Do you want some good news in the middle of Hump Day? Well, your chances of being audited by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) will be the lowest in years amid budget cuts and a fewer number of auditors available to make your life a living hell for a few months.
IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said in a speech Tuesday in front of an audience at the New York State Bar Association that audits have pretty much fallen in every single individual category and income level, and this could be a long-term trend for the American people, especially if the IRS doesn’t experience any increases in its budget.
This is certainly welcoming news to millions of Americans who are preparing to file their tax returns.
The audit rate declined to 0.86 percent last year, which is the lowest rate since fiscal year 2005. The number of audits rose between 2005 and 2010, but has since tumbled 21.4 percent during the five succeeding years. Last year, the IRS audited more than 1.2 million Americans, down by 162,000 from the previous year and 339,000 from 2010.
Koskinen noted that the IRS has 2,200 fewer examining agents since 2010. Approximately 11,000 revenue agents examined returns in 2014, and this number will fall again this tax season.
He believes this could deteriorate the federal tax code and United States taxpayers’ faith in the tax system. “At this point, we do have a tax compliance ethos and people pay their fair share,” said Koskinen in an interview with USA Today. “If you’re in Des Moines and you’re writing that check, and you feel that maybe your neighbor down the street isn’t, or is getting away with something, that’s a problem.”
Since 2010, the IRS budget has been cut by $1.2 billion. For the budget year ending in September, the IRS will receive $10.9 billion. Is this really a bad thing, though, considering its numerous derelictions, such as politically targeting conservative and Tea Party organizations and issuing bogus tax credits worth billions of dollars?
Although the IRS and its supporters will claim this is bad news, Americans should be celebrating because then perhaps they’ll get to keep more of their money instead of handing it off to a bureaucrat, who will then funnel that money to Congress, which will then spend it to bomb Muslim countries and impose illicit regulations.
Let’s cut the IRS budget even more!
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