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

That isn't dangled in their face. People go against the rules. All the time. Because they hope to get away with it or they have no business preparing their own returns.

To accept behavior that is gaming the system and writing off their brand new jet skis they use for personal reasons is laughable.

You would still need auditors for your solution to having people claim more in deductions. That's what an audit is. Reviewing documentation. Having interviews. Requesting documents.

And you didn't respond to how the IRS tracks cash because they have all the info they apparently need.

 

Don't make a system that encourages people to game it. Simple as that.

And auditors can't efficiently track cash either.

Nobody suggested getting rid of auditors. Just not ramping up enforcement on the middle class. It's not needed, and is a waste of resources.

If we want to improve efficiency in that sector there are much more effective ways than more audits.

Most other countries handle this far better than the US.

 

Auditors can and often do. They aren't perfect but there are multiple methods to figure out unreported cash.

It doesn't encourage people to game it. Thats what auditors are for so that they can catch people gaming it. Individuals game it out of lack of knowledge or just because they think they can get away with it.

If you want to scrap deductions altogether good luck. Not. Gonna. Happen.

 

Yeah, nobody suggesting cutting back on audits or getting rid of deductions.

There is a place that we need to increase audits, and it's not on the poor (who are audited about 10x more than everybody else, and SHOULD be audited less), and it's not even the middle class (who are having enough trouble staying middle class as it is). There has been a very clear drop off on audits of millionaires and above, and THAT'S where the audit focus needs to be.



The gains made by auditing millionaires more should be put toward making tax filing for the poor as easy as approving the amount of their return. A simple web page that shows your income and what you are projected to get back based on what you've earned thus far would do it, and would eliminate the need to almost EVER audit the poor.

 

You guys sure do seem to love your large, establishment government agencies don't you? Because they just care so deeply about you.

 

The IRS has been hammered for a decade with hiring freezes. That would contribute to your graph. They have had numerous folks with major knowledge retiring.

People with 400k are not "the poor." Neither are people with 100k.

Contrary to what you may believe, you can't just audit someone and come up with a bill. They have to have filed incorrectly/claimed erroneous deductions/under reported income. Many high income folks have their own audits done on their records. Are they wrong sometimes? Absolutely. Is there a tax gap of money they could find? Absolutely. Do individuals who file TurboTax mess up? Absolutely. There are scores provided to returns that spit out based on the likelihood it needs review. It is often updated based on review feedback.

 

Didn't claim they were. Not sure why you're going there.

Again, I didn't say they were, and I don't know why you said this.

Not sure what this has to do with anything I said.

 

Auditing more millionaires just because I want to audit more millionaires doesn't fix the problem.

There is almost zero reason to audit someone that is a millionaire that has one w-2 for 2 million dollars. And thats all their return is.

There are plenty of reasons to audit someone who had 200k in taxable income, but they claimed $5 million in expenses that look off.

 

Of course. But someone can claim as many false deductions as they want. If someone files a return with 5 million in gross receipts on a schedule c and claims 1 million in deductions that are on the up and up. Why the fuck would I audit them instead of the guy with 5 million in gross receipts and 4.9 million in expenses with many of them looking like bullshit.

Because we need to audit more millionaires!

 

Nobody claimed otherwise.

 

You literally said audits need to focus on millionaires.

 

I said thats the fraud we should focus on preventing. Never once did I say we should audit anybody just because we want to.

 

In the 60's most young people were anti establishment and federal overreach. Its totally flip flopped now.

 

We should focus on the audits that have the best possibility of bringing back return. They already have systems like that in place where they grade leads and adjust as needed.

Just auditing a millionaire to raise millionaire numbers even if it a bad lead is a waste of time. They have lead generation tools that give you an estimated adjustment but a human still needs to review them because technology is nowhere near close enough to interpret our tax laws.

Someone claiming millions of expenses that look off is a far better use of time even if their original return showed minimal income than focusing on high income returns just because we want to bring those numbers up.

 

They would find nothing on me. I got my receipts.