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> It doesn’t matter how many IRS agents there are. It will always be easier and more profitable for the IRS to nickel and dime the average taxpayer rather than go after the wealthy, who have the resources to lawyer up with the best lawyers and challenge the IRS in court.	[ "If Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nAnd when Barry was president they targeted conservative groups. I think phone calls can be made to tell them to back off of the little guy.", ">\n\n\nthey targeted conservative groups.\n\nNo. They went after specifically anti-tax tea party groups. The groups who openly flaunted tax laws", ">\n\nThey also went after progressive, left leaning groups - how do you explain that ? it was political", ">\n\nWait, did they target conservatives or progressives? Lol", ">\n\nBoth- it was quite clear they were involving themselves in politics - that’s what the IG found", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.", ">\n\nYep!\nAlso this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious.\nThe real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade.", ">\n\nThanks for the informative reply.\nYou make great points which I don't doubt. But there are times when I think it's important to consider both the letter and spirit of law at times.\nEven though it is perfectly by the letter of the law that people should be checked, it also seems against the intended spirit of said law that only a certain group of people are checked.\nI am not familiar with US law, but I think most of us can feel some degree of injustice with how things currently are.", ">\n\nThe point is to automate more checking of income common to wealthier people, and devote more resources to auditing those people. The Fox News article is disingenuous in how it describes the automated checking that goes on. It’s not great that rich people aren’t really audited, but there’s no reason to stop the automated checking of income where it’s already being done and essentially free to continue.\nIf you feel differently, explain yourself.", ">\n\nNo, we are in alignment concerning this.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nFUCK FOX NEWS\nFox is pretending to care about us poors. \nDon't reward these fascist fucks with upvotes for a disingenuous clickbait headline. They still hate us for not voting gop.", ">\n\nThey want people to hate the IRS and help defund it so they don’t go after the rich, which was the purpose of the additional funding", ">\n\nThey want people to link this to “87000” new agents, which is obviously happening on social media posts, but it’s not even a thing.", ">\n\nArticle is trash. The author is including correspondence audits (which means the IRS asked for some documentation by mail) for low income filers but not for millionaires when comparing their audit rates. Here are actual numbers according to their own source:\nAudit rates including correspondence audits\nlow income 1.27%\nmillionaires 2.38% \nAudit rates excluding correspondence audits\nlow income 0.0376%\nmillionaires 1.24%\n.\nFor low income filers, nearly all their audits were correspondence audits.", ">\n\nIt's hilarious when Fox News and the GOP pretend they care about poor people.\nNo amount of hypocrisy is too much to try to make democrats look bad.", ">\n\nIts unfortunately far easier to prove married couples who live together filed HoH for extra earned income credit than it is to prove complicated returns were incorrect.", ">\n\nIt's also trivially easy to prove the same child was claimed by two parents which is a lot of correspondence audits.", ">\n\nSo can my back taxes please just get forgiven already. 20% income being taxed is not livable", ">\n\nRepublican love flat rate taxes, you should talk to them.", ">\n\nThey’re required to audit the president and vice president, and that didn’t happen either.", ">\n\nThis isn't new, it's been been having for the last 5 - 6 years.", ">\n\nHopefully some wake up and realize its all just preparing us for the inevitable destruction of our economy. I imagine its almost too late to realize this. If we all realized this wed sell our 401Ks and not lean on money and use it to help our neighbors.", ">\n\nK bro.", ">\n\nMy wife and I are on social security. She works part time to keep us afloat. All in, we earned $50K in 2022. iRS wants $4500 from us. Really? 5X what Trump paid? Don't know if anyone is paying attention but $50k ain't rich. Oh, and out of that comes almost $4k in Medicare premiums. A program we paid into for 40+ years.\nEveryone of these arrogant, unqualified,, spoon fed assholes in Congress should be made to live on SSI or welfare, with no medical coverage, for a year. Then tell me I am acting entitled.\nSelf serving bastards.", ">\n\nDon't upvote this crap.\nDo you really think Fox cares about the working class??\nThis is just right wing propaganda, timed to coincide with McCarthy's promise to get rid of the new IRS agents who make it possible to audit the rich.\nDon't be used.", ">\n\nWhatever happened to \"dont shoot the messenger?\"", ">\n\nIRS understaffing would naturally trend to go after low-lying fruit. Easy pickings. Too many man hours to go after super complex cases. These moneyed fuckers and their bullshit. It's outrageous.", ">\n\nThe vast majority of these audits are automatically generated correspondence audits that have to be issued. We can't just turn off the program that raises a red flag when two people claim the same child as a dependent because we don't have enough forensic accountants. If you mistype your W2 you'll get an \"audit\" showing the correct info from the copy your boss sent them and telling you they'll correct it unless you tell them otherwise and you don't have to do anything if the info they have is correct.", ">\n\nYeah, all the nonsense about the IRS \"going after\" low income people is so stupid. Low income people make money in a way that their reporting is easily verifiable by a computer. They're also most likely to mess up and claim child tax credits incorrectly, etc - all of which is verifiable and issued a letter by a computer. \n-\nOther than actually being able to get someone on the phone when you call the IRS, and increased budget isn't going to impact the average person in any way.", ">\n\nMy thing is even assuming the 87k don't successfully get more money out of the rich, that's still 87k jobs. That's a net positive. I just don't understand the conservative logic here. Do they think these 87k new jobs are specifically for being insidiously predatory toward the poor? Where's the logic here? (I know I'll get hyperbolic answers, but I genuinely would like to know)", ">\n\nIt's 87,000 jobs over 10 years, the majority of which are replacement during that period. It's just a budget supplemental to stop hemorrhaging agents as they retire or cycle out into other jobs.", ">\n\nso.. this is on fox, which I assume support republican efforts to ensure that this is the permanent state of affairs. I don't really get anything anymore.", ">\n\nAnd that is the way the GOP wants it.", ">\n\n💯 Exactly what this Fox article is trying to do.", ">\n\nIt's who can afford a lawyer", ">\n\nAs the article hints at, the IRS does not do a lot of actual auditing. What it does is computer matching, which automatically generates material for a correspondence audit. Most correspondence audits occur because som poor working Joe didn't know he/her was supposed to include or exclude something, and the IRS caught it in its matching. Of course, the problem is that we have a complex code and little help in actually helping people through the various forms, rules, and so on. But millionaires don't have these issues, so they can escape most of the traps that lead to a correspondence audit. If a lot of these 87,000 were in taxpayer service (which I expect) it would lead to fewer audits at the low end, more robust audits for large corporations, wealthy individuals, and those who actively use tax avoidance strategies. But of course that is not the dialogue that gets promoted when the 87,000 agents are discussed.", ">\n\nThis is exactly why Fox News needs to be dismantled and thrown in the garbage. Ugh, \"look poors! They're coming for yoU!!!\". Scare tactics. And guess what? It sadly works. Every time.\nThey're lower than scum.", ">\n\nExactly. It's when someone misreports a number from their W2, didn't report 1099s they received, both separated parents claim a tax credit for the same kid, etc. All stuff that's easily checked by a computer. The IRS isn't \"auditing\" random low to middle income people. That would be a complete waste of their time.", ">\n\nlooks at Trump You don't say.", ">\n\nThe poor can't defend themselves, it's easier to take a little bit of money from people that won't fight back than a lot of money from people that will.", ">\n\nThe mega rich seem like they’re on a mission to destroy America, as we know it.", ">\n\nHiring 87,000 new IRS agents makes it possible to audit billionaires. So they pay their share. Those audits require an actual person or team that knows what they are doing. But Kevin McCarthy's first item of business was to announce legislation to overturn the hiring of 87,000 IRS agents. Meaning only the little guy (who can be audited by computer software) pays taxes.\nSSDD", ">\n\nThe \"87,000\" agents budget is over a ten year period. It's not for 87,000 new positions.", ">\n\nThe title is so misleading. Im surprised fox even put the juicy bit in the article about how (this stat is due to there not being enough IRS workers because) these \"audits\" on low earners are just automated letters asking for more info.\nYet again, this is just millionairs paid by billionairs to mislead the masses into blaming the poor for crimes committed by said billionairs.", ">\n\nWhich is why the IRS needs more manpower and budget, so they can go after the big fish.\nFuck Fox News and their Republican propaganda pieces. This article coincides with McCarthy saying they’ll cut the IRS budget and that the IRS is coming for you.\nFuck off Republican propaganda rag!\nStop upvoting any Fox News story. Fox should not be on the white list.", ">\n\nThis is a terrible article. It seems to include questions about tax returns as audits. If a low income filer makes a mistake it should be corrected. Is that an audit? If anyone makes a mistake and is contacted, is that an audit? Also there is no reason to go after low income as they rarely pay tax or are required to. The money requested would also pay for people to answer a phone. Those against increasing funding lie when they say all of it goes to audits. If you tell the truth, who cares if you are audited? Are y’all aware you can track your personal return online? However a business cannot. Businesses have to rely on humans that can’t be reached. I’ve waited a year for a refund. Didn’t know if IRS received the return. Didn’t know if there was an issue. Didn’t know if it was mailed or lost. I’m getting tired of Republicans pushing their crap on people.", ">\n\nwho keeps upvoting this right wing propaganda", ">\n\nWhy would the GOP want to give the agency the power to go after their donors.", ">\n\nAnd it was trumps guy that mandated it while Biden replaced him", ">\n\nApparently the mere use of an accounting firm somehow protected corps and the rich from the IRS who still (mistakenly) believe the accounting firms are trustworthy. How naive.", ">\n\nThe \"audits\" talked about are mostly form letters requesting more info about specific items.", ">\n\nThe poor can't pay for top flight attorneys.", ">\n\nYep keep the IRS underfunded so they can only go after the poors at the same time telling all the poors that the IRS is bad cause it goes after them but leave out the fact that they do that cause the poors are low hanging fruit.\nRepublicans are evil.", ">\n\nWell the GOP wants to cut funding to the IRS for new agents, so I’m sure the poor folk will continue to get screwed. I say toss the 50,000+ page tax code out and replace with a percentage based on total revenue/income made. Took a loss? No write-offs. Oh well, better luck next year. It’ll never happen because the wealthy don’t want it to.", ">\n\nWhere did you get this info? I know GOPers have been slashing IRS budgets and staffing for years but can't find reliable sources for what this has done to the actual audits - like who gets audited.", ">\n\nTheir link is Fox. This is a bad faith post.", ">\n\nThis says a lot coming from fox “news”", ">\n\nTo paraphrase Gilbert K. Chesterton, \"The Poor have sometimes objected to being taxed too heavily; The Rich have always objected to being taxed at all.\"", ">\n\ndon't post Fox news here....", ">\n\nCorporations and millionaires have the means to hire accountants and attorneys. Our tax code is gray in several areas. It’s easy to go after the poor that do not have the resources and will have no choice but to pay anything the IRS says. The additional agents will continue to target the poor and middle class because they are easy, It’s happened before, it will continue to happen.", ">\n\nI think it's funny/sad that a poor person can win the lottery and they get taxed at a higher rate than any billionaire has ever been taxed at. The system is built to keep the rich - rich and the poor - poor.", ">\n\nThe poorest can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nThe current system cannot be sustained. We are hurtling towards disaster.", ">\n\nThe only reason the bastards have the majority is because the corrupt SCOTUS allowed illegal gerrymanders to stand while they were fought in the courts.", ">\n\nThe I.R.S. goes after the poorer people because it's easier. They can't afford lawyers and accountants. So the poor can do nothing but roll over and take it up the rump. The Inflation Reduction Act that Biden signed into law in August is supposed to give $80 Billion to the I.R.S. so they can go after the millionaires. But we know that won't happen. More poor people are going to get screwed.", ">\n\nI'm confused. For decades, Faux news and the conservatives have been saying that millionaires deserve to keep more of their money than we do. That was a huge part of the 2017 tax scam that Trump signed. Now Faux is saying it's a problem? And they are rightly detailing that Republicans are the cause, along with Biden trying to fix the same issue that Fox has helped create?", ">\n\nFox News", ">\n\nHey IRS, don't forget to crawl up my ass this year because I sold some old stuff on eBay for a loss but make sure you put a few man hours into figuring out if it is legit or not.", ">\n\nlol, and the people opposed to IRS funding will say they are anti-establishment.", ">\n\nImagine how much they could squeeze the middle class with 87,000 more agents! But really, it’ll be good to see if the increase in officers actually increases tax revenue without changing the underlying laws.", ">\n\nSo, this is the newest Republican boogeyman, the IRS.\nWell, better than Drag Queens I guess.", ">\n\nOh hey just like last year, and the year before that, I think there might be a pattern", ">\n\nThank you republicans, always sticking up in the back on the small guys…", ">\n\nFox News saying this like it’s not something Rupert Murdoch’s network supports is pretty funny.", ">\n\nFox News. Ignore it.", ">\n\nFox News is still allowed in here?", ">\n\nFake news. This is Republican propaganda coming from Fox News.", ">\n\nFox News is NOT news", ">\n\nHmm sounds like it was underfunded then. Good thing now we helped ease that problem. Thanks Biden", ">\n\nIt's simply laziness by the IRS. Lower-income households have less complicated returns and easier to process. I'm sure IRS runs a non-effective but management-pleasing metric like \"how many returns were corrected\" opposed to how much money was recouped.", ">\n\nWe know. They don't have the resources to do anything. That was the point of increasing the staffing at the IRS so they had even the slightest hope of going after the big offenders with their armies or lawyers.", ">\n\nThere's less millionaires and billionaires than there are us. I'm not sure that answer fits the accuracy on hiring more workers but I'll go ahead and amuse that", ">\n\nIt's not a game of tax guy vs rich guy. The rich literally have armies of lawyers. You need the staff to overcome all the paper and challenges they'll throw at you. \nIf you throw one person to audit a millionaire, their lawyers can make it so it'll take a year to review a week of operations. Investigations will never finish unless there's sufficient staff to overcome their obstruction.", ">\n\nTo this day I do not understand why the IRS can demand our documents every year without a warrant. The 16th amendment does not alter the 4th, and the 4th does not apply only to criminal actions (as the 5th explicitly does). Yet no one seems to care about this annual violations.", ">\n\nReminder, Fox News is not news. It's entertainment, and should be regarded as such.", ">\n\nNo shit, poor ppl tend to file their own taxes and screw up where as millionaires hire expensive accountants to exploit all the legal loopholes without getting their clients in trouble.