signalmankenneth
Verified User
Trump Audit Shows Depths of IRS Funding Woes
WASHINGTON — Before Donald Trump became president and after, his exceedingly complex and voluminous tax returns came under regular scrutiny by the Internal Revenue Service. The number of agents assigned to the audit team: one.
After Trump left office, the IRS said it was beefing up the audit team, to three. The tax agency itself acknowledged that it was still overwhelmed by the complexity of Trump’s finances and the resistance mounted by the former president and his sophisticated army of accountants and lawyers, which included a former IRS chief counsel and raised questions early last year about why even three revenue agents should be assigned to audit him.
“With over 400 flow-thru returns reported on the Form 1040, it is not possible to obtain the resources available to examine all potential issues,” IRS agents said of Trump’s tax returns in an internal memo that was released by the House Ways and Means Committee this week as part of its oversight of the mandatory presidential audit process.
The IRS is a sprawling agency, and an audit notice can strike fear in most taxpayers. But the committee reports released this week highlight how depleted the IRS has become in the past decade, as Republicans starved it of funding. They also show how the agency has become increasingly unable to crack down on wealthy taxpayers who push the legal limits to lower their tax bills and have the means to fend off audits if they get caught.
That has led to a $7 trillion “tax gap” of revenue over a decade that is owed but goes uncollected, in many cases from superrich taxpayers such as Trump, who has boasted that he fights to pay as little tax as possible. But the resource shortfall is playing out against the backdrop of a partisan and ideological battle over the IRS that appears sure to continue to constrain its ability to match the capacity of an industry dedicated to tax minimization and avoidance.
The agency’s workforce of about 80,000 is the same size as it was in 1970. Its enforcement staff has fallen by more than 30% since 2010, and audits of millionaires have declined by more than 70%. Its budget has declined by nearly 20%, when accounting for inflation, during the past decade.
Republicans have for years accused the IRS of political bias and unfairly targeting conservatives. For that reason, they have fought to cut the agency’s funding or, in some cases, called to abolish it altogether.
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/trump-audit-shows-depths-irs-130608652.html
WASHINGTON — Before Donald Trump became president and after, his exceedingly complex and voluminous tax returns came under regular scrutiny by the Internal Revenue Service. The number of agents assigned to the audit team: one.
After Trump left office, the IRS said it was beefing up the audit team, to three. The tax agency itself acknowledged that it was still overwhelmed by the complexity of Trump’s finances and the resistance mounted by the former president and his sophisticated army of accountants and lawyers, which included a former IRS chief counsel and raised questions early last year about why even three revenue agents should be assigned to audit him.
“With over 400 flow-thru returns reported on the Form 1040, it is not possible to obtain the resources available to examine all potential issues,” IRS agents said of Trump’s tax returns in an internal memo that was released by the House Ways and Means Committee this week as part of its oversight of the mandatory presidential audit process.
The IRS is a sprawling agency, and an audit notice can strike fear in most taxpayers. But the committee reports released this week highlight how depleted the IRS has become in the past decade, as Republicans starved it of funding. They also show how the agency has become increasingly unable to crack down on wealthy taxpayers who push the legal limits to lower their tax bills and have the means to fend off audits if they get caught.
That has led to a $7 trillion “tax gap” of revenue over a decade that is owed but goes uncollected, in many cases from superrich taxpayers such as Trump, who has boasted that he fights to pay as little tax as possible. But the resource shortfall is playing out against the backdrop of a partisan and ideological battle over the IRS that appears sure to continue to constrain its ability to match the capacity of an industry dedicated to tax minimization and avoidance.
The agency’s workforce of about 80,000 is the same size as it was in 1970. Its enforcement staff has fallen by more than 30% since 2010, and audits of millionaires have declined by more than 70%. Its budget has declined by nearly 20%, when accounting for inflation, during the past decade.
Republicans have for years accused the IRS of political bias and unfairly targeting conservatives. For that reason, they have fought to cut the agency’s funding or, in some cases, called to abolish it altogether.
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/trump-audit-shows-depths-irs-130608652.html
