor get...

Arrested, convicted and imprisoned much quicker

For the rich - be patient. It takes years to build a case. We'll get him. Maybe.

[FakeNoose]

4. Pay the IRS auditors bonuses - they'll go after the wealthy

The more wealthy people they audit, the bigger their bonus. Guess what will happen? Nobody will waste their time on poor people when there's money to be made off auditing the rich.

[uponit7771]

5. Fuckin WOW !!! So what do they consider rich?

[Vinca]

6. A couple of years ago we got a letter from the IRS out of the blue that told us we owed them $9,000.

Having never received anything from them before, I just about fainted. Turns out it was something really, really dumb and we owed nothing. Their computer read one of our 1099 forms as $40,000 and some change when it was supposed to have been $4,000. Since we're self-employed we get multiple 1099s from various sources and the one in question looked like it had gone through the machine sideways. The IRS should be going after the fat cats with offshore accounts not working stiffs still trying to eke out an existence in their old age.

[Baitball Blogger]

7. The poor are getting kicked in the groin this week:

Biden's 3.5 Trillion budget, which can provide jobs for millions, is getting horsewhipped -- and by two Democrats!

IRS: "It's cheaper to audit the poor." Is it? Seems like you would recover more money if you audit the rich.

Facebook: Paraphrased: Hate talk is more profitable, so we put money before public safety. Racists and White Supremacists are our best customers.

You know, if you put it all together, you can see a cycle forming. Those who are left out of the recovery, are going to lean towards all the hate dividing talk in our country.