IRS audits poorest families at five times the rate for everyone else
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Re: IRS audits poorest families at five times the rate for everyone else
#2There's one statistic that I didn't see but I'm now really curious about: what percentage of audits discover irregularities, per income level? If lower-income people are more likely than average to cheat on their taxes, then it makes sense to audit them more, but if they don't, then this is indeed totally unfair.
Re: IRS audits poorest families at five times the rate for everyone else
#3Curious timing given the expansion of the IRS.
EDIT: why is this getting down voted?
Re: IRS audits poorest families at five times the rate for everyone else
#4This just doesn’t make sense from a financial standpoint. It seems doubtful the money recovered covers the cost of the audits.
Re: IRS audits poorest families at five times the rate for everyone else
#5There's one statistic that I didn't see but I'm now really curious about: what percentage of audits discover irregularities, per income level? If lower-income people are more likely than average to cheat on their taxes, then it makes sense to audit them more, but if they don't, then this is indeed totally unfair.
Also, the whole point is that they may in fact not be as low income as they claim!
Re: IRS audits poorest families at five times the rate for everyone else
#6As the article states the "audits" are for the most part (~85% of the time) a letter sent to the person asking them to provide documentation for something.
I would think most people think of an audit as having to meet in person with an IRS representative going over their taxes.
Re: IRS audits poorest families at five times the rate for everyone else
#7There's one statistic that I didn't see but I'm now really curious about: what percentage of audits discover irregularities, per income level? If lower-income people are more likely than average to cheat on their taxes, then it makes sense to audit them more, but if they don't, then this is indeed totally unfair.
I'd guess that audits of the poor finds *less* but can be completed swiftly; if there is any quotas requiring X audits/month of IRS accountants, are you going to choose the 1040EZ or the tax filing with 50+ pages of mumbojumbo?
Re: IRS audits poorest families at five times the rate for everyone else
#8There's one statistic that I didn't see but I'm now really curious about: what percentage of audits discover irregularities, per income level? If lower-income people are more likely than average to cheat on their taxes, then it makes sense to audit them more, but if they don't, then this is indeed totally unfair.
If we were to try to assess fairness, wouldn't it make sense to also take effects and side-effects into account? Say a disproportionate amount of poor families cheat, but also end up on the street after an audit, either not able to pay any outstanding taxes, or having paid them and no longer being able to afford a roof over their head. At the same time, while breaking the law should be the same for everyone else, wouldn't it also be more fair for small time violators to be treated less harsh, for example not having paid 100 dollars in tax vs. not having paid 1M.
At the end of the day, the enforcement is there for one reason: to make sure everyone pays for the shared facilities of society. If you catch someone who was supposed to pay 250.000 or catch 1000 someones who all had 100 outstanding tax, wouldn't it make more sense to focus on the big fish first?
Re: IRS audits poorest families at five times the rate for everyone else
#9This just doesn’t make sense from a financial standpoint. It seems doubtful the money recovered covers the cost of the audits.
Perhaps the idea of audits would discourage people from committing fraud in the first place.. so it may make sense
Re: IRS audits poorest families at five times the rate for everyone else
#10I think this statistic may be misleading. The article states that most of these are "correspondence audits", described as "essentially a letter from the IRS asking for documentation on a specific line item on a return."
The headline statistics gives the impression that the IRS spends proportionally more money and effort on auditing poor families. But sending out a letter is easy and cheap. I realize now that the total number of audits may not be a good proxy for cost and effort if not all audits involve an IRS agent coming to your house and trying to guess the value of your artwork.