\nI don't think it's an intentional targeting as the article may be implying.", ">\n\nOne might imagine the resources of agents would be better put to use by focusing on returns that might produce more revenue, however it may be just a lot easier to collect a few bucks from easier targets.", ">\n\nThey are short staffed and accountants make it so difficult to find wrongdoing, if there is even wrongdoing to be found, that it would take a decent chunk of their workforce just to tackle it. It's like trying to find needle in a haystack but you don't know if there's a needle or not.", ">\n\nSo true....", ">\n\nShocked pikachu face.", ">\n\nYeah I’d believe this if it weren’t Fox News. They could give a fuck about the poor and middle class.", ">\n\nI would literally rather the IRS spend its time auditing 5 extraordinarily rich people or a single business than anyone who makes less than 100k per year\nETA: I’m aware that this article represents part of the Republican agenda to just gut the IRS and welfare spending generally. And I understand the difficulties in auditing the rich/businesses v lower income people claiming tax credits, etc", ">\n\nAlmost all of the little people \"audits\" are just a computer issuing a correspondence \"audit\" because the person misreported something from their W2, didn't report as much 1099 income as was reported to the IRS by others, or separated parents both trying to claim kids for tax credits or something. \n-\nThey don't really pull from the same resources. The rich people audits require human beings. Little people \"audits\" aren't really audits and a computer can do it. So if we want to audit more rich people, they need actual budget for human beings. The little people are going to be caught anyways because a computer can do it.", ">\n\nI interned at the IRS during the summer of 2012 when Lois Lerner made batshit crazy commrnts that they were targetting conservative groups", ">\n\nI say this every time it gets brought up. This is by design. I used to work in auditing and also used to do tax stuff. It’s super easy to find tax fraud on someone who only has a simple W-2 and no other income. You could find those people through a basic algorithm. Meanwhile, auditing a multi millionaire is expensive, time consuming, and often fruitless. If I was in charge of an underfunded, understaffed IRS I would tell my staff to go for the easy wins too.", ">\n\nUnpopular opinion - More funding won't resolve this. \nThe IRS will keep doing this. Unless rules & regulations forbid or disincentivize this practice, the IRS will keep this stupid practice", ">\n\nI make $40,000 a year and the IRS froze my bank accounts until I paid them $1000 in taxes I owed them because of an error I made filling my taxes. They froze my bank accounts for $1000. I was fucked for a month. I had to borrow cash from people just for food and gas money to get to work to get paid money that I couldn’t access. It was a scary time for me. Meanwhile millionaires are purposely avoiding taxes worth more than what I make in a year and nothing happens to them.", ">\n\nThe IRS sends no less than a dozen letters to a taxpayer prior to leaving a bank account. Why didn't you just put it into a repayment plan? Takes about ten minutes online.", ">\n\nDon't you just hate autocorrect?", ">\n\nIf true, its a holdover from jrbush who slashed IRS staff and budget and told them to spend more time auditing tip jars and busboys than millionaires because the millionaires had better lawyers than the IRS and service workers were unlikely to have any lawyers at all.", ">\n\nFox News solution: remove the IRS", ">\n\nAbsolutely. They’ll NEVER target the rich, adding more agents just made them a lot more capable to target all the lower class.", ">\n\nWhat people don't realize..Those 87K \"Agents\" aren't that. It's 87K employees over 25 years. Clerks etc. People are so fucking stupid when they just believe these clowns.", ">\n\nThose numbers also count it as an \"audit\" when a person misreports a number from a W2, 1099s, etc and the irs number matching software sends an automatically generated correspondence letter that basically says \"we actually show this number, this is what your tax return would have been if you reported that number correctly\". \nThe IRS isn't wasting time doing random \"audits\" as people think of them for low to middle income people. It would be a complete waste of their time. The computer just catches obvious verifiable mistakes and it counts as an audit in those numbers.", ">\n\n“those in the lowest income bracket hit 12.7 per 1,000….. The odds of a millionaire facing an audit were around 1.1%.”\nSo they’re saying 1.27% vs 1.1%!!! And acting like that’s a scandal 🙄", ">\n\nWhich means millionaires REALLY don't want more IRS auditors which means when our new resident house fascist fires five thousand auditors, said fascist (McCarthy) is making sure those millionaires aren't going to get audited. \nCha CHING !!! Go the \"donations\" into house rat republican's pockets. \nThe grift will be in full swing shortly.\nAnd with putin whispering in their ears and telling them EXACTLY how break the law - how can they lose?", ">\n\n💯 Exactly why theres a Fox link here pushing for that same reason.", ">\n\nTwo things. First of all, this is from a far right-wing propaganda outlet which should immediately raise red flags. They're trying to scare you into allowing a republican-initiated movement to entirely remove all remaining power from the IRS by making it seem like they're coming after you.\nSecond, the reason the IRS is already already virtually powerless against the rich is because the republicans have already eviscerated them in the past several decades, largely through defunding them leading to not only staffing cuts, but the inability to pursue the wealthiest people who have the resources for endless litigation. So as a result, the FBI can only really afford to go after people who cannot financially defend themselves.", ">\n\nThird, you might as well throw in that the aiming low guidance was under a Trump appointee who is no longer in that position.", ">\n\nThe GOP intentionally defunded the IRS so that it could not audit the wealthy. It takes a great deal more money upfront to audit them but the payback is far greater.", ">\n\nI'm not sure why dems voted against an amendment that would have mandated the giant infusion of cash into the IRS couldn't be used to audit folks making >$400k.", ">\n\nHrm this is pretty fucked I'd like to hear about why the Dems voted nay.", ">\n\nBecause they work for the same people as Republicans. \nThey are different but only when their owners allow them to be. \nI don't know how many times we are going to have to learn this lesson before it sticks.", ">\n\nDemocrats are responsible for this", ">\n\nThe rich returns are just too hard, enough lower class errors you can leave the rich alone. Love to see it… sigh", ">\n\nIt takes money to police the wealthy. Can't have that can we?!", ">\n\nr/noshitsherlock", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised?\nI’m not even American and this seemed obvious to me. All you have to do is look at how the poor live and compare that to the news about someone like Elon musk or Donald trump.", ">\n\nThis is why the IRS needs to go.", ">\n\nFox News helped make that happen.", ">\n\nThey'll never change,all the time when the guys in charge benefit from doing the same shit.", ">\n\nAnd yet the republicans dont submit or pass legislations to change the rules to favor targeting rich people. Curious.", ">\n\nThen 78,000 new, armed tax collectors should be able to extract even more money from the poor, middle-class and small business owners.", ">\n\nWhy did they focus on the Poorest? The thought of 87,000 more of them will actually do what? If the existing can’t focus on the wealthy! Then what makes anybody think more can?", ">\n\nMillionaires and billionaires make the government more money by creating lobbying loopholes and exploiting the economy to bilk the 99%. It's really cheap to go after the poorest who are struggling to pay day to day obligations and don't have loopholes or government sanctioned exploitation to take advantage of.", ">\n\nI could have told you this would happen. You think millionaires get $600 Venmo transactions?", ">\n\nThat's a move democrats should not make. That's one month of rent for me. What of folks worse-off?", ">\n\nHonestly it’s like squeezing blood from the stone over here anyway.", ">\n\nDuh lmfao theyve already stated it costs too much to tax weathy people previously and its most cost effective to audit the poor due to many factors...", ">\n\nI mean 99% of us are poor compared to the other 1%", ">\n\nColor me surprised", ">\n\nWe need some laws for equitable auditing.", ">\n\nYou are an Army commander about to attack the enemy. Do you prefer to attack where they have experienced career solders backed up by artillery, tanks, and airplanes, or do you attack where there are poorly armed and equipped untrained conscripts?", ">\n\nThey must be upset someone replaced their sign with a card from Cards Against Humanity", ">\n\nMay it ever be so…. Don’t reproduce if you only consume and can’t accumulate or help a Dow Jones winter water witch. Like snow, weathermen.", ">\n\nIt’s weirdly fitting how much their building sign in the photo looks like a cards against humanity card.", ">\n\nTypical", ">\n\nWow? How unusual.", ">\n\nI’d support double the number of IRS agents", ">\n\nI was low income and won about 3,000 gambling, the irs went after me", ">\n\nThe IRS came after me hard for 8$", ">\n\nAudit frequency should correlate to income, someone with a million in income should be audited 10x those with 100k income", ">\n\nSomeone should explain Pareto charts to the IRS.", ">\n\nI've been audited three times. First when I was 27, did some consulting and didn't do the 1099 prepayments. Ended up owing $17k. Second audit was after moving across country for a job. The tax preparer we hired made a mistake with the move expense deductions, owed a few thousand. Third audit was another tax preparer mistake, but this time we overpaid and were owed money we credited to the next year. \nIf you assume for discussion that the average audit on an ordinary tax payer returns $10,000, it would take 100,000,000 audits to make $1 trillion. By just doing the easy work, the IRS is leaving the real money on the table.", ">\n\nRepublicans are famous for giving rich breaks while middle class etc close the gaps", ">\n\nThe last line, \"The Inflation Reduction Act provides the IRS with $80 billion in future funding to ramp up its audits and potentially target the wealthiest taxpayers.\"", ">\n\nThe cure is not the root cause, but the middle class and the poor will eventually bear the burden after the capital operation", ">\n\nIt’s like they timed the “research” and the drop of the article with the speech. Sad man.", ">\n\nWatch Madoff. The wealthy skate and steal billions. The poor are in prison over thousands.", ">\n\nWhy does their sign look like a Card Against Humanity", ">\n\nFucking Trump, still at it.", ">\n\nOh you mean the thing people said would happen once they got massive funding actually happened? Checks out", ">\n\nOf course they did, because millionaires will lawyer up.", ">\n\nBecause the poor can't afford to fight back.", ">\n\nIt's so unfair the poor and the middle class taxpayers suffer so much while the millionaries got away with not paying the taxes It's really hurting the poor. The middle class is fading", ">\n\nAll of this can be fixed if we just use no-exemption graduated income", ">\n\nYeah we know", ">\n\nShow of hands for all surprised.\ncrickets\nHmm. Seems like Reddit suffers from a plague of double amputees...", ">\n\nWhat the actual fuck", ">\n\nAnd 2021, 2020, 2019, …", ">\n\nSounds about right.", ">\n\nOf course. Poor people can’t afford attorneys.", ">\n\nI made a mistake on my forms while I was overseas and ticked “self-employed” instead of “employed”. I was on a student visa and had two children and was making less than 10k a year. They hounded me for years. By the time I figured out what had happened I could not amend the forms and had paid thousands in penalties and interest.\nMeanwhile I knew lots of people who were there fully employed not reporting their income.\nFuck them.", ">\n\nYep! During the pandemic, even while I wasn't working didn't come after me the entire time that I was working but the minute that I wasn't nobody was cuz we were in lockdown they started popping up", ">\n\nI just now realized that the Cards Against Humanity box looks like the IRS sign", ">\n\nWhy is the sign a Cards Against Humanity question?", ">\n\nI am shocked and appalled. clutches pearls", ">\n\nRich should be taxed more than the average not right at all. Or at least there is a tier system based on pay only makes sense. Come on now", ">\n\nSounds about right, make the rich richer again.", ">\n\nWho are we going to vote for in the future ,all of them are decayed , corrupted and useless , the “most rich country in the world , governed by the most ignorant an corrupted. What a contrast .", ">\n\nGod bless America", ">\n\nno way. wait until you see those people responds. Those people are chipping away.", ">\n\nSounds about right", ">\n\nWe know.", ">\n\nI find it rather comical that Fox news is reporting on this since they are all about pushing the Republican agenda and that is all about pushing everyone else down that isn't rich and keeping them there. Not to mention they had no problem with Trump not paying taxes for years.", ">\n\nCan fucking confirm.", ">\n\nYeah, they (millionaires) have accountants who generally do things right and due to their millions being in investments it's not like it's taxable all the time. \nThen there's the ability to sell any stocks when they're down to build up losses on paper can reinvest them at a loss that can carry over across multiple years.", ">\n\nsounds about right. i don’t have a pot to piss in but they’re all over me for someone stealing my identity and filing a double tax return one year.", ">\n\nDuh", ">\n\nThere’s a reason why FOX is posting this article. The less people at the IRS, the more likely they come after folks who can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nIn order to pursue wealthy tax cheats, the IRS needs more resources and personnel. Otherwise it’s business as usual, picking on the low hanging fruit that earns under 6 figures.", ">\n\nSo wrong ....people need to be fired", ">\n\nIt’s because they can’t afford to take them to court", ">\n\nOf course it is about protecting the rich like Trump who lies ,lies , and about his tax returns . No wonder he did not want them released .", ">\n\nEasy prey bc most ppl can not lawyer up. Pretty heart breaking system we have at times.", ">\n\nWhy does the irs sign look like it's from cards against humanity?", ">\n\nCurrently getting audited over \\~$1500, which they owe me, when the rich get away with murder. Fucking unbelievably and unnecessarily stressful for me.", ">\n\nHas t this been know for a while?", ">\n\nyep and they are the same people getting tax cuts while everyone else does it tough ....\nAny one with too much money is your enemy .... not a hero of democracy", ">\n\nGet rid of taxes and the gov’t should just do stuff for free, or what ever.", ">\n\nYou have to be careful when you get one of those CP2000 notices from the IRS. The way they are written is a trap.\nIf you dispute it you are supposed to indicate that you disagree and send it back with documents supporting your dispute.\nYou are only supposed to sign it if you agree with them and when you sign it you are signing away your rights to dispute the back taxes and penalties they are demanding.\nMere worker bees like us can expect to be getting a lot of those from this years tax returns considering how the threshold for 1099k forms has been dropped to $600.\nGuys like Trump? The IRS doesn't even know where to begin.", ">\n\nThanks Biden", ">\n\nI presume those lower-income bracket filers might be more likely to reach out to 1-800-infomercial [quickie settlement/long-term penalties most favorable to gov/proprietor] than retain proper legal counsel?\nRegardless it’s got to be a lot less work for IRS agent to go after under-represented citizen(s), rather than someone who can afford to appeal, properly negotiate on their own terms?", ">\n\nLmfao Dems tax and spend. But I have to admit there Republicans that tax and spend to. Where do these Politicians get off taxing me or business and give to people who don't work what do you cause d the inflation. You can not print money \nI am Conservative not a Republican. To much money is wasted and put in pockets of people ot don't belong.\nBut all dems know how to tax tax tax. \nIts all great and good until you run out if other peoples money. \nMillionaire just like Berny he hated Millionaires until he became one now he hates Trillionaires. Funny how the gold post changes. And good old Nancy her I side stock trading. So I think you need to rethink.", ">\n\nThe IRS is only doing as directed by whomever controls the White House.", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised by this? Really?", ">\n\nThe sign in the thumbnail looks like a Cards Against Humanity card.", ">\n\nWhile this is mostly true, don’t believe everything you read. I’m no more an accountant than I am a ladies man, but someone (said they’re an accountant) posted a few days ago about this. They explained that the most likely people getting audited are trying to, fraudulently or mistakenly, claim the EITC. \nYES, it’s super easy to “bust” these people for an easy “mistake”. This is who the IRS is cracking down on. \nDo I think it’s better to bust poor people for claiming a few thousand in tax credits vs billionaires who avoid taxes altogether? Of course not, but don’t think they’re actively targeting people who fudge their mileage deductions or miss a decimal point in their calculations as small business owners. It’s simply not happening. \nAnd the reported “87,000 new IRS agents” are replacing the 10’s of 1,000’s of employees set to retire or quit over the next 10 years which doesn’t even begin to fill the gaps we’ve been growing for decades by not hiring and training more willing workers. Not to mention they’re not even close to all employees who will actively audit tax payers. They’re people who answer phones, file papers, assist others, etc… They’re mostly just average people with average jobs so of course the GOP wants to end this. They hate upward mobility and job creation unless that means tax breaks for their billionaire friends.", ">\n\nI wish everyone wasn’t a sheep and would understand this.", ">\n\nI can see the Media doing their best to turn the public against the IRS.", ">\n\nPicking on the week and helpless. That’s what we humans do. We suck. I’m waiting for that big meteor reset button.", ">\n\nAnd Fox news loves this.", ">\n\nLove it, Faux 'News' taking the piss, for 4 years under Dear Leader they campaigned for tax breaks for the rich, now they're pretending to care about the poor !", ">\n\nEvery millionaire should be audited yearly. Period.", ">\n\nAND now the gqp cult promises to rescind the money Biden set aside to aid the IRS to recover taxes from mega millionaire tax cheats like benedict donald, who paid less taxes than most working Americans.", ">\n\nRepublicans want to stop the IRS and Congress from taxing rich people, making the burden of maintaining civilization fall more heavily on poorer people. This is why Republicans vote for tax cuts for the rich and against funding for the IRS.