OT Why does the IRS need $80 billion? Just look at its cafeteria.

You literally stated what your point was with a graph to back it up then said you never said that.

You shared a graph that showed how people reporting over a million dollars in taxable income are not being audited as much. You also didn't want poor people (people reporting under a low threshold of income) to be audited. I explained to you that people that are millionaires have avenues to report expenses and take deductions that take their income to a low number. I then explained that we should not only look at how much income someone is reporting and we should go after the best leads. Which can include folks that appear to show low income and would fall under your poor threshold.

Looks like you are the one that doesn't want to accept something so simple.

 

This is true.

... as much as they used to be. Before Trump.
Correct.

False. I never said that, but thanks for once again putting words into my mouth.
I said the system should be changed so that there is less of a NEED to audit them. And then I described some changes I would make.

And I didn't disagree with any of that.

This is what you want to think. But again, you are basing this on what you want to think rather than what I have actually said. It seems you have a personal reason that you don't want to discuss. So I've dropped it.
Yet you keep trying to put words into my mouth in an attempt to keep the conversation going. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

For sure. I said that. It's true.
It's likely going to cost the IRS more money to audit those people than they'll get out of them under our current system.

 

Nope, this is simply false. Taxable income means less than you think it does. Again. Millionaires can file returns where they show under 400k in taxable income. It is very common with all their other business ventures. And their deductions could be faulty.

 

Do you have a source on profit/cost analysis?
And then, once you come up with that, what is the profit/cost analysis on people over $400k?

Where do you think increased enforcement would bring more in return? I'm guessing those over $400k. Hence, my position.

 

The more complex a return gets, the longer it can take to close. That is common sense. Someone making over 400k and reporting it as such just as easily could be telling the truth where there is no reason to audit them. Could that be the same for someone under 400k? Absolutely. Hence why it is most important to use the best leads. Which can be any which way with reported income. Even negative in many circumstances.

 

I agree with what you said. The graph is worded weirdly.

However, gross income can have its warts too. Like if it includes gross sales of stock. Those can get really wonky.

 

The IRS can't really tell someones net assets on a personal income tax return. Maybe if they used other information from systems with local counties in regards to assessed values of their residence. But that isn't really a full picture and i doubt they have the time to do that.

They can on corporatation and partnership returns.

 

So no profit/cost analysis then?

 

Took out the URL. You can find it on google if you want to read the full thing.

This is older and I haven't read it all. I couldn't quickly see the definitions of what they stated low and high income were. But if you look at page 6, it appears they are much closer than you'd think.

 

I think the IRS uses "total positive income" to calculate taxable income. But that only shows how much less often we are auditing the wealthy than we were before 2016. That's it.

I'm not using that graph as a basis for anything other than showing that we are auditing the wealthy far less than we used to.

 

Thanks.
If it's close, then that would further support my proposal to virtually eliminate the need for the poor being audited by streamlining the process.
People who show losses of hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars are never considered poor, thereby, would never be included in my proposed streamlined tax filing process.

 

IRS audit rates significantly increase as income rises


Lots of graphs with information here. This is somewhat misleading, by rates they mean %. As you can see many more returns were looked at for smaller returns. However, many of those could be from computer generated notices called CP2000s that simply take the income and other numbers reported to then and adjust their return if they filed wrong.

https://www.irs.gov/about-irs/irs-audit-rates-significantly-increase-as-income-rises