Why does the IRS go after Low-Wage earners when Corporations & very...

[JanMichael]

...very rich individuals are the ones ripping us off?

This from a Sun-Sentinal article as well as several other sites on the web suggests gross inequity.

"According to the IRS' own estimates, fraud by low-wage taxpayers cost the U.S. Treasury an estimated $6.5 billion a year, as compared to corporations, which cost an estimated $46 billion a year and high-income individuals, who cost the Treasury a whopping $132 billion a year."

And here, from Quakers mind you (You know how dishonest they are...), even more of a breakdown.

http://www.peacetaxfund.org/newsletters/2003-2.pdf

"Even though less than 3% of uncollected taxes are is due
to EITC noncompliance, the IRS has requested a 68%
increase in its EITC enforcement budget (compared to a
3.3% increase in its general enforcement budget). Leonard
Burman, a former US Treasury official, testified in July
before the House Committee on the Budget that "while
the noncompliance among EITC recipients is troubling,
there is no reason to think that it is any worse than exists
among the taxpaying public generally."

So why go after those lucky ducky poor folk and not those with their own helicopter and cruise ship?

Yes. It's a rhetorical question.

[kalian]

1. OK, then I won't give you a rhetorical answer....

:D

[KG]

2. steal a little they'll call ya thief, steal a lot they'll make ya a king

[Davis_X_Machina]

3. Simple.

ERIC = black
ERIC = Latino
ERIC = single parent
ERIC = not our kind of people, dear.

And the idea of a negative income tax -- although it was proposed by Daniel Patrick Moynihan to Nixon years ago -- drives them crazy all by itself.

[barbaraann]

4. It's worse than that.

Check out this book:

Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich - and Cheat Everybody Else
by David Cay Johnston

[LincolnMcGrath]

5. Either Malloy, Werbe, or Hartmann exposed this

some time ago. Just sickening. Go after the scandalous, lazy, Cadillac driving welfare mamas. Wait were have I heard that before? OH OH thats right, Ron Raygun

[Cleita]

6. A thing I learned about the IRS.

When Congress passes laws affecting taxes, they are subject to interpretation, especially when the wording is vague. When new laws come up, there are usually a barrage of telephone calls and faxes buzzing between accounting firms, the accounting offices of large corporations, and the IRS about the intent of the law. When everyone including the IRS come to an agreement as to how this will be handled, then everyone agrees to do the same thing.

Since poor people can't usually afford accountants and lawyers, there is no one to re-interpret the law for them. So the IRS will usually err on the side of a hard line, so poor people get the shaft while everyone else gets the gold mine.

[scarletlib]

7. Bingo !

Poor can't fight back. Can't afford lawyers, can't afford the time off from work and frequently don't have the education needed to fight back.
From the perspective of the IRS it's just so easy!

[JanMichael]

8. What you've both described is a systemic problem.

One that cannot be solved, resolved, with conventional solutions.

So long as cash is more valuable than Human Beings this will occur.