Poor people can’t afford lawyers and accountants the way rich people can. They are disarmed.
that’s equivalent to busting the corner hoods selling loosies on the corner instead of going after the Don ...
ProPublica is a left-wing think tank.
However, they are right about this.
If cheating on your taxes is randomly distributed and there are hundreds of more poor people than rich, I would expect the poor to be in more audits.
People often use statistics incorrectly. You often hear the fact that the percentage of blacks in jail is high than that of white, and they point to that as a clear indication of discrimination. It seems those facts are also consistent with the fact that blacks have a higher incidence of crime and more readily participate in criminal activity than whites. That’s not racist or discrimination. It’s simply a fact.
Nightmare to audit wealthy people. Just make tax code simpler...that is the only fix.
That’s a hell of an answer, if true. If the rich pay 80/90 percent of the taxes, you would think they would get more bang for their buck by auditing them.
The poor taxpayer can't afford a CPA to prepare the return, so they blindly agree with what the agent says, just to stay out of trouble.
Conversely, I had a client who was going to retire, and raise racehorses full time. The first 3 years, the losses exceeded $100K, and he was audited. I spent 4 hours in the IRS office, educating the agent on the validity of the taxpayer's claims, demonstrating there was a business purpose for his losses.
The IRS had no choice but to agree with us, and allowed every penny of those losses. However, I told my client it was time for him to show from income from his venture, else he'd be exposed to hobby loss rules.
Plus, I imagine that they find a lot fewer things they can collect on when auditing rich people who hired lawyers to do the job, while I imagine it is easy to find errors for the poor people who can’t hire any help and are struggling to figure out the paperwork.
Is this why Obama provided the IRS with full Auto M16’S?
Or we could save a lot of money and stop doing audits altogether. Just don’t tell anyone.
Some cops seem to act similar. Way more apt to pull over a poor person or middle class than a gang banger that might shoot at them or rich person that could actually cost the county/city money when they win.
ABOLISH the IRS.
The writer writes poorly. If the rich and poor are both audited at a proportion of one percent, there is not a disproportionate focus on the poor.
Maybe President Trump can issue an executive order directing the IRS to cease audition families earning less than 250,000 dollars a year.
The man's response back was, ... "Who did I leave out ?"
It’s past time to disband this national disgrace. Inefficient and corrupt and staffed by lazy bureaucrats.
I got two letters from the IRS 16 years ago. I ignored the first, but called the IRS and spoke with a young-sounding agent. The IRS wanted me to sign a document agreeing to an imputed level of income and agreeing to pay income tax on that amount.
I asked him if the document was a contract; and he agreed that it was. Asked him if he was aware that attempting to force a person a contract was illegal and unconstitutional. He admitted that it was. Asked him if he really thought I was going to sign it. His response, “Probably not.”
I also asked him if he could send me the statute, not the IRS code, that required me in my circumstance to pay an income tax; and send me a copy. That was the last I have heard from the IRS.
The agency uses relatively low-level employees to audit returns for low-income taxpayers who claim the earned income tax credit.
I have no complaint about them going after EITC fraud. Illegals in particular, are famous for this kind of fraud.
Given that there supposedly equal protection under the law I don’t see how this is a problem.
Focusing on the rich would be a commie thing in my book.
The only logical approach is to audit where the most money is. Audits are not aboout the number of people. They are about the amount of money.