and the irs is looking the other way.
by 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间
the internal revenue service isn’t supposed to consider a taxpayer’s income or wealth when prioritizing taxpayer delinquent accounts. rather, the service is supposed to focus on balances due, pursuing collection of higher amounts.
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obviously, many of those higher balances are owed by taxpayers (or tax dodgers) in the higher adjusted gross income brackets, and the irs believes that pursuing high balance dues effectively addresses high agis.
but the treasury inspector general for tax administration says that focusing on the balance due is increasing the risk of high earners skipping out on what they owe.
shocking numbers
in an audit report titled “high-income taxpayers who owe delinquent taxes could be more effectively prioritized,” america’s tigta writes, “intentional nonpayment of income tax by those with significant financial resources and sophistication is a blatant form of noncompliance. the underpayment of income tax is also a substantial component of the tax gap.”
the gross tax gap is the difference between what taxpayers should pay and what they actually pay. the numbers are substantial, if not shocking.
- the 2011-2013 annual average gtg was a staggering $441 billion.
- $50 billion (11 percent) of that gtg is due to underpayment.
- $38 billion (76 percent) of that underpayment is by individuals.
- $39 billion (nine percent) of the gtg is due to people who simply fail to file a tax return.
the tigta audit identified 685,555 delinquent taxpayers with agis over $200,000 for years 2013 through 2017. they owed a total of $38.5 billion. that amount, owed by just six percent of all delinquent taxpayers, accounted for 22 percent of the total owed by all delinquent taxpayers.
hold your nose
it’s probably best not to let your responsible, patriotic, taxpaying clients know the stats for high-income delinquents:
- 20 percent owe less than $1,000, less than one percent of the total balance due.
- 29 percent owe $1,000 to $9,999, just two percent of total due.
- 20 percent owe $10,000 to $24,999, just six percent of total due.
- 14 percent owe $25,000 to $49,999, nine percent of total due.
- five percent owe $50,000 to $74,999, five percent of total due.
- three percent owe $75,000 to $99,000, five percent of total due.
and now…hold your nose…
- just nine percent (64,005 taxpayers) owe more than $100,000 each—a total balance due of over $28 billion, which is 73 percent of the total balance due by all high-income delinquents.
blessed are the wealthy! the tigta audit found that:
- high-income taxpayers are generally not a collection priority, nor is there a strategy in place to address nonpayment by high-income taxpayers.
- high income is not a primary factor for determining collectibility.
- opportunities exist to work more cases with higher collection potential, but the irs is not executing them.
seven recommendations
part of the problem, the audit report says, is that revenue officer staffing is insufficiently assigned to areas where high-income tax dodgers live. the stripped-down irs budget can be blamed for a lack of staffing, but the tigta says that reallocating resources to tonier towns could lead to increased revenue without increasing expenditures.
the tigta came up with seven recommendations for collecting more from those who can most afford to pay. the irs agreed with only two of them.
- irs should prioritize high-income delinquents rather than high balances due. (irs disagrees.)
- irs should improve its collection prediction model to better correlate predicted and actual recovery rates for high-income delinquents. (irs agrees to evaluate the model.)
- irs should gather indications that high-income delinquents have the ability to pay. (irs disagrees.)
- irs should improve the measurement of field collection managers’ compliance with case selection guidelines. (irs disagrees.)
- irs should revise procedures for shelving certain cases so they can be assigned to private collection agencies. (irs disagrees.)
- irs should revise criteria for assigning cases to private collection agencies, replacing random selection with criteria considering high income. (irs disagrees.)
- irs should consider assigning more collection officers to areas where high-income delinquency outweighs current numbers of staff. (irs agrees to do so in fy 2021.)
15 responses to “how a few of the wealthiest skate around the irs”
ron armbruster
you probably should have passed up posting this story. it sounds more like an echo from cnn or msnbc than an original story from a professional publication.
卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 research
hi ron, thanks for the comments. it’s hard for us to just ignore a report like this from the treasury department’s inspector general for tax administration, a george w. bush presidential appointee. we think it’s worth considering the current state of the service, for the good of the country, the taxpayers, and our profession.
jim cunningham
“how to “cheat” the irs….” is a very misleading headline. these people are delinquent payors. if you ever missed a credit card payment…does that make you a “cheater”???
philip b hebner, cpa, ea
the invitation to cheat, and how to do it… is simply unethical. the path you are proposing, should any one take your advice is simply inviting people to break the tax law. for that reason, i believe you are offending every reader in your target audience. you are now designated as spam in my inbox. bye forever.
卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 research
hi phil, thanks for your comment. to be clear, we’re not advocating cheating the irs, but merely seeking to report on the apparent inequities in the system due to operational issues at the service.
michael waring
one item ignored here is also the accuracy of the adjustments by the irs. many, many times their adjustments are not accurate (same issue with local jurisdictions) and should never be assessed in the first place.
tim black
exactly.
ted leibowitz
the wealth gap is not a result of “fair or unfair” taxes paid. it’s due to pay scales, and reduced taxation of investment income (lower capital gains tax) as opposed to actual work, and of course arbitrary profit margins..
joe eckelkamp
this is the first time in a very long time that i have been truly disappointed in a trendlines article and it’s for several reasons. the click-bait headline is inaccurate and is unsupported by the following content but, even more egregious, the tone of the entire article (especially the misleading headline) is reinforcing the class warfare mindset too prevalent in society today. it further ignores the fact that the bottom half of taxpayers by income pay just 3-5% of the total taxes, so they are hard pressed to even need a break. plus, the numbers presented by the irs are self-serving, sophisticated guesses at best, and ignore the cost burden of the inept top management of the irs. i thought you were better than this. still love the service you provide, but this was a clunker.
who is john galt?
michael snell
totally agree that the tone of this piece fans the class warfare flames. i am further skeptical that high-income taxpayers are not a priority. the most recent irs stats show that irs audits 6.6% of the wealthiest americans compared to a half percent of americans with agi’s under 200k.
ted leibowitz
regarding your fact that the bottom 50% pay just 3-5% of the total of the tax collected, if they had to pay more, our population would be cut in half, as this 50% would starve to death. and by the way, deplete our military of over 80% of it’s voluntary recruits for starters.
“you cannot get blood from a stone.”
joe eckelkamp
and you have what basis for those statements other than having made them up??
guy morris
i just read the article above and am, once again, disappointed by the tone that “the rich get all the tax breaks”.
the article states that the average annual tax gap in 2011 – 2013 was $441 billion.
i remember when those studies were done, and they projected the tax gap based on all the taxpayers in the country.
the heading of your story attributes the entire tax gap to the wealthiest taxpayers. any tax person can tell you that the wealthy miss out on many of the tax deductions, credits, and other benefits that the average person receives.
a married couple with five children received stimulus payments of $18,900 this past year because they made $149,000.
another client making $200,000 got nothing. sure, the wealthy can afford to pay more of their total income in taxes than the average citizen, and they do!
please stop misrepresenting the facts and distorting the truth, perpetuating the belief that the wealthy get all the tax breaks.
be fair in your stories.
卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 research
hi there, guy. you make a fair point. the wealthy are not solely, nor even mostly, responsible for the tax gap.
tom d connally
this is why we as cpa’s dealing with small businesses and individuals continue to try to get all of our clients to comply and to work out reasonable settlement. this is my 50th year as a cpa dealing with these issues. this information makes me want to throw up!!!!