\nAnd since Republican beliefs are based on wishful thinking, Republicans can screw over poor, rural Republicans while simultaneously taking credit for doing it to make Republicans happy about it and blaming it on Democrats to make those same Republicans resentful against Democrats for it. And what else would we expect from a Republican Party that blames Democrats for tricking them into attacking the Capitol to make Trump look bad and justifies and approves of assaulting Capitol police while brandishing their \"thin blue line\" flags.", ">\n\nThe IRS is like any other law enforcement agency, they prefer pursuing the poor because they don't have the resources to protect themselves.", ">\n\nThe IRS building sign looks like its from cards against humanity.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nNot a reliable news source.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nThat picture looks like the worst cards against humanity card too get.", ">\n\nScrew the Murdoch media empire and their failed trickle down ideologies.", ">\n\nOf course, the poorest haven’t paid over 400+ billion for decades. Not sure about the rich, we haven’t checked.", ">\n\nThis is not a surprise. With the recent inflation reduction act, the IRS an additional $80B over 10 years or $8B per year. The IRS budget for 2021 was $13.7B. The additional $8B over the year would be an increase of 58% to their budget. They will be looking to get a lot more money from taxpayers, due to this very large increase in their budget.", ">\n\nFox reported this? I'm in shock", ">\n\nAll propagandists publish clickbaity stuff that makes them sound like maybe they've let up on the evil. Unfortunately it works, since people just upvote headlines.", ">\n\nIt’s only going to get worse in 2023. Those 87k new IRS agents will not be going after the wealthy.", ">\n\nWhy?\nThat’s literally why they were being added. The IRS goes after the poorer taxpayers because they are low-hanging fruit and don’t have the lawyers and accountants to protect them. \nThe additional IRS employees were to give the personnel staffing sufficient to go after the wealthy." ]
> Easier? Yes. More profitable? Doubtful.	[ "If Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nAnd when Barry was president they targeted conservative groups. I think phone calls can be made to tell them to back off of the little guy.", ">\n\n\nthey targeted conservative groups.\n\nNo. They went after specifically anti-tax tea party groups. The groups who openly flaunted tax laws", ">\n\nThey also went after progressive, left leaning groups - how do you explain that ? it was political", ">\n\nWait, did they target conservatives or progressives? Lol", ">\n\nBoth- it was quite clear they were involving themselves in politics - that’s what the IG found", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.", ">\n\nYep!\nAlso this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious.\nThe real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade.", ">\n\nThanks for the informative reply.\nYou make great points which I don't doubt. But there are times when I think it's important to consider both the letter and spirit of law at times.\nEven though it is perfectly by the letter of the law that people should be checked, it also seems against the intended spirit of said law that only a certain group of people are checked.\nI am not familiar with US law, but I think most of us can feel some degree of injustice with how things currently are.", ">\n\nThe point is to automate more checking of income common to wealthier people, and devote more resources to auditing those people. The Fox News article is disingenuous in how it describes the automated checking that goes on. It’s not great that rich people aren’t really audited, but there’s no reason to stop the automated checking of income where it’s already being done and essentially free to continue.\nIf you feel differently, explain yourself.", ">\n\nNo, we are in alignment concerning this.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nFUCK FOX NEWS\nFox is pretending to care about us poors. \nDon't reward these fascist fucks with upvotes for a disingenuous clickbait headline. They still hate us for not voting gop.", ">\n\nThey want people to hate the IRS and help defund it so they don’t go after the rich, which was the purpose of the additional funding", ">\n\nThey want people to link this to “87000” new agents, which is obviously happening on social media posts, but it’s not even a thing.", ">\n\nArticle is trash. The author is including correspondence audits (which means the IRS asked for some documentation by mail) for low income filers but not for millionaires when comparing their audit rates. Here are actual numbers according to their own source:\nAudit rates including correspondence audits\nlow income 1.27%\nmillionaires 2.38% \nAudit rates excluding correspondence audits\nlow income 0.0376%\nmillionaires 1.24%\n.\nFor low income filers, nearly all their audits were correspondence audits.", ">\n\nIt's hilarious when Fox News and the GOP pretend they care about poor people.\nNo amount of hypocrisy is too much to try to make democrats look bad.", ">\n\nIts unfortunately far easier to prove married couples who live together filed HoH for extra earned income credit than it is to prove complicated returns were incorrect.", ">\n\nIt's also trivially easy to prove the same child was claimed by two parents which is a lot of correspondence audits.", ">\n\nSo can my back taxes please just get forgiven already. 20% income being taxed is not livable", ">\n\nRepublican love flat rate taxes, you should talk to them.", ">\n\nThey’re required to audit the president and vice president, and that didn’t happen either.", ">\n\nThis isn't new, it's been been having for the last 5 - 6 years.", ">\n\nHopefully some wake up and realize its all just preparing us for the inevitable destruction of our economy. I imagine its almost too late to realize this. If we all realized this wed sell our 401Ks and not lean on money and use it to help our neighbors.", ">\n\nK bro.", ">\n\nMy wife and I are on social security. She works part time to keep us afloat. All in, we earned $50K in 2022. iRS wants $4500 from us. Really? 5X what Trump paid? Don't know if anyone is paying attention but $50k ain't rich. Oh, and out of that comes almost $4k in Medicare premiums. A program we paid into for 40+ years.\nEveryone of these arrogant, unqualified,, spoon fed assholes in Congress should be made to live on SSI or welfare, with no medical coverage, for a year. Then tell me I am acting entitled.\nSelf serving bastards.", ">\n\nDon't upvote this crap.\nDo you really think Fox cares about the working class??\nThis is just right wing propaganda, timed to coincide with McCarthy's promise to get rid of the new IRS agents who make it possible to audit the rich.\nDon't be used.", ">\n\nWhatever happened to \"dont shoot the messenger?\"", ">\n\nIRS understaffing would naturally trend to go after low-lying fruit. Easy pickings. Too many man hours to go after super complex cases. These moneyed fuckers and their bullshit. It's outrageous.", ">\n\nThe vast majority of these audits are automatically generated correspondence audits that have to be issued. We can't just turn off the program that raises a red flag when two people claim the same child as a dependent because we don't have enough forensic accountants. If you mistype your W2 you'll get an \"audit\" showing the correct info from the copy your boss sent them and telling you they'll correct it unless you tell them otherwise and you don't have to do anything if the info they have is correct.", ">\n\nYeah, all the nonsense about the IRS \"going after\" low income people is so stupid. Low income people make money in a way that their reporting is easily verifiable by a computer. They're also most likely to mess up and claim child tax credits incorrectly, etc - all of which is verifiable and issued a letter by a computer. \n-\nOther than actually being able to get someone on the phone when you call the IRS, and increased budget isn't going to impact the average person in any way.", ">\n\nMy thing is even assuming the 87k don't successfully get more money out of the rich, that's still 87k jobs. That's a net positive. I just don't understand the conservative logic here. Do they think these 87k new jobs are specifically for being insidiously predatory toward the poor? Where's the logic here? (I know I'll get hyperbolic answers, but I genuinely would like to know)", ">\n\nIt's 87,000 jobs over 10 years, the majority of which are replacement during that period. It's just a budget supplemental to stop hemorrhaging agents as they retire or cycle out into other jobs.", ">\n\nso.. this is on fox, which I assume support republican efforts to ensure that this is the permanent state of affairs. I don't really get anything anymore.", ">\n\nAnd that is the way the GOP wants it.", ">\n\n💯 Exactly what this Fox article is trying to do.", ">\n\nIt's who can afford a lawyer", ">\n\nAs the article hints at, the IRS does not do a lot of actual auditing. What it does is computer matching, which automatically generates material for a correspondence audit. Most correspondence audits occur because som poor working Joe didn't know he/her was supposed to include or exclude something, and the IRS caught it in its matching. Of course, the problem is that we have a complex code and little help in actually helping people through the various forms, rules, and so on. But millionaires don't have these issues, so they can escape most of the traps that lead to a correspondence audit. If a lot of these 87,000 were in taxpayer service (which I expect) it would lead to fewer audits at the low end, more robust audits for large corporations, wealthy individuals, and those who actively use tax avoidance strategies. But of course that is not the dialogue that gets promoted when the 87,000 agents are discussed.", ">\n\nThis is exactly why Fox News needs to be dismantled and thrown in the garbage. Ugh, \"look poors! They're coming for yoU!!!\". Scare tactics. And guess what? It sadly works. Every time.\nThey're lower than scum.", ">\n\nExactly. It's when someone misreports a number from their W2, didn't report 1099s they received, both separated parents claim a tax credit for the same kid, etc. All stuff that's easily checked by a computer. The IRS isn't \"auditing\" random low to middle income people. That would be a complete waste of their time.", ">\n\nlooks at Trump You don't say.", ">\n\nThe poor can't defend themselves, it's easier to take a little bit of money from people that won't fight back than a lot of money from people that will.", ">\n\nThe mega rich seem like they’re on a mission to destroy America, as we know it.", ">\n\nHiring 87,000 new IRS agents makes it possible to audit billionaires. So they pay their share. Those audits require an actual person or team that knows what they are doing. But Kevin McCarthy's first item of business was to announce legislation to overturn the hiring of 87,000 IRS agents. Meaning only the little guy (who can be audited by computer software) pays taxes.\nSSDD", ">\n\nThe \"87,000\" agents budget is over a ten year period. It's not for 87,000 new positions.", ">\n\nThe title is so misleading. Im surprised fox even put the juicy bit in the article about how (this stat is due to there not being enough IRS workers because) these \"audits\" on low earners are just automated letters asking for more info.\nYet again, this is just millionairs paid by billionairs to mislead the masses into blaming the poor for crimes committed by said billionairs.", ">\n\nWhich is why the IRS needs more manpower and budget, so they can go after the big fish.\nFuck Fox News and their Republican propaganda pieces. This article coincides with McCarthy saying they’ll cut the IRS budget and that the IRS is coming for you.\nFuck off Republican propaganda rag!\nStop upvoting any Fox News story. Fox should not be on the white list.", ">\n\nThis is a terrible article. It seems to include questions about tax returns as audits. If a low income filer makes a mistake it should be corrected. Is that an audit? If anyone makes a mistake and is contacted, is that an audit? Also there is no reason to go after low income as they rarely pay tax or are required to. The money requested would also pay for people to answer a phone. Those against increasing funding lie when they say all of it goes to audits. If you tell the truth, who cares if you are audited? Are y’all aware you can track your personal return online? However a business cannot. Businesses have to rely on humans that can’t be reached. I’ve waited a year for a refund. Didn’t know if IRS received the return. Didn’t know if there was an issue. Didn’t know if it was mailed or lost. I’m getting tired of Republicans pushing their crap on people.", ">\n\nwho keeps upvoting this right wing propaganda", ">\n\nWhy would the GOP want to give the agency the power to go after their donors.", ">\n\nAnd it was trumps guy that mandated it while Biden replaced him", ">\n\nApparently the mere use of an accounting firm somehow protected corps and the rich from the IRS who still (mistakenly) believe the accounting firms are trustworthy. How naive.", ">\n\nThe \"audits\" talked about are mostly form letters requesting more info about specific items.", ">\n\nThe poor can't pay for top flight attorneys.", ">\n\nYep keep the IRS underfunded so they can only go after the poors at the same time telling all the poors that the IRS is bad cause it goes after them but leave out the fact that they do that cause the poors are low hanging fruit.\nRepublicans are evil.", ">\n\nWell the GOP wants to cut funding to the IRS for new agents, so I’m sure the poor folk will continue to get screwed. I say toss the 50,000+ page tax code out and replace with a percentage based on total revenue/income made. Took a loss? No write-offs. Oh well, better luck next year. It’ll never happen because the wealthy don’t want it to.", ">\n\nWhere did you get this info? I know GOPers have been slashing IRS budgets and staffing for years but can't find reliable sources for what this has done to the actual audits - like who gets audited.", ">\n\nTheir link is Fox. This is a bad faith post.", ">\n\nThis says a lot coming from fox “news”", ">\n\nTo paraphrase Gilbert K. Chesterton, \"The Poor have sometimes objected to being taxed too heavily; The Rich have always objected to being taxed at all.\"", ">\n\ndon't post Fox news here....", ">\n\nCorporations and millionaires have the means to hire accountants and attorneys. Our tax code is gray in several areas. It’s easy to go after the poor that do not have the resources and will have no choice but to pay anything the IRS says. The additional agents will continue to target the poor and middle class because they are easy, It’s happened before, it will continue to happen.", ">\n\nI think it's funny/sad that a poor person can win the lottery and they get taxed at a higher rate than any billionaire has ever been taxed at. The system is built to keep the rich - rich and the poor - poor.", ">\n\nThe poorest can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nThe current system cannot be sustained. We are hurtling towards disaster.", ">\n\nThe only reason the bastards have the majority is because the corrupt SCOTUS allowed illegal gerrymanders to stand while they were fought in the courts.", ">\n\nThe I.R.S. goes after the poorer people because it's easier. They can't afford lawyers and accountants. So the poor can do nothing but roll over and take it up the rump. The Inflation Reduction Act that Biden signed into law in August is supposed to give $80 Billion to the I.R.S. so they can go after the millionaires. But we know that won't happen. More poor people are going to get screwed.", ">\n\nI'm confused. For decades, Faux news and the conservatives have been saying that millionaires deserve to keep more of their money than we do. That was a huge part of the 2017 tax scam that Trump signed. Now Faux is saying it's a problem? And they are rightly detailing that Republicans are the cause, along with Biden trying to fix the same issue that Fox has helped create?", ">\n\nFox News", ">\n\nHey IRS, don't forget to crawl up my ass this year because I sold some old stuff on eBay for a loss but make sure you put a few man hours into figuring out if it is legit or not.", ">\n\nlol, and the people opposed to IRS funding will say they are anti-establishment.", ">\n\nImagine how much they could squeeze the middle class with 87,000 more agents! But really, it’ll be good to see if the increase in officers actually increases tax revenue without changing the underlying laws.", ">\n\nSo, this is the newest Republican boogeyman, the IRS.\nWell, better than Drag Queens I guess.", ">\n\nOh hey just like last year, and the year before that, I think there might be a pattern", ">\n\nThank you republicans, always sticking up in the back on the small guys…", ">\n\nFox News saying this like it’s not something Rupert Murdoch’s network supports is pretty funny.", ">\n\nFox News. Ignore it.", ">\n\nFox News is still allowed in here?", ">\n\nFake news. This is Republican propaganda coming from Fox News.", ">\n\nFox News is NOT news", ">\n\nHmm sounds like it was underfunded then. Good thing now we helped ease that problem. Thanks Biden", ">\n\nIt's simply laziness by the IRS. Lower-income households have less complicated returns and easier to process. I'm sure IRS runs a non-effective but management-pleasing metric like \"how many returns were corrected\" opposed to how much money was recouped.", ">\n\nWe know. They don't have the resources to do anything. That was the point of increasing the staffing at the IRS so they had even the slightest hope of going after the big offenders with their armies or lawyers.", ">\n\nThere's less millionaires and billionaires than there are us. I'm not sure that answer fits the accuracy on hiring more workers but I'll go ahead and amuse that", ">\n\nIt's not a game of tax guy vs rich guy. The rich literally have armies of lawyers. You need the staff to overcome all the paper and challenges they'll throw at you. \nIf you throw one person to audit a millionaire, their lawyers can make it so it'll take a year to review a week of operations. Investigations will never finish unless there's sufficient staff to overcome their obstruction.", ">\n\nTo this day I do not understand why the IRS can demand our documents every year without a warrant. The 16th amendment does not alter the 4th, and the 4th does not apply only to criminal actions (as the 5th explicitly does). Yet no one seems to care about this annual violations.", ">\n\nReminder, Fox News is not news. It's entertainment, and should be regarded as such.", ">\n\nNo shit, poor ppl tend to file their own taxes and screw up where as millionaires hire expensive accountants to exploit all the legal loopholes without getting their clients in trouble.\nI don't think it's an intentional targeting as the article may be implying.", ">\n\nOne might imagine the resources of agents would be better put to use by focusing on returns that might produce more revenue, however it may be just a lot easier to collect a few bucks from easier targets.", ">\n\nThey are short staffed and accountants make it so difficult to find wrongdoing, if there is even wrongdoing to be found, that it would take a decent chunk of their workforce just to tackle it. It's like trying to find needle in a haystack but you don't know if there's a needle or not.", ">\n\nSo true....", ">\n\nShocked pikachu face.", ">\n\nYeah I’d believe this if it weren’t Fox News. They could give a fuck about the poor and middle class.", ">\n\nI would literally rather the IRS spend its time auditing 5 extraordinarily rich people or a single business than anyone who makes less than 100k per year\nETA: I’m aware that this article represents part of the Republican agenda to just gut the IRS and welfare spending generally. And I understand the difficulties in auditing the rich/businesses v lower income people claiming tax credits, etc", ">\n\nAlmost all of the little people \"audits\" are just a computer issuing a correspondence \"audit\" because the person misreported something from their W2, didn't report as much 1099 income as was reported to the IRS by others, or separated parents both trying to claim kids for tax credits or something. \n-\nThey don't really pull from the same resources. The rich people audits require human beings. Little people \"audits\" aren't really audits and a computer can do it. So if we want to audit more rich people, they need actual budget for human beings. The little people are going to be caught anyways because a computer can do it.", ">\n\nI interned at the IRS during the summer of 2012 when Lois Lerner made batshit crazy commrnts that they were targetting conservative groups", ">\n\nI say this every time it gets brought up. This is by design. I used to work in auditing and also used to do tax stuff. It’s super easy to find tax fraud on someone who only has a simple W-2 and no other income. You could find those people through a basic algorithm. Meanwhile, auditing a multi millionaire is expensive, time consuming, and often fruitless. If I was in charge of an underfunded, understaffed IRS I would tell my staff to go for the easy wins too.", ">\n\nUnpopular opinion - More funding won't resolve this. \nThe IRS will keep doing this. Unless rules & regulations forbid or disincentivize this practice, the IRS will keep this stupid practice", ">\n\nI make $40,000 a year and the IRS froze my bank accounts until I paid them $1000 in taxes I owed them because of an error I made filling my taxes. They froze my bank accounts for $1000. I was fucked for a month. I had to borrow cash from people just for food and gas money to get to work to get paid money that I couldn’t access. It was a scary time for me. Meanwhile millionaires are purposely avoiding taxes worth more than what I make in a year and nothing happens to them.", ">\n\nThe IRS sends no less than a dozen letters to a taxpayer prior to leaving a bank account. Why didn't you just put it into a repayment plan? Takes about ten minutes online.", ">\n\nDon't you just hate autocorrect?", ">\n\nIf true, its a holdover from jrbush who slashed IRS staff and budget and told them to spend more time auditing tip jars and busboys than millionaires because the millionaires had better lawyers than the IRS and service workers were unlikely to have any lawyers at all.", ">\n\nFox News solution: remove the IRS", ">\n\nAbsolutely. They’ll NEVER target the rich, adding more agents just made them a lot more capable to target all the lower class.", ">\n\nWhat people don't realize..Those 87K \"Agents\" aren't that. It's 87K employees over 25 years. Clerks etc. People are so fucking stupid when they just believe these clowns.", ">\n\nThose numbers also count it as an \"audit\" when a person misreports a number from a W2, 1099s, etc and the irs number matching software sends an automatically generated correspondence letter that basically says \"we actually show this number, this is what your tax return would have been if you reported that number correctly\". \nThe IRS isn't wasting time doing random \"audits\" as people think of them for low to middle income people. It would be a complete waste of their time. The computer just catches obvious verifiable mistakes and it counts as an audit in those numbers.", ">\n\n“those in the lowest income bracket hit 12.7 per 1,000….. The odds of a millionaire facing an audit were around 1.1%.”\nSo they’re saying 1.27% vs 1.1%!!! And acting like that’s a scandal 🙄", ">\n\nWhich means millionaires REALLY don't want more IRS auditors which means when our new resident house fascist fires five thousand auditors, said fascist (McCarthy) is making sure those millionaires aren't going to get audited. \nCha CHING !!! Go the \"donations\" into house rat republican's pockets. \nThe grift will be in full swing shortly.\nAnd with putin whispering in their ears and telling them EXACTLY how break the law - how can they lose?", ">\n\n💯 Exactly why theres a Fox link here pushing for that same reason.", ">\n\nTwo things. First of all, this is from a far right-wing propaganda outlet which should immediately raise red flags. They're trying to scare you into allowing a republican-initiated movement to entirely remove all remaining power from the IRS by making it seem like they're coming after you.\nSecond, the reason the IRS is already already virtually powerless against the rich is because the republicans have already eviscerated them in the past several decades, largely through defunding them leading to not only staffing cuts, but the inability to pursue the wealthiest people who have the resources for endless litigation. So as a result, the FBI can only really afford to go after people who cannot financially defend themselves.", ">\n\nThird, you might as well throw in that the aiming low guidance was under a Trump appointee who is no longer in that position.", ">\n\nThe GOP intentionally defunded the IRS so that it could not audit the wealthy. It takes a great deal more money upfront to audit them but the payback is far greater.", ">\n\nI'm not sure why dems voted against an amendment that would have mandated the giant infusion of cash into the IRS couldn't be used to audit folks making >$400k.", ">\n\nHrm this is pretty fucked I'd like to hear about why the Dems voted nay.", ">\n\nBecause they work for the same people as Republicans. \nThey are different but only when their owners allow them to be. \nI don't know how many times we are going to have to learn this lesson before it sticks.", ">\n\nDemocrats are responsible for this", ">\n\nThe rich returns are just too hard, enough lower class errors you can leave the rich alone. Love to see it… sigh", ">\n\nIt takes money to police the wealthy. Can't have that can we?!", ">\n\nr/noshitsherlock", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised?\nI’m not even American and this seemed obvious to me. All you have to do is look at how the poor live and compare that to the news about someone like Elon musk or Donald trump.", ">\n\nThis is why the IRS needs to go.", ">\n\nFox News helped make that happen.", ">\n\nThey'll never change,all the time when the guys in charge benefit from doing the same shit.", ">\n\nAnd yet the republicans dont submit or pass legislations to change the rules to favor targeting rich people. Curious.", ">\n\nThen 78,000 new, armed tax collectors should be able to extract even more money from the poor, middle-class and small business owners.", ">\n\nWhy did they focus on the Poorest? The thought of 87,000 more of them will actually do what? If the existing can’t focus on the wealthy! Then what makes anybody think more can?", ">\n\nMillionaires and billionaires make the government more money by creating lobbying loopholes and exploiting the economy to bilk the 99%. It's really cheap to go after the poorest who are struggling to pay day to day obligations and don't have loopholes or government sanctioned exploitation to take advantage of.", ">\n\nI could have told you this would happen. You think millionaires get $600 Venmo transactions?", ">\n\nThat's a move democrats should not make. That's one month of rent for me. What of folks worse-off?", ">\n\nHonestly it’s like squeezing blood from the stone over here anyway.", ">\n\nDuh lmfao theyve already stated it costs too much to tax weathy people previously and its most cost effective to audit the poor due to many factors...", ">\n\nI mean 99% of us are poor compared to the other 1%", ">\n\nColor me surprised", ">\n\nWe need some laws for equitable auditing.", ">\n\nYou are an Army commander about to attack the enemy. Do you prefer to attack where they have experienced career solders backed up by artillery, tanks, and airplanes, or do you attack where there are poorly armed and equipped untrained conscripts?", ">\n\nThey must be upset someone replaced their sign with a card from Cards Against Humanity", ">\n\nMay it ever be so…. Don’t reproduce if you only consume and can’t accumulate or help a Dow Jones winter water witch. Like snow, weathermen.", ">\n\nIt’s weirdly fitting how much their building sign in the photo looks like a cards against humanity card.", ">\n\nTypical", ">\n\nWow? How unusual.", ">\n\nI’d support double the number of IRS agents", ">\n\nI was low income and won about 3,000 gambling, the irs went after me", ">\n\nThe IRS came after me hard for 8$", ">\n\nAudit frequency should correlate to income, someone with a million in income should be audited 10x those with 100k income", ">\n\nSomeone should explain Pareto charts to the IRS.", ">\n\nI've been audited three times. First when I was 27, did some consulting and didn't do the 1099 prepayments. Ended up owing $17k. Second audit was after moving across country for a job. The tax preparer we hired made a mistake with the move expense deductions, owed a few thousand. Third audit was another tax preparer mistake, but this time we overpaid and were owed money we credited to the next year. \nIf you assume for discussion that the average audit on an ordinary tax payer returns $10,000, it would take 100,000,000 audits to make $1 trillion. By just doing the easy work, the IRS is leaving the real money on the table.", ">\n\nRepublicans are famous for giving rich breaks while middle class etc close the gaps", ">\n\nThe last line, \"The Inflation Reduction Act provides the IRS with $80 billion in future funding to ramp up its audits and potentially target the wealthiest taxpayers.\"", ">\n\nThe cure is not the root cause, but the middle class and the poor will eventually bear the burden after the capital operation", ">\n\nIt’s like they timed the “research” and the drop of the article with the speech. Sad man.", ">\n\nWatch Madoff. The wealthy skate and steal billions. The poor are in prison over thousands.", ">\n\nWhy does their sign look like a Card Against Humanity", ">\n\nFucking Trump, still at it.", ">\n\nOh you mean the thing people said would happen once they got massive funding actually happened? Checks out", ">\n\nOf course they did, because millionaires will lawyer up.", ">\n\nBecause the poor can't afford to fight back.", ">\n\nIt's so unfair the poor and the middle class taxpayers suffer so much while the millionaries got away with not paying the taxes It's really hurting the poor. The middle class is fading", ">\n\nAll of this can be fixed if we just use no-exemption graduated income", ">\n\nYeah we know", ">\n\nShow of hands for all surprised.\ncrickets\nHmm. Seems like Reddit suffers from a plague of double amputees...", ">\n\nWhat the actual fuck", ">\n\nAnd 2021, 2020, 2019, …", ">\n\nSounds about right.", ">\n\nOf course. Poor people can’t afford attorneys.", ">\n\nI made a mistake on my forms while I was overseas and ticked “self-employed” instead of “employed”. I was on a student visa and had two children and was making less than 10k a year. They hounded me for years. By the time I figured out what had happened I could not amend the forms and had paid thousands in penalties and interest.\nMeanwhile I knew lots of people who were there fully employed not reporting their income.\nFuck them.", ">\n\nYep! During the pandemic, even while I wasn't working didn't come after me the entire time that I was working but the minute that I wasn't nobody was cuz we were in lockdown they started popping up", ">\n\nI just now realized that the Cards Against Humanity box looks like the IRS sign", ">\n\nWhy is the sign a Cards Against Humanity question?", ">\n\nI am shocked and appalled. clutches pearls", ">\n\nRich should be taxed more than the average not right at all. Or at least there is a tier system based on pay only makes sense. Come on now", ">\n\nSounds about right, make the rich richer again.", ">\n\nWho are we going to vote for in the future ,all of them are decayed , corrupted and useless , the “most rich country in the world , governed by the most ignorant an corrupted. What a contrast .", ">\n\nGod bless America", ">\n\nno way. wait until you see those people responds. Those people are chipping away.", ">\n\nSounds about right", ">\n\nWe know.", ">\n\nI find it rather comical that Fox news is reporting on this since they are all about pushing the Republican agenda and that is all about pushing everyone else down that isn't rich and keeping them there. Not to mention they had no problem with Trump not paying taxes for years.", ">\n\nCan fucking confirm.", ">\n\nYeah, they (millionaires) have accountants who generally do things right and due to their millions being in investments it's not like it's taxable all the time. \nThen there's the ability to sell any stocks when they're down to build up losses on paper can reinvest them at a loss that can carry over across multiple years.", ">\n\nsounds about right. i don’t have a pot to piss in but they’re all over me for someone stealing my identity and filing a double tax return one year.", ">\n\nDuh", ">\n\nThere’s a reason why FOX is posting this article. The less people at the IRS, the more likely they come after folks who can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nIn order to pursue wealthy tax cheats, the IRS needs more resources and personnel. Otherwise it’s business as usual, picking on the low hanging fruit that earns under 6 figures.", ">\n\nSo wrong ....people need to be fired", ">\n\nIt’s because they can’t afford to take them to court", ">\n\nOf course it is about protecting the rich like Trump who lies ,lies , and about his tax returns . No wonder he did not want them released .", ">\n\nEasy prey bc most ppl can not lawyer up. Pretty heart breaking system we have at times.", ">\n\nWhy does the irs sign look like it's from cards against humanity?", ">\n\nCurrently getting audited over \\~$1500, which they owe me, when the rich get away with murder. Fucking unbelievably and unnecessarily stressful for me.", ">\n\nHas t this been know for a while?", ">\n\nyep and they are the same people getting tax cuts while everyone else does it tough ....\nAny one with too much money is your enemy .... not a hero of democracy", ">\n\nGet rid of taxes and the gov’t should just do stuff for free, or what ever.", ">\n\nYou have to be careful when you get one of those CP2000 notices from the IRS. The way they are written is a trap.\nIf you dispute it you are supposed to indicate that you disagree and send it back with documents supporting your dispute.\nYou are only supposed to sign it if you agree with them and when you sign it you are signing away your rights to dispute the back taxes and penalties they are demanding.\nMere worker bees like us can expect to be getting a lot of those from this years tax returns considering how the threshold for 1099k forms has been dropped to $600.\nGuys like Trump? The IRS doesn't even know where to begin.", ">\n\nThanks Biden", ">\n\nI presume those lower-income bracket filers might be more likely to reach out to 1-800-infomercial [quickie settlement/long-term penalties most favorable to gov/proprietor] than retain proper legal counsel?\nRegardless it’s got to be a lot less work for IRS agent to go after under-represented citizen(s), rather than someone who can afford to appeal, properly negotiate on their own terms?", ">\n\nLmfao Dems tax and spend. But I have to admit there Republicans that tax and spend to. Where do these Politicians get off taxing me or business and give to people who don't work what do you cause d the inflation. You can not print money \nI am Conservative not a Republican. To much money is wasted and put in pockets of people ot don't belong.\nBut all dems know how to tax tax tax. \nIts all great and good until you run out if other peoples money. \nMillionaire just like Berny he hated Millionaires until he became one now he hates Trillionaires. Funny how the gold post changes. And good old Nancy her I side stock trading. So I think you need to rethink.", ">\n\nThe IRS is only doing as directed by whomever controls the White House.", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised by this? Really?", ">\n\nThe sign in the thumbnail looks like a Cards Against Humanity card.", ">\n\nWhile this is mostly true, don’t believe everything you read. I’m no more an accountant than I am a ladies man, but someone (said they’re an accountant) posted a few days ago about this. They explained that the most likely people getting audited are trying to, fraudulently or mistakenly, claim the EITC. \nYES, it’s super easy to “bust” these people for an easy “mistake”. This is who the IRS is cracking down on. \nDo I think it’s better to bust poor people for claiming a few thousand in tax credits vs billionaires who avoid taxes altogether? Of course not, but don’t think they’re actively targeting people who fudge their mileage deductions or miss a decimal point in their calculations as small business owners. It’s simply not happening. \nAnd the reported “87,000 new IRS agents” are replacing the 10’s of 1,000’s of employees set to retire or quit over the next 10 years which doesn’t even begin to fill the gaps we’ve been growing for decades by not hiring and training more willing workers. Not to mention they’re not even close to all employees who will actively audit tax payers. They’re people who answer phones, file papers, assist others, etc… They’re mostly just average people with average jobs so of course the GOP wants to end this. They hate upward mobility and job creation unless that means tax breaks for their billionaire friends.", ">\n\nI wish everyone wasn’t a sheep and would understand this.", ">\n\nI can see the Media doing their best to turn the public against the IRS.", ">\n\nPicking on the week and helpless. That’s what we humans do. We suck. I’m waiting for that big meteor reset button.", ">\n\nAnd Fox news loves this.", ">\n\nLove it, Faux 'News' taking the piss, for 4 years under Dear Leader they campaigned for tax breaks for the rich, now they're pretending to care about the poor !", ">\n\nEvery millionaire should be audited yearly. Period.", ">\n\nAND now the gqp cult promises to rescind the money Biden set aside to aid the IRS to recover taxes from mega millionaire tax cheats like benedict donald, who paid less taxes than most working Americans.", ">\n\nRepublicans want to stop the IRS and Congress from taxing rich people, making the burden of maintaining civilization fall more heavily on poorer people. This is why Republicans vote for tax cuts for the rich and against funding for the IRS.\nAnd since Republican beliefs are based on wishful thinking, Republicans can screw over poor, rural Republicans while simultaneously taking credit for doing it to make Republicans happy about it and blaming it on Democrats to make those same Republicans resentful against Democrats for it. And what else would we expect from a Republican Party that blames Democrats for tricking them into attacking the Capitol to make Trump look bad and justifies and approves of assaulting Capitol police while brandishing their \"thin blue line\" flags.", ">\n\nThe IRS is like any other law enforcement agency, they prefer pursuing the poor because they don't have the resources to protect themselves.", ">\n\nThe IRS building sign looks like its from cards against humanity.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nNot a reliable news source.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nThat picture looks like the worst cards against humanity card too get.", ">\n\nScrew the Murdoch media empire and their failed trickle down ideologies.", ">\n\nOf course, the poorest haven’t paid over 400+ billion for decades. Not sure about the rich, we haven’t checked.", ">\n\nThis is not a surprise. With the recent inflation reduction act, the IRS an additional $80B over 10 years or $8B per year. The IRS budget for 2021 was $13.7B. The additional $8B over the year would be an increase of 58% to their budget. They will be looking to get a lot more money from taxpayers, due to this very large increase in their budget.", ">\n\nFox reported this? I'm in shock", ">\n\nAll propagandists publish clickbaity stuff that makes them sound like maybe they've let up on the evil. Unfortunately it works, since people just upvote headlines.", ">\n\nIt’s only going to get worse in 2023. Those 87k new IRS agents will not be going after the wealthy.", ">\n\nWhy?\nThat’s literally why they were being added. The IRS goes after the poorer taxpayers because they are low-hanging fruit and don’t have the lawyers and accountants to protect them. \nThe additional IRS employees were to give the personnel staffing sufficient to go after the wealthy.", ">\n\nIt doesn’t matter how many IRS agents there are. It will always be easier and more profitable for the IRS to nickel and dime the average taxpayer rather than go after the wealthy, who have the resources to lawyer up with the best lawyers and challenge the IRS in court." ]
> If Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen. Yet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency. Anybody want to explain how that makes sense?	[ "If Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nAnd when Barry was president they targeted conservative groups. I think phone calls can be made to tell them to back off of the little guy.", ">\n\n\nthey targeted conservative groups.\n\nNo. They went after specifically anti-tax tea party groups. The groups who openly flaunted tax laws", ">\n\nThey also went after progressive, left leaning groups - how do you explain that ? it was political", ">\n\nWait, did they target conservatives or progressives? Lol", ">\n\nBoth- it was quite clear they were involving themselves in politics - that’s what the IG found", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.", ">\n\nYep!\nAlso this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious.\nThe real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade.", ">\n\nThanks for the informative reply.\nYou make great points which I don't doubt. But there are times when I think it's important to consider both the letter and spirit of law at times.\nEven though it is perfectly by the letter of the law that people should be checked, it also seems against the intended spirit of said law that only a certain group of people are checked.\nI am not familiar with US law, but I think most of us can feel some degree of injustice with how things currently are.", ">\n\nThe point is to automate more checking of income common to wealthier people, and devote more resources to auditing those people. The Fox News article is disingenuous in how it describes the automated checking that goes on. It’s not great that rich people aren’t really audited, but there’s no reason to stop the automated checking of income where it’s already being done and essentially free to continue.\nIf you feel differently, explain yourself.", ">\n\nNo, we are in alignment concerning this.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nFUCK FOX NEWS\nFox is pretending to care about us poors. \nDon't reward these fascist fucks with upvotes for a disingenuous clickbait headline. They still hate us for not voting gop.", ">\n\nThey want people to hate the IRS and help defund it so they don’t go after the rich, which was the purpose of the additional funding", ">\n\nThey want people to link this to “87000” new agents, which is obviously happening on social media posts, but it’s not even a thing.", ">\n\nArticle is trash. The author is including correspondence audits (which means the IRS asked for some documentation by mail) for low income filers but not for millionaires when comparing their audit rates. Here are actual numbers according to their own source:\nAudit rates including correspondence audits\nlow income 1.27%\nmillionaires 2.38% \nAudit rates excluding correspondence audits\nlow income 0.0376%\nmillionaires 1.24%\n.\nFor low income filers, nearly all their audits were correspondence audits.", ">\n\nIt's hilarious when Fox News and the GOP pretend they care about poor people.\nNo amount of hypocrisy is too much to try to make democrats look bad.", ">\n\nIts unfortunately far easier to prove married couples who live together filed HoH for extra earned income credit than it is to prove complicated returns were incorrect.", ">\n\nIt's also trivially easy to prove the same child was claimed by two parents which is a lot of correspondence audits.", ">\n\nSo can my back taxes please just get forgiven already. 20% income being taxed is not livable", ">\n\nRepublican love flat rate taxes, you should talk to them.", ">\n\nThey’re required to audit the president and vice president, and that didn’t happen either.", ">\n\nThis isn't new, it's been been having for the last 5 - 6 years.", ">\n\nHopefully some wake up and realize its all just preparing us for the inevitable destruction of our economy. I imagine its almost too late to realize this. If we all realized this wed sell our 401Ks and not lean on money and use it to help our neighbors.", ">\n\nK bro.", ">\n\nMy wife and I are on social security. She works part time to keep us afloat. All in, we earned $50K in 2022. iRS wants $4500 from us. Really? 5X what Trump paid? Don't know if anyone is paying attention but $50k ain't rich. Oh, and out of that comes almost $4k in Medicare premiums. A program we paid into for 40+ years.\nEveryone of these arrogant, unqualified,, spoon fed assholes in Congress should be made to live on SSI or welfare, with no medical coverage, for a year. Then tell me I am acting entitled.\nSelf serving bastards.", ">\n\nDon't upvote this crap.\nDo you really think Fox cares about the working class??\nThis is just right wing propaganda, timed to coincide with McCarthy's promise to get rid of the new IRS agents who make it possible to audit the rich.\nDon't be used.", ">\n\nWhatever happened to \"dont shoot the messenger?\"", ">\n\nIRS understaffing would naturally trend to go after low-lying fruit. Easy pickings. Too many man hours to go after super complex cases. These moneyed fuckers and their bullshit. It's outrageous.", ">\n\nThe vast majority of these audits are automatically generated correspondence audits that have to be issued. We can't just turn off the program that raises a red flag when two people claim the same child as a dependent because we don't have enough forensic accountants. If you mistype your W2 you'll get an \"audit\" showing the correct info from the copy your boss sent them and telling you they'll correct it unless you tell them otherwise and you don't have to do anything if the info they have is correct.", ">\n\nYeah, all the nonsense about the IRS \"going after\" low income people is so stupid. Low income people make money in a way that their reporting is easily verifiable by a computer. They're also most likely to mess up and claim child tax credits incorrectly, etc - all of which is verifiable and issued a letter by a computer. \n-\nOther than actually being able to get someone on the phone when you call the IRS, and increased budget isn't going to impact the average person in any way.", ">\n\nMy thing is even assuming the 87k don't successfully get more money out of the rich, that's still 87k jobs. That's a net positive. I just don't understand the conservative logic here. Do they think these 87k new jobs are specifically for being insidiously predatory toward the poor? Where's the logic here? (I know I'll get hyperbolic answers, but I genuinely would like to know)", ">\n\nIt's 87,000 jobs over 10 years, the majority of which are replacement during that period. It's just a budget supplemental to stop hemorrhaging agents as they retire or cycle out into other jobs.", ">\n\nso.. this is on fox, which I assume support republican efforts to ensure that this is the permanent state of affairs. I don't really get anything anymore.", ">\n\nAnd that is the way the GOP wants it.", ">\n\n💯 Exactly what this Fox article is trying to do.", ">\n\nIt's who can afford a lawyer", ">\n\nAs the article hints at, the IRS does not do a lot of actual auditing. What it does is computer matching, which automatically generates material for a correspondence audit. Most correspondence audits occur because som poor working Joe didn't know he/her was supposed to include or exclude something, and the IRS caught it in its matching. Of course, the problem is that we have a complex code and little help in actually helping people through the various forms, rules, and so on. But millionaires don't have these issues, so they can escape most of the traps that lead to a correspondence audit. If a lot of these 87,000 were in taxpayer service (which I expect) it would lead to fewer audits at the low end, more robust audits for large corporations, wealthy individuals, and those who actively use tax avoidance strategies. But of course that is not the dialogue that gets promoted when the 87,000 agents are discussed.", ">\n\nThis is exactly why Fox News needs to be dismantled and thrown in the garbage. Ugh, \"look poors! They're coming for yoU!!!\". Scare tactics. And guess what? It sadly works. Every time.\nThey're lower than scum.", ">\n\nExactly. It's when someone misreports a number from their W2, didn't report 1099s they received, both separated parents claim a tax credit for the same kid, etc. All stuff that's easily checked by a computer. The IRS isn't \"auditing\" random low to middle income people. That would be a complete waste of their time.", ">\n\nlooks at Trump You don't say.", ">\n\nThe poor can't defend themselves, it's easier to take a little bit of money from people that won't fight back than a lot of money from people that will.", ">\n\nThe mega rich seem like they’re on a mission to destroy America, as we know it.", ">\n\nHiring 87,000 new IRS agents makes it possible to audit billionaires. So they pay their share. Those audits require an actual person or team that knows what they are doing. But Kevin McCarthy's first item of business was to announce legislation to overturn the hiring of 87,000 IRS agents. Meaning only the little guy (who can be audited by computer software) pays taxes.\nSSDD", ">\n\nThe \"87,000\" agents budget is over a ten year period. It's not for 87,000 new positions.", ">\n\nThe title is so misleading. Im surprised fox even put the juicy bit in the article about how (this stat is due to there not being enough IRS workers because) these \"audits\" on low earners are just automated letters asking for more info.\nYet again, this is just millionairs paid by billionairs to mislead the masses into blaming the poor for crimes committed by said billionairs.", ">\n\nWhich is why the IRS needs more manpower and budget, so they can go after the big fish.\nFuck Fox News and their Republican propaganda pieces. This article coincides with McCarthy saying they’ll cut the IRS budget and that the IRS is coming for you.\nFuck off Republican propaganda rag!\nStop upvoting any Fox News story. Fox should not be on the white list.", ">\n\nThis is a terrible article. It seems to include questions about tax returns as audits. If a low income filer makes a mistake it should be corrected. Is that an audit? If anyone makes a mistake and is contacted, is that an audit? Also there is no reason to go after low income as they rarely pay tax or are required to. The money requested would also pay for people to answer a phone. Those against increasing funding lie when they say all of it goes to audits. If you tell the truth, who cares if you are audited? Are y’all aware you can track your personal return online? However a business cannot. Businesses have to rely on humans that can’t be reached. I’ve waited a year for a refund. Didn’t know if IRS received the return. Didn’t know if there was an issue. Didn’t know if it was mailed or lost. I’m getting tired of Republicans pushing their crap on people.", ">\n\nwho keeps upvoting this right wing propaganda", ">\n\nWhy would the GOP want to give the agency the power to go after their donors.", ">\n\nAnd it was trumps guy that mandated it while Biden replaced him", ">\n\nApparently the mere use of an accounting firm somehow protected corps and the rich from the IRS who still (mistakenly) believe the accounting firms are trustworthy. How naive.", ">\n\nThe \"audits\" talked about are mostly form letters requesting more info about specific items.", ">\n\nThe poor can't pay for top flight attorneys.", ">\n\nYep keep the IRS underfunded so they can only go after the poors at the same time telling all the poors that the IRS is bad cause it goes after them but leave out the fact that they do that cause the poors are low hanging fruit.\nRepublicans are evil.", ">\n\nWell the GOP wants to cut funding to the IRS for new agents, so I’m sure the poor folk will continue to get screwed. I say toss the 50,000+ page tax code out and replace with a percentage based on total revenue/income made. Took a loss? No write-offs. Oh well, better luck next year. It’ll never happen because the wealthy don’t want it to.", ">\n\nWhere did you get this info? I know GOPers have been slashing IRS budgets and staffing for years but can't find reliable sources for what this has done to the actual audits - like who gets audited.", ">\n\nTheir link is Fox. This is a bad faith post.", ">\n\nThis says a lot coming from fox “news”", ">\n\nTo paraphrase Gilbert K. Chesterton, \"The Poor have sometimes objected to being taxed too heavily; The Rich have always objected to being taxed at all.\"", ">\n\ndon't post Fox news here....", ">\n\nCorporations and millionaires have the means to hire accountants and attorneys. Our tax code is gray in several areas. It’s easy to go after the poor that do not have the resources and will have no choice but to pay anything the IRS says. The additional agents will continue to target the poor and middle class because they are easy, It’s happened before, it will continue to happen.", ">\n\nI think it's funny/sad that a poor person can win the lottery and they get taxed at a higher rate than any billionaire has ever been taxed at. The system is built to keep the rich - rich and the poor - poor.", ">\n\nThe poorest can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nThe current system cannot be sustained. We are hurtling towards disaster.", ">\n\nThe only reason the bastards have the majority is because the corrupt SCOTUS allowed illegal gerrymanders to stand while they were fought in the courts.", ">\n\nThe I.R.S. goes after the poorer people because it's easier. They can't afford lawyers and accountants. So the poor can do nothing but roll over and take it up the rump. The Inflation Reduction Act that Biden signed into law in August is supposed to give $80 Billion to the I.R.S. so they can go after the millionaires. But we know that won't happen. More poor people are going to get screwed.", ">\n\nI'm confused. For decades, Faux news and the conservatives have been saying that millionaires deserve to keep more of their money than we do. That was a huge part of the 2017 tax scam that Trump signed. Now Faux is saying it's a problem? And they are rightly detailing that Republicans are the cause, along with Biden trying to fix the same issue that Fox has helped create?", ">\n\nFox News", ">\n\nHey IRS, don't forget to crawl up my ass this year because I sold some old stuff on eBay for a loss but make sure you put a few man hours into figuring out if it is legit or not.", ">\n\nlol, and the people opposed to IRS funding will say they are anti-establishment.", ">\n\nImagine how much they could squeeze the middle class with 87,000 more agents! But really, it’ll be good to see if the increase in officers actually increases tax revenue without changing the underlying laws.", ">\n\nSo, this is the newest Republican boogeyman, the IRS.\nWell, better than Drag Queens I guess.", ">\n\nOh hey just like last year, and the year before that, I think there might be a pattern", ">\n\nThank you republicans, always sticking up in the back on the small guys…", ">\n\nFox News saying this like it’s not something Rupert Murdoch’s network supports is pretty funny.", ">\n\nFox News. Ignore it.", ">\n\nFox News is still allowed in here?", ">\n\nFake news. This is Republican propaganda coming from Fox News.", ">\n\nFox News is NOT news", ">\n\nHmm sounds like it was underfunded then. Good thing now we helped ease that problem. Thanks Biden", ">\n\nIt's simply laziness by the IRS. Lower-income households have less complicated returns and easier to process. I'm sure IRS runs a non-effective but management-pleasing metric like \"how many returns were corrected\" opposed to how much money was recouped.", ">\n\nWe know. They don't have the resources to do anything. That was the point of increasing the staffing at the IRS so they had even the slightest hope of going after the big offenders with their armies or lawyers.", ">\n\nThere's less millionaires and billionaires than there are us. I'm not sure that answer fits the accuracy on hiring more workers but I'll go ahead and amuse that", ">\n\nIt's not a game of tax guy vs rich guy. The rich literally have armies of lawyers. You need the staff to overcome all the paper and challenges they'll throw at you. \nIf you throw one person to audit a millionaire, their lawyers can make it so it'll take a year to review a week of operations. Investigations will never finish unless there's sufficient staff to overcome their obstruction.", ">\n\nTo this day I do not understand why the IRS can demand our documents every year without a warrant. The 16th amendment does not alter the 4th, and the 4th does not apply only to criminal actions (as the 5th explicitly does). Yet no one seems to care about this annual violations.", ">\n\nReminder, Fox News is not news. It's entertainment, and should be regarded as such.", ">\n\nNo shit, poor ppl tend to file their own taxes and screw up where as millionaires hire expensive accountants to exploit all the legal loopholes without getting their clients in trouble.\nI don't think it's an intentional targeting as the article may be implying.", ">\n\nOne might imagine the resources of agents would be better put to use by focusing on returns that might produce more revenue, however it may be just a lot easier to collect a few bucks from easier targets.", ">\n\nThey are short staffed and accountants make it so difficult to find wrongdoing, if there is even wrongdoing to be found, that it would take a decent chunk of their workforce just to tackle it. It's like trying to find needle in a haystack but you don't know if there's a needle or not.", ">\n\nSo true....", ">\n\nShocked pikachu face.", ">\n\nYeah I’d believe this if it weren’t Fox News. They could give a fuck about the poor and middle class.", ">\n\nI would literally rather the IRS spend its time auditing 5 extraordinarily rich people or a single business than anyone who makes less than 100k per year\nETA: I’m aware that this article represents part of the Republican agenda to just gut the IRS and welfare spending generally. And I understand the difficulties in auditing the rich/businesses v lower income people claiming tax credits, etc", ">\n\nAlmost all of the little people \"audits\" are just a computer issuing a correspondence \"audit\" because the person misreported something from their W2, didn't report as much 1099 income as was reported to the IRS by others, or separated parents both trying to claim kids for tax credits or something. \n-\nThey don't really pull from the same resources. The rich people audits require human beings. Little people \"audits\" aren't really audits and a computer can do it. So if we want to audit more rich people, they need actual budget for human beings. The little people are going to be caught anyways because a computer can do it.", ">\n\nI interned at the IRS during the summer of 2012 when Lois Lerner made batshit crazy commrnts that they were targetting conservative groups", ">\n\nI say this every time it gets brought up. This is by design. I used to work in auditing and also used to do tax stuff. It’s super easy to find tax fraud on someone who only has a simple W-2 and no other income. You could find those people through a basic algorithm. Meanwhile, auditing a multi millionaire is expensive, time consuming, and often fruitless. If I was in charge of an underfunded, understaffed IRS I would tell my staff to go for the easy wins too.", ">\n\nUnpopular opinion - More funding won't resolve this. \nThe IRS will keep doing this. Unless rules & regulations forbid or disincentivize this practice, the IRS will keep this stupid practice", ">\n\nI make $40,000 a year and the IRS froze my bank accounts until I paid them $1000 in taxes I owed them because of an error I made filling my taxes. They froze my bank accounts for $1000. I was fucked for a month. I had to borrow cash from people just for food and gas money to get to work to get paid money that I couldn’t access. It was a scary time for me. Meanwhile millionaires are purposely avoiding taxes worth more than what I make in a year and nothing happens to them.", ">\n\nThe IRS sends no less than a dozen letters to a taxpayer prior to leaving a bank account. Why didn't you just put it into a repayment plan? Takes about ten minutes online.", ">\n\nDon't you just hate autocorrect?", ">\n\nIf true, its a holdover from jrbush who slashed IRS staff and budget and told them to spend more time auditing tip jars and busboys than millionaires because the millionaires had better lawyers than the IRS and service workers were unlikely to have any lawyers at all.", ">\n\nFox News solution: remove the IRS", ">\n\nAbsolutely. They’ll NEVER target the rich, adding more agents just made them a lot more capable to target all the lower class.", ">\n\nWhat people don't realize..Those 87K \"Agents\" aren't that. It's 87K employees over 25 years. Clerks etc. People are so fucking stupid when they just believe these clowns.", ">\n\nThose numbers also count it as an \"audit\" when a person misreports a number from a W2, 1099s, etc and the irs number matching software sends an automatically generated correspondence letter that basically says \"we actually show this number, this is what your tax return would have been if you reported that number correctly\". \nThe IRS isn't wasting time doing random \"audits\" as people think of them for low to middle income people. It would be a complete waste of their time. The computer just catches obvious verifiable mistakes and it counts as an audit in those numbers.", ">\n\n“those in the lowest income bracket hit 12.7 per 1,000….. The odds of a millionaire facing an audit were around 1.1%.”\nSo they’re saying 1.27% vs 1.1%!!! And acting like that’s a scandal 🙄", ">\n\nWhich means millionaires REALLY don't want more IRS auditors which means when our new resident house fascist fires five thousand auditors, said fascist (McCarthy) is making sure those millionaires aren't going to get audited. \nCha CHING !!! Go the \"donations\" into house rat republican's pockets. \nThe grift will be in full swing shortly.\nAnd with putin whispering in their ears and telling them EXACTLY how break the law - how can they lose?", ">\n\n💯 Exactly why theres a Fox link here pushing for that same reason.", ">\n\nTwo things. First of all, this is from a far right-wing propaganda outlet which should immediately raise red flags. They're trying to scare you into allowing a republican-initiated movement to entirely remove all remaining power from the IRS by making it seem like they're coming after you.\nSecond, the reason the IRS is already already virtually powerless against the rich is because the republicans have already eviscerated them in the past several decades, largely through defunding them leading to not only staffing cuts, but the inability to pursue the wealthiest people who have the resources for endless litigation. So as a result, the FBI can only really afford to go after people who cannot financially defend themselves.", ">\n\nThird, you might as well throw in that the aiming low guidance was under a Trump appointee who is no longer in that position.", ">\n\nThe GOP intentionally defunded the IRS so that it could not audit the wealthy. It takes a great deal more money upfront to audit them but the payback is far greater.", ">\n\nI'm not sure why dems voted against an amendment that would have mandated the giant infusion of cash into the IRS couldn't be used to audit folks making >$400k.", ">\n\nHrm this is pretty fucked I'd like to hear about why the Dems voted nay.", ">\n\nBecause they work for the same people as Republicans. \nThey are different but only when their owners allow them to be. \nI don't know how many times we are going to have to learn this lesson before it sticks.", ">\n\nDemocrats are responsible for this", ">\n\nThe rich returns are just too hard, enough lower class errors you can leave the rich alone. Love to see it… sigh", ">\n\nIt takes money to police the wealthy. Can't have that can we?!", ">\n\nr/noshitsherlock", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised?\nI’m not even American and this seemed obvious to me. All you have to do is look at how the poor live and compare that to the news about someone like Elon musk or Donald trump.", ">\n\nThis is why the IRS needs to go.", ">\n\nFox News helped make that happen.", ">\n\nThey'll never change,all the time when the guys in charge benefit from doing the same shit.", ">\n\nAnd yet the republicans dont submit or pass legislations to change the rules to favor targeting rich people. Curious.", ">\n\nThen 78,000 new, armed tax collectors should be able to extract even more money from the poor, middle-class and small business owners.", ">\n\nWhy did they focus on the Poorest? The thought of 87,000 more of them will actually do what? If the existing can’t focus on the wealthy! Then what makes anybody think more can?", ">\n\nMillionaires and billionaires make the government more money by creating lobbying loopholes and exploiting the economy to bilk the 99%. It's really cheap to go after the poorest who are struggling to pay day to day obligations and don't have loopholes or government sanctioned exploitation to take advantage of.", ">\n\nI could have told you this would happen. You think millionaires get $600 Venmo transactions?", ">\n\nThat's a move democrats should not make. That's one month of rent for me. What of folks worse-off?", ">\n\nHonestly it’s like squeezing blood from the stone over here anyway.", ">\n\nDuh lmfao theyve already stated it costs too much to tax weathy people previously and its most cost effective to audit the poor due to many factors...", ">\n\nI mean 99% of us are poor compared to the other 1%", ">\n\nColor me surprised", ">\n\nWe need some laws for equitable auditing.", ">\n\nYou are an Army commander about to attack the enemy. Do you prefer to attack where they have experienced career solders backed up by artillery, tanks, and airplanes, or do you attack where there are poorly armed and equipped untrained conscripts?", ">\n\nThey must be upset someone replaced their sign with a card from Cards Against Humanity", ">\n\nMay it ever be so…. Don’t reproduce if you only consume and can’t accumulate or help a Dow Jones winter water witch. Like snow, weathermen.", ">\n\nIt’s weirdly fitting how much their building sign in the photo looks like a cards against humanity card.", ">\n\nTypical", ">\n\nWow? How unusual.", ">\n\nI’d support double the number of IRS agents", ">\n\nI was low income and won about 3,000 gambling, the irs went after me", ">\n\nThe IRS came after me hard for 8$", ">\n\nAudit frequency should correlate to income, someone with a million in income should be audited 10x those with 100k income", ">\n\nSomeone should explain Pareto charts to the IRS.", ">\n\nI've been audited three times. First when I was 27, did some consulting and didn't do the 1099 prepayments. Ended up owing $17k. Second audit was after moving across country for a job. The tax preparer we hired made a mistake with the move expense deductions, owed a few thousand. Third audit was another tax preparer mistake, but this time we overpaid and were owed money we credited to the next year. \nIf you assume for discussion that the average audit on an ordinary tax payer returns $10,000, it would take 100,000,000 audits to make $1 trillion. By just doing the easy work, the IRS is leaving the real money on the table.", ">\n\nRepublicans are famous for giving rich breaks while middle class etc close the gaps", ">\n\nThe last line, \"The Inflation Reduction Act provides the IRS with $80 billion in future funding to ramp up its audits and potentially target the wealthiest taxpayers.\"", ">\n\nThe cure is not the root cause, but the middle class and the poor will eventually bear the burden after the capital operation", ">\n\nIt’s like they timed the “research” and the drop of the article with the speech. Sad man.", ">\n\nWatch Madoff. The wealthy skate and steal billions. The poor are in prison over thousands.", ">\n\nWhy does their sign look like a Card Against Humanity", ">\n\nFucking Trump, still at it.", ">\n\nOh you mean the thing people said would happen once they got massive funding actually happened? Checks out", ">\n\nOf course they did, because millionaires will lawyer up.", ">\n\nBecause the poor can't afford to fight back.", ">\n\nIt's so unfair the poor and the middle class taxpayers suffer so much while the millionaries got away with not paying the taxes It's really hurting the poor. The middle class is fading", ">\n\nAll of this can be fixed if we just use no-exemption graduated income", ">\n\nYeah we know", ">\n\nShow of hands for all surprised.\ncrickets\nHmm. Seems like Reddit suffers from a plague of double amputees...", ">\n\nWhat the actual fuck", ">\n\nAnd 2021, 2020, 2019, …", ">\n\nSounds about right.", ">\n\nOf course. Poor people can’t afford attorneys.", ">\n\nI made a mistake on my forms while I was overseas and ticked “self-employed” instead of “employed”. I was on a student visa and had two children and was making less than 10k a year. They hounded me for years. By the time I figured out what had happened I could not amend the forms and had paid thousands in penalties and interest.\nMeanwhile I knew lots of people who were there fully employed not reporting their income.\nFuck them.", ">\n\nYep! During the pandemic, even while I wasn't working didn't come after me the entire time that I was working but the minute that I wasn't nobody was cuz we were in lockdown they started popping up", ">\n\nI just now realized that the Cards Against Humanity box looks like the IRS sign", ">\n\nWhy is the sign a Cards Against Humanity question?", ">\n\nI am shocked and appalled. clutches pearls", ">\n\nRich should be taxed more than the average not right at all. Or at least there is a tier system based on pay only makes sense. Come on now", ">\n\nSounds about right, make the rich richer again.", ">\n\nWho are we going to vote for in the future ,all of them are decayed , corrupted and useless , the “most rich country in the world , governed by the most ignorant an corrupted. What a contrast .", ">\n\nGod bless America", ">\n\nno way. wait until you see those people responds. Those people are chipping away.", ">\n\nSounds about right", ">\n\nWe know.", ">\n\nI find it rather comical that Fox news is reporting on this since they are all about pushing the Republican agenda and that is all about pushing everyone else down that isn't rich and keeping them there. Not to mention they had no problem with Trump not paying taxes for years.", ">\n\nCan fucking confirm.", ">\n\nYeah, they (millionaires) have accountants who generally do things right and due to their millions being in investments it's not like it's taxable all the time. \nThen there's the ability to sell any stocks when they're down to build up losses on paper can reinvest them at a loss that can carry over across multiple years.", ">\n\nsounds about right. i don’t have a pot to piss in but they’re all over me for someone stealing my identity and filing a double tax return one year.", ">\n\nDuh", ">\n\nThere’s a reason why FOX is posting this article. The less people at the IRS, the more likely they come after folks who can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nIn order to pursue wealthy tax cheats, the IRS needs more resources and personnel. Otherwise it’s business as usual, picking on the low hanging fruit that earns under 6 figures.", ">\n\nSo wrong ....people need to be fired", ">\n\nIt’s because they can’t afford to take them to court", ">\n\nOf course it is about protecting the rich like Trump who lies ,lies , and about his tax returns . No wonder he did not want them released .", ">\n\nEasy prey bc most ppl can not lawyer up. Pretty heart breaking system we have at times.", ">\n\nWhy does the irs sign look like it's from cards against humanity?", ">\n\nCurrently getting audited over \\~$1500, which they owe me, when the rich get away with murder. Fucking unbelievably and unnecessarily stressful for me.", ">\n\nHas t this been know for a while?", ">\n\nyep and they are the same people getting tax cuts while everyone else does it tough ....\nAny one with too much money is your enemy .... not a hero of democracy", ">\n\nGet rid of taxes and the gov’t should just do stuff for free, or what ever.", ">\n\nYou have to be careful when you get one of those CP2000 notices from the IRS. The way they are written is a trap.\nIf you dispute it you are supposed to indicate that you disagree and send it back with documents supporting your dispute.\nYou are only supposed to sign it if you agree with them and when you sign it you are signing away your rights to dispute the back taxes and penalties they are demanding.\nMere worker bees like us can expect to be getting a lot of those from this years tax returns considering how the threshold for 1099k forms has been dropped to $600.\nGuys like Trump? The IRS doesn't even know where to begin.", ">\n\nThanks Biden", ">\n\nI presume those lower-income bracket filers might be more likely to reach out to 1-800-infomercial [quickie settlement/long-term penalties most favorable to gov/proprietor] than retain proper legal counsel?\nRegardless it’s got to be a lot less work for IRS agent to go after under-represented citizen(s), rather than someone who can afford to appeal, properly negotiate on their own terms?", ">\n\nLmfao Dems tax and spend. But I have to admit there Republicans that tax and spend to. Where do these Politicians get off taxing me or business and give to people who don't work what do you cause d the inflation. You can not print money \nI am Conservative not a Republican. To much money is wasted and put in pockets of people ot don't belong.\nBut all dems know how to tax tax tax. \nIts all great and good until you run out if other peoples money. \nMillionaire just like Berny he hated Millionaires until he became one now he hates Trillionaires. Funny how the gold post changes. And good old Nancy her I side stock trading. So I think you need to rethink.", ">\n\nThe IRS is only doing as directed by whomever controls the White House.", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised by this? Really?", ">\n\nThe sign in the thumbnail looks like a Cards Against Humanity card.", ">\n\nWhile this is mostly true, don’t believe everything you read. I’m no more an accountant than I am a ladies man, but someone (said they’re an accountant) posted a few days ago about this. They explained that the most likely people getting audited are trying to, fraudulently or mistakenly, claim the EITC. \nYES, it’s super easy to “bust” these people for an easy “mistake”. This is who the IRS is cracking down on. \nDo I think it’s better to bust poor people for claiming a few thousand in tax credits vs billionaires who avoid taxes altogether? Of course not, but don’t think they’re actively targeting people who fudge their mileage deductions or miss a decimal point in their calculations as small business owners. It’s simply not happening. \nAnd the reported “87,000 new IRS agents” are replacing the 10’s of 1,000’s of employees set to retire or quit over the next 10 years which doesn’t even begin to fill the gaps we’ve been growing for decades by not hiring and training more willing workers. Not to mention they’re not even close to all employees who will actively audit tax payers. They’re people who answer phones, file papers, assist others, etc… They’re mostly just average people with average jobs so of course the GOP wants to end this. They hate upward mobility and job creation unless that means tax breaks for their billionaire friends.", ">\n\nI wish everyone wasn’t a sheep and would understand this.", ">\n\nI can see the Media doing their best to turn the public against the IRS.", ">\n\nPicking on the week and helpless. That’s what we humans do. We suck. I’m waiting for that big meteor reset button.", ">\n\nAnd Fox news loves this.", ">\n\nLove it, Faux 'News' taking the piss, for 4 years under Dear Leader they campaigned for tax breaks for the rich, now they're pretending to care about the poor !", ">\n\nEvery millionaire should be audited yearly. Period.", ">\n\nAND now the gqp cult promises to rescind the money Biden set aside to aid the IRS to recover taxes from mega millionaire tax cheats like benedict donald, who paid less taxes than most working Americans.", ">\n\nRepublicans want to stop the IRS and Congress from taxing rich people, making the burden of maintaining civilization fall more heavily on poorer people. This is why Republicans vote for tax cuts for the rich and against funding for the IRS.\nAnd since Republican beliefs are based on wishful thinking, Republicans can screw over poor, rural Republicans while simultaneously taking credit for doing it to make Republicans happy about it and blaming it on Democrats to make those same Republicans resentful against Democrats for it. And what else would we expect from a Republican Party that blames Democrats for tricking them into attacking the Capitol to make Trump look bad and justifies and approves of assaulting Capitol police while brandishing their \"thin blue line\" flags.", ">\n\nThe IRS is like any other law enforcement agency, they prefer pursuing the poor because they don't have the resources to protect themselves.", ">\n\nThe IRS building sign looks like its from cards against humanity.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nNot a reliable news source.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nThat picture looks like the worst cards against humanity card too get.", ">\n\nScrew the Murdoch media empire and their failed trickle down ideologies.", ">\n\nOf course, the poorest haven’t paid over 400+ billion for decades. Not sure about the rich, we haven’t checked.", ">\n\nThis is not a surprise. With the recent inflation reduction act, the IRS an additional $80B over 10 years or $8B per year. The IRS budget for 2021 was $13.7B. The additional $8B over the year would be an increase of 58% to their budget. They will be looking to get a lot more money from taxpayers, due to this very large increase in their budget.", ">\n\nFox reported this? I'm in shock", ">\n\nAll propagandists publish clickbaity stuff that makes them sound like maybe they've let up on the evil. Unfortunately it works, since people just upvote headlines.", ">\n\nIt’s only going to get worse in 2023. Those 87k new IRS agents will not be going after the wealthy.", ">\n\nWhy?\nThat’s literally why they were being added. The IRS goes after the poorer taxpayers because they are low-hanging fruit and don’t have the lawyers and accountants to protect them. \nThe additional IRS employees were to give the personnel staffing sufficient to go after the wealthy.", ">\n\nIt doesn’t matter how many IRS agents there are. It will always be easier and more profitable for the IRS to nickel and dime the average taxpayer rather than go after the wealthy, who have the resources to lawyer up with the best lawyers and challenge the IRS in court.", ">\n\nEasier? Yes. More profitable? Doubtful." ]
> Because if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.	[ "If Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nAnd when Barry was president they targeted conservative groups. I think phone calls can be made to tell them to back off of the little guy.", ">\n\n\nthey targeted conservative groups.\n\nNo. They went after specifically anti-tax tea party groups. The groups who openly flaunted tax laws", ">\n\nThey also went after progressive, left leaning groups - how do you explain that ? it was political", ">\n\nWait, did they target conservatives or progressives? Lol", ">\n\nBoth- it was quite clear they were involving themselves in politics - that’s what the IG found", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.", ">\n\nYep!\nAlso this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious.\nThe real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade.", ">\n\nThanks for the informative reply.\nYou make great points which I don't doubt. But there are times when I think it's important to consider both the letter and spirit of law at times.\nEven though it is perfectly by the letter of the law that people should be checked, it also seems against the intended spirit of said law that only a certain group of people are checked.\nI am not familiar with US law, but I think most of us can feel some degree of injustice with how things currently are.", ">\n\nThe point is to automate more checking of income common to wealthier people, and devote more resources to auditing those people. The Fox News article is disingenuous in how it describes the automated checking that goes on. It’s not great that rich people aren’t really audited, but there’s no reason to stop the automated checking of income where it’s already being done and essentially free to continue.\nIf you feel differently, explain yourself.", ">\n\nNo, we are in alignment concerning this.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nFUCK FOX NEWS\nFox is pretending to care about us poors. \nDon't reward these fascist fucks with upvotes for a disingenuous clickbait headline. They still hate us for not voting gop.", ">\n\nThey want people to hate the IRS and help defund it so they don’t go after the rich, which was the purpose of the additional funding", ">\n\nThey want people to link this to “87000” new agents, which is obviously happening on social media posts, but it’s not even a thing.", ">\n\nArticle is trash. The author is including correspondence audits (which means the IRS asked for some documentation by mail) for low income filers but not for millionaires when comparing their audit rates. Here are actual numbers according to their own source:\nAudit rates including correspondence audits\nlow income 1.27%\nmillionaires 2.38% \nAudit rates excluding correspondence audits\nlow income 0.0376%\nmillionaires 1.24%\n.\nFor low income filers, nearly all their audits were correspondence audits.", ">\n\nIt's hilarious when Fox News and the GOP pretend they care about poor people.\nNo amount of hypocrisy is too much to try to make democrats look bad.", ">\n\nIts unfortunately far easier to prove married couples who live together filed HoH for extra earned income credit than it is to prove complicated returns were incorrect.", ">\n\nIt's also trivially easy to prove the same child was claimed by two parents which is a lot of correspondence audits.", ">\n\nSo can my back taxes please just get forgiven already. 20% income being taxed is not livable", ">\n\nRepublican love flat rate taxes, you should talk to them.", ">\n\nThey’re required to audit the president and vice president, and that didn’t happen either.", ">\n\nThis isn't new, it's been been having for the last 5 - 6 years.", ">\n\nHopefully some wake up and realize its all just preparing us for the inevitable destruction of our economy. I imagine its almost too late to realize this. If we all realized this wed sell our 401Ks and not lean on money and use it to help our neighbors.", ">\n\nK bro.", ">\n\nMy wife and I are on social security. She works part time to keep us afloat. All in, we earned $50K in 2022. iRS wants $4500 from us. Really? 5X what Trump paid? Don't know if anyone is paying attention but $50k ain't rich. Oh, and out of that comes almost $4k in Medicare premiums. A program we paid into for 40+ years.\nEveryone of these arrogant, unqualified,, spoon fed assholes in Congress should be made to live on SSI or welfare, with no medical coverage, for a year. Then tell me I am acting entitled.\nSelf serving bastards.", ">\n\nDon't upvote this crap.\nDo you really think Fox cares about the working class??\nThis is just right wing propaganda, timed to coincide with McCarthy's promise to get rid of the new IRS agents who make it possible to audit the rich.\nDon't be used.", ">\n\nWhatever happened to \"dont shoot the messenger?\"", ">\n\nIRS understaffing would naturally trend to go after low-lying fruit. Easy pickings. Too many man hours to go after super complex cases. These moneyed fuckers and their bullshit. It's outrageous.", ">\n\nThe vast majority of these audits are automatically generated correspondence audits that have to be issued. We can't just turn off the program that raises a red flag when two people claim the same child as a dependent because we don't have enough forensic accountants. If you mistype your W2 you'll get an \"audit\" showing the correct info from the copy your boss sent them and telling you they'll correct it unless you tell them otherwise and you don't have to do anything if the info they have is correct.", ">\n\nYeah, all the nonsense about the IRS \"going after\" low income people is so stupid. Low income people make money in a way that their reporting is easily verifiable by a computer. They're also most likely to mess up and claim child tax credits incorrectly, etc - all of which is verifiable and issued a letter by a computer. \n-\nOther than actually being able to get someone on the phone when you call the IRS, and increased budget isn't going to impact the average person in any way.", ">\n\nMy thing is even assuming the 87k don't successfully get more money out of the rich, that's still 87k jobs. That's a net positive. I just don't understand the conservative logic here. Do they think these 87k new jobs are specifically for being insidiously predatory toward the poor? Where's the logic here? (I know I'll get hyperbolic answers, but I genuinely would like to know)", ">\n\nIt's 87,000 jobs over 10 years, the majority of which are replacement during that period. It's just a budget supplemental to stop hemorrhaging agents as they retire or cycle out into other jobs.", ">\n\nso.. this is on fox, which I assume support republican efforts to ensure that this is the permanent state of affairs. I don't really get anything anymore.", ">\n\nAnd that is the way the GOP wants it.", ">\n\n💯 Exactly what this Fox article is trying to do.", ">\n\nIt's who can afford a lawyer", ">\n\nAs the article hints at, the IRS does not do a lot of actual auditing. What it does is computer matching, which automatically generates material for a correspondence audit. Most correspondence audits occur because som poor working Joe didn't know he/her was supposed to include or exclude something, and the IRS caught it in its matching. Of course, the problem is that we have a complex code and little help in actually helping people through the various forms, rules, and so on. But millionaires don't have these issues, so they can escape most of the traps that lead to a correspondence audit. If a lot of these 87,000 were in taxpayer service (which I expect) it would lead to fewer audits at the low end, more robust audits for large corporations, wealthy individuals, and those who actively use tax avoidance strategies. But of course that is not the dialogue that gets promoted when the 87,000 agents are discussed.", ">\n\nThis is exactly why Fox News needs to be dismantled and thrown in the garbage. Ugh, \"look poors! They're coming for yoU!!!\". Scare tactics. And guess what? It sadly works. Every time.\nThey're lower than scum.", ">\n\nExactly. It's when someone misreports a number from their W2, didn't report 1099s they received, both separated parents claim a tax credit for the same kid, etc. All stuff that's easily checked by a computer. The IRS isn't \"auditing\" random low to middle income people. That would be a complete waste of their time.", ">\n\nlooks at Trump You don't say.", ">\n\nThe poor can't defend themselves, it's easier to take a little bit of money from people that won't fight back than a lot of money from people that will.", ">\n\nThe mega rich seem like they’re on a mission to destroy America, as we know it.", ">\n\nHiring 87,000 new IRS agents makes it possible to audit billionaires. So they pay their share. Those audits require an actual person or team that knows what they are doing. But Kevin McCarthy's first item of business was to announce legislation to overturn the hiring of 87,000 IRS agents. Meaning only the little guy (who can be audited by computer software) pays taxes.\nSSDD", ">\n\nThe \"87,000\" agents budget is over a ten year period. It's not for 87,000 new positions.", ">\n\nThe title is so misleading. Im surprised fox even put the juicy bit in the article about how (this stat is due to there not being enough IRS workers because) these \"audits\" on low earners are just automated letters asking for more info.\nYet again, this is just millionairs paid by billionairs to mislead the masses into blaming the poor for crimes committed by said billionairs.", ">\n\nWhich is why the IRS needs more manpower and budget, so they can go after the big fish.\nFuck Fox News and their Republican propaganda pieces. This article coincides with McCarthy saying they’ll cut the IRS budget and that the IRS is coming for you.\nFuck off Republican propaganda rag!\nStop upvoting any Fox News story. Fox should not be on the white list.", ">\n\nThis is a terrible article. It seems to include questions about tax returns as audits. If a low income filer makes a mistake it should be corrected. Is that an audit? If anyone makes a mistake and is contacted, is that an audit? Also there is no reason to go after low income as they rarely pay tax or are required to. The money requested would also pay for people to answer a phone. Those against increasing funding lie when they say all of it goes to audits. If you tell the truth, who cares if you are audited? Are y’all aware you can track your personal return online? However a business cannot. Businesses have to rely on humans that can’t be reached. I’ve waited a year for a refund. Didn’t know if IRS received the return. Didn’t know if there was an issue. Didn’t know if it was mailed or lost. I’m getting tired of Republicans pushing their crap on people.", ">\n\nwho keeps upvoting this right wing propaganda", ">\n\nWhy would the GOP want to give the agency the power to go after their donors.", ">\n\nAnd it was trumps guy that mandated it while Biden replaced him", ">\n\nApparently the mere use of an accounting firm somehow protected corps and the rich from the IRS who still (mistakenly) believe the accounting firms are trustworthy. How naive.", ">\n\nThe \"audits\" talked about are mostly form letters requesting more info about specific items.", ">\n\nThe poor can't pay for top flight attorneys.", ">\n\nYep keep the IRS underfunded so they can only go after the poors at the same time telling all the poors that the IRS is bad cause it goes after them but leave out the fact that they do that cause the poors are low hanging fruit.\nRepublicans are evil.", ">\n\nWell the GOP wants to cut funding to the IRS for new agents, so I’m sure the poor folk will continue to get screwed. I say toss the 50,000+ page tax code out and replace with a percentage based on total revenue/income made. Took a loss? No write-offs. Oh well, better luck next year. It’ll never happen because the wealthy don’t want it to.", ">\n\nWhere did you get this info? I know GOPers have been slashing IRS budgets and staffing for years but can't find reliable sources for what this has done to the actual audits - like who gets audited.", ">\n\nTheir link is Fox. This is a bad faith post.", ">\n\nThis says a lot coming from fox “news”", ">\n\nTo paraphrase Gilbert K. Chesterton, \"The Poor have sometimes objected to being taxed too heavily; The Rich have always objected to being taxed at all.\"", ">\n\ndon't post Fox news here....", ">\n\nCorporations and millionaires have the means to hire accountants and attorneys. Our tax code is gray in several areas. It’s easy to go after the poor that do not have the resources and will have no choice but to pay anything the IRS says. The additional agents will continue to target the poor and middle class because they are easy, It’s happened before, it will continue to happen.", ">\n\nI think it's funny/sad that a poor person can win the lottery and they get taxed at a higher rate than any billionaire has ever been taxed at. The system is built to keep the rich - rich and the poor - poor.", ">\n\nThe poorest can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nThe current system cannot be sustained. We are hurtling towards disaster.", ">\n\nThe only reason the bastards have the majority is because the corrupt SCOTUS allowed illegal gerrymanders to stand while they were fought in the courts.", ">\n\nThe I.R.S. goes after the poorer people because it's easier. They can't afford lawyers and accountants. So the poor can do nothing but roll over and take it up the rump. The Inflation Reduction Act that Biden signed into law in August is supposed to give $80 Billion to the I.R.S. so they can go after the millionaires. But we know that won't happen. More poor people are going to get screwed.", ">\n\nI'm confused. For decades, Faux news and the conservatives have been saying that millionaires deserve to keep more of their money than we do. That was a huge part of the 2017 tax scam that Trump signed. Now Faux is saying it's a problem? And they are rightly detailing that Republicans are the cause, along with Biden trying to fix the same issue that Fox has helped create?", ">\n\nFox News", ">\n\nHey IRS, don't forget to crawl up my ass this year because I sold some old stuff on eBay for a loss but make sure you put a few man hours into figuring out if it is legit or not.", ">\n\nlol, and the people opposed to IRS funding will say they are anti-establishment.", ">\n\nImagine how much they could squeeze the middle class with 87,000 more agents! But really, it’ll be good to see if the increase in officers actually increases tax revenue without changing the underlying laws.", ">\n\nSo, this is the newest Republican boogeyman, the IRS.\nWell, better than Drag Queens I guess.", ">\n\nOh hey just like last year, and the year before that, I think there might be a pattern", ">\n\nThank you republicans, always sticking up in the back on the small guys…", ">\n\nFox News saying this like it’s not something Rupert Murdoch’s network supports is pretty funny.", ">\n\nFox News. Ignore it.", ">\n\nFox News is still allowed in here?", ">\n\nFake news. This is Republican propaganda coming from Fox News.", ">\n\nFox News is NOT news", ">\n\nHmm sounds like it was underfunded then. Good thing now we helped ease that problem. Thanks Biden", ">\n\nIt's simply laziness by the IRS. Lower-income households have less complicated returns and easier to process. I'm sure IRS runs a non-effective but management-pleasing metric like \"how many returns were corrected\" opposed to how much money was recouped.", ">\n\nWe know. They don't have the resources to do anything. That was the point of increasing the staffing at the IRS so they had even the slightest hope of going after the big offenders with their armies or lawyers.", ">\n\nThere's less millionaires and billionaires than there are us. I'm not sure that answer fits the accuracy on hiring more workers but I'll go ahead and amuse that", ">\n\nIt's not a game of tax guy vs rich guy. The rich literally have armies of lawyers. You need the staff to overcome all the paper and challenges they'll throw at you. \nIf you throw one person to audit a millionaire, their lawyers can make it so it'll take a year to review a week of operations. Investigations will never finish unless there's sufficient staff to overcome their obstruction.", ">\n\nTo this day I do not understand why the IRS can demand our documents every year without a warrant. The 16th amendment does not alter the 4th, and the 4th does not apply only to criminal actions (as the 5th explicitly does). Yet no one seems to care about this annual violations.", ">\n\nReminder, Fox News is not news. It's entertainment, and should be regarded as such.", ">\n\nNo shit, poor ppl tend to file their own taxes and screw up where as millionaires hire expensive accountants to exploit all the legal loopholes without getting their clients in trouble.\nI don't think it's an intentional targeting as the article may be implying.", ">\n\nOne might imagine the resources of agents would be better put to use by focusing on returns that might produce more revenue, however it may be just a lot easier to collect a few bucks from easier targets.", ">\n\nThey are short staffed and accountants make it so difficult to find wrongdoing, if there is even wrongdoing to be found, that it would take a decent chunk of their workforce just to tackle it. It's like trying to find needle in a haystack but you don't know if there's a needle or not.", ">\n\nSo true....", ">\n\nShocked pikachu face.", ">\n\nYeah I’d believe this if it weren’t Fox News. They could give a fuck about the poor and middle class.", ">\n\nI would literally rather the IRS spend its time auditing 5 extraordinarily rich people or a single business than anyone who makes less than 100k per year\nETA: I’m aware that this article represents part of the Republican agenda to just gut the IRS and welfare spending generally. And I understand the difficulties in auditing the rich/businesses v lower income people claiming tax credits, etc", ">\n\nAlmost all of the little people \"audits\" are just a computer issuing a correspondence \"audit\" because the person misreported something from their W2, didn't report as much 1099 income as was reported to the IRS by others, or separated parents both trying to claim kids for tax credits or something. \n-\nThey don't really pull from the same resources. The rich people audits require human beings. Little people \"audits\" aren't really audits and a computer can do it. So if we want to audit more rich people, they need actual budget for human beings. The little people are going to be caught anyways because a computer can do it.", ">\n\nI interned at the IRS during the summer of 2012 when Lois Lerner made batshit crazy commrnts that they were targetting conservative groups", ">\n\nI say this every time it gets brought up. This is by design. I used to work in auditing and also used to do tax stuff. It’s super easy to find tax fraud on someone who only has a simple W-2 and no other income. You could find those people through a basic algorithm. Meanwhile, auditing a multi millionaire is expensive, time consuming, and often fruitless. If I was in charge of an underfunded, understaffed IRS I would tell my staff to go for the easy wins too.", ">\n\nUnpopular opinion - More funding won't resolve this. \nThe IRS will keep doing this. Unless rules & regulations forbid or disincentivize this practice, the IRS will keep this stupid practice", ">\n\nI make $40,000 a year and the IRS froze my bank accounts until I paid them $1000 in taxes I owed them because of an error I made filling my taxes. They froze my bank accounts for $1000. I was fucked for a month. I had to borrow cash from people just for food and gas money to get to work to get paid money that I couldn’t access. It was a scary time for me. Meanwhile millionaires are purposely avoiding taxes worth more than what I make in a year and nothing happens to them.", ">\n\nThe IRS sends no less than a dozen letters to a taxpayer prior to leaving a bank account. Why didn't you just put it into a repayment plan? Takes about ten minutes online.", ">\n\nDon't you just hate autocorrect?", ">\n\nIf true, its a holdover from jrbush who slashed IRS staff and budget and told them to spend more time auditing tip jars and busboys than millionaires because the millionaires had better lawyers than the IRS and service workers were unlikely to have any lawyers at all.", ">\n\nFox News solution: remove the IRS", ">\n\nAbsolutely. They’ll NEVER target the rich, adding more agents just made them a lot more capable to target all the lower class.", ">\n\nWhat people don't realize..Those 87K \"Agents\" aren't that. It's 87K employees over 25 years. Clerks etc. People are so fucking stupid when they just believe these clowns.", ">\n\nThose numbers also count it as an \"audit\" when a person misreports a number from a W2, 1099s, etc and the irs number matching software sends an automatically generated correspondence letter that basically says \"we actually show this number, this is what your tax return would have been if you reported that number correctly\". \nThe IRS isn't wasting time doing random \"audits\" as people think of them for low to middle income people. It would be a complete waste of their time. The computer just catches obvious verifiable mistakes and it counts as an audit in those numbers.", ">\n\n“those in the lowest income bracket hit 12.7 per 1,000….. The odds of a millionaire facing an audit were around 1.1%.”\nSo they’re saying 1.27% vs 1.1%!!! And acting like that’s a scandal 🙄", ">\n\nWhich means millionaires REALLY don't want more IRS auditors which means when our new resident house fascist fires five thousand auditors, said fascist (McCarthy) is making sure those millionaires aren't going to get audited. \nCha CHING !!! Go the \"donations\" into house rat republican's pockets. \nThe grift will be in full swing shortly.\nAnd with putin whispering in their ears and telling them EXACTLY how break the law - how can they lose?", ">\n\n💯 Exactly why theres a Fox link here pushing for that same reason.", ">\n\nTwo things. First of all, this is from a far right-wing propaganda outlet which should immediately raise red flags. They're trying to scare you into allowing a republican-initiated movement to entirely remove all remaining power from the IRS by making it seem like they're coming after you.\nSecond, the reason the IRS is already already virtually powerless against the rich is because the republicans have already eviscerated them in the past several decades, largely through defunding them leading to not only staffing cuts, but the inability to pursue the wealthiest people who have the resources for endless litigation. So as a result, the FBI can only really afford to go after people who cannot financially defend themselves.", ">\n\nThird, you might as well throw in that the aiming low guidance was under a Trump appointee who is no longer in that position.", ">\n\nThe GOP intentionally defunded the IRS so that it could not audit the wealthy. It takes a great deal more money upfront to audit them but the payback is far greater.", ">\n\nI'm not sure why dems voted against an amendment that would have mandated the giant infusion of cash into the IRS couldn't be used to audit folks making >$400k.", ">\n\nHrm this is pretty fucked I'd like to hear about why the Dems voted nay.", ">\n\nBecause they work for the same people as Republicans. \nThey are different but only when their owners allow them to be. \nI don't know how many times we are going to have to learn this lesson before it sticks.", ">\n\nDemocrats are responsible for this", ">\n\nThe rich returns are just too hard, enough lower class errors you can leave the rich alone. Love to see it… sigh", ">\n\nIt takes money to police the wealthy. Can't have that can we?!", ">\n\nr/noshitsherlock", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised?\nI’m not even American and this seemed obvious to me. All you have to do is look at how the poor live and compare that to the news about someone like Elon musk or Donald trump.", ">\n\nThis is why the IRS needs to go.", ">\n\nFox News helped make that happen.", ">\n\nThey'll never change,all the time when the guys in charge benefit from doing the same shit.", ">\n\nAnd yet the republicans dont submit or pass legislations to change the rules to favor targeting rich people. Curious.", ">\n\nThen 78,000 new, armed tax collectors should be able to extract even more money from the poor, middle-class and small business owners.", ">\n\nWhy did they focus on the Poorest? The thought of 87,000 more of them will actually do what? If the existing can’t focus on the wealthy! Then what makes anybody think more can?", ">\n\nMillionaires and billionaires make the government more money by creating lobbying loopholes and exploiting the economy to bilk the 99%. It's really cheap to go after the poorest who are struggling to pay day to day obligations and don't have loopholes or government sanctioned exploitation to take advantage of.", ">\n\nI could have told you this would happen. You think millionaires get $600 Venmo transactions?", ">\n\nThat's a move democrats should not make. That's one month of rent for me. What of folks worse-off?", ">\n\nHonestly it’s like squeezing blood from the stone over here anyway.", ">\n\nDuh lmfao theyve already stated it costs too much to tax weathy people previously and its most cost effective to audit the poor due to many factors...", ">\n\nI mean 99% of us are poor compared to the other 1%", ">\n\nColor me surprised", ">\n\nWe need some laws for equitable auditing.", ">\n\nYou are an Army commander about to attack the enemy. Do you prefer to attack where they have experienced career solders backed up by artillery, tanks, and airplanes, or do you attack where there are poorly armed and equipped untrained conscripts?", ">\n\nThey must be upset someone replaced their sign with a card from Cards Against Humanity", ">\n\nMay it ever be so…. Don’t reproduce if you only consume and can’t accumulate or help a Dow Jones winter water witch. Like snow, weathermen.", ">\n\nIt’s weirdly fitting how much their building sign in the photo looks like a cards against humanity card.", ">\n\nTypical", ">\n\nWow? How unusual.", ">\n\nI’d support double the number of IRS agents", ">\n\nI was low income and won about 3,000 gambling, the irs went after me", ">\n\nThe IRS came after me hard for 8$", ">\n\nAudit frequency should correlate to income, someone with a million in income should be audited 10x those with 100k income", ">\n\nSomeone should explain Pareto charts to the IRS.", ">\n\nI've been audited three times. First when I was 27, did some consulting and didn't do the 1099 prepayments. Ended up owing $17k. Second audit was after moving across country for a job. The tax preparer we hired made a mistake with the move expense deductions, owed a few thousand. Third audit was another tax preparer mistake, but this time we overpaid and were owed money we credited to the next year. \nIf you assume for discussion that the average audit on an ordinary tax payer returns $10,000, it would take 100,000,000 audits to make $1 trillion. By just doing the easy work, the IRS is leaving the real money on the table.", ">\n\nRepublicans are famