Posted on 03/10/2022 3:55:18 AM PST by MtnClimber
There are several reasons for this, all of which point to the need for a massive overhaul of America’s tax system.
If you thought that the IRS audited complicated, high-dollar tax returns, think again. It turns out that the poorest among America’s taxpayers are the most likely to be audited. According to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), an organization dedicated to giving Americans information about what their federal government does and how much it costs, America’s lowest income earners are five times more likely to be audited than wealthier people.
TRAC reported that the IRS audited 0.4% of the 160 million individual income tax returns it processed each year. Most of these audits were accomplished by “correspondence audits.” This means that the IRS sends a letter to the taxpayer asking for documentation proving a specific line item in the return. Of the 659,003 audits the IRS conducted last year, 85% of them were correspondence audits.
What’s noteworthy is the targets of these very simple audits:
[O]ver half of these correspondence audits were targeted at the small proportion of workers with incomes so low they had claimed an anti-poverty earned tax credit to offset the tax otherwise due on their modest earned income. To repeat: over half – fully 54 percent – of all correspondence audits last year targeted the small proportion of returns with gross receipts of less than $25,000 claiming an earned income tax credit.
Even taxpayers with total positive income from $200,000 to $1,000,000 had only one-third the odds of audit compared with these lowest income wage earners. A total of nearly 9 million taxpayers reported these high-income levels. Yet less than 40 thousand of their returns were audited by the IRS in FY 2021 – just 4.5 out of every 1,000 of these returns.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
The left, of both parties, hates the middle class, working people, retired and disabled, and poor people. Basically, the majority of people. They love non-white foreigners and wealth campaign donors.
they are auditing EIC returns
I’m not so sure that this is bad. When wealthy taxpayers hide income so that they not only avoid their owed high taxes but actually get the earned income tax credit payments instead, they deserve to be audited. Where do you draw the line? It should be based on probable cheating, not on reported net income.
That is a very good point.
Either would require a repeal of the 16th amendment before being implemented.
“[O]ver half of these correspondence audits were targeted at the small proportion of workers with incomes so low they had claimed an anti-poverty earned tax credit to offset the tax otherwise due on their modest earned income. To repeat: over half – fully 54 percent – of all correspondence audits last year targeted the small proportion of returns with gross receipts of less than $25,000 claiming an earned income tax credit.”
With good reason.
You are exactly right, and I bet that a large number of these folks are of the darked skin persuasion. And, it is pretty easy for them to do it because kids in the hood, don’t always live with mommy. And not just the hood black kids, but black kids in general. They are sent to live with Auntie or Granny because Mommy don’t want them, or can’t afford them. Or Mommy is on crack, or the State has taken them away. Or Mommy has no earned income because her “job” is selling dope or having sex with whoever. Lots of black kids are pretty much on their own from age 13 or so, and have to raise themselves. Why do you think you see so many 13 year old carjackers??? All this crap about 1619 and Jim Crow and Structural Racism is a deflection to keep people from noticing the horrible effects of the black illegitimate birth rate which is nearly 80% from year to year.
Anyway, the point is, lots of black kids are up in the air as to who is raising them.
Yes. This. So we need to be upset that the IRS is auditing by mail millions of people that are being paid back EXTRA, beyond their withheld tax amounts?
No chance of fraud there, right? No point in making at least an effort to get the fraudsters to corroborate their filing. No possible sentinel effect to reduce fraud. Right.
What planet do these headline writers live on?
LOL You don’t need to change the Constitution to raise tariffs!!! Where do you all get these crazy ideas?
I would expect that the real reason is that the $200K+ incomes have very few deductions. If they have a business, there are many options, but anyone with a W2 income in that range has as deductions only mortgage interest, mortgage points, State income tax, property tax, vehicle registration ownership tax, and that’s about it. Not complicated. They get education deductions, home office, moving expenses, nothing else.
This is not directly tax related, but one interesting scam in the hood is to have grandma (or another relative) live in a town with decent schools and then have grandma’s address be the kid’s address.
That is kinda easy to spot but everyone starts yelling “racist” when the school district starts asking too many questions.
That’s not what I am saying. You need to change the constitution to get rid of the income tax. Otherwise, we will have both income taxes AND high tariffs.
This is right in our wheelhouse!
We will never be a FRee people until we replace the Marxist inspired “progressive” income tax with the FAIRtax and abolish the IRS!
Have at it, FAIRtaxers!
They do it because the little guy generally doesn’t have the money to defend himself and will pay up without a fight. Remember the IRS is the collection arm of the Federal Reserve.
Absolutely! All taxes at current funding, fed/state/local is about 28%.
I buy a $100 battery, I pay $128, and they leave me alone. I buy a 300k house. I pay
384k, and they leave me alone forever. It’s mine.
A 10 million dollar yacht, i pay 12,800,000, and they leave me and my income alone.
why is this so hard for people to get behind. when i retire in 6 years i will run on this platform, if the US is still viable.
i promise.
Any taxation based on income can be replaced with a single rate retail sales tax. Errybody opines that it would be fair. The biggest obstacle is that the left says it wouldn’t collect “enough” as if that’s a reason to reject the idea lol
NRST YES
income tax no
IRS abuses no
“...able to afford a CPA or tax attorney,...”
Bingo.
Middle class pays the taxes
Just so!
Americans will be far better off economically and spiritually when the FAIRtax becomes law of the land!
YESSIR!
THEY LEAVE YOU ALONE!
FAIRtax is all about FReedom!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.