[PeterPrinciple]

The assumption and agenda here is the audits are because they are poor.

The earned income credit has a lot of abuse..............

[Night Hides Not]

This has been going on for decades. When I lived in El Paso, one of my bowling teammates ran the El Paso IRS office. He told me the most audited returns are those filing Sch C (self employment) and taking the EIC.

It was the lowest of low hanging fruit. Most of these returns were filed by hand, before the advent of TurboTax and other programs. All an auditor needed to do was disallow a few deductions for lack of substantiation, and voila! Greater SE income and less EIC.

Hasn't changed much over the years...those 87,000 new agents won't be unleashed on billionaires, far from it. They hire CPAs and tax attorneys with experience in dealing with the IRS...it wouldn't be cost effective.