The real scandal is what Republicans did to cripple the agency when virtually no one was looking. Since the broad Tea Party-driven spending cuts of 2010, the agency’s budget has been cut by 14 % after inflation is considered, leading to sharply reduced staff, less enforcement of the tax laws and poor taxpayer service. As the economist Jared Bernstein noted recently in The Washington Post, a weakened I.R.S. enforcement staff will be unable to make a dent in the $385 billion annual gap between what taxpayers owe and what they pay — an unintended tax cut, mostly for the rich, that represents 11 % of this year’s spending. Middle-class taxpayers who struggle to fill out their 1040s may welcome a diminished threat of an audit, but in fact this reduction is not about them. The I.R.S. audits a far higher percentage of tax returns from people reporting incomes over $200,000 than from those reporting less, because that is where the money is (along with the most profitable cheating). nytimes/2014/07/06/opinion/sunday/the-real-internal-revenue-scandal.html?src=recg&module=Ribbon&version=origin®ion=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Recommended&pgtype=article
Posted on: Tue, 08 Jul 2014 03:27:33 +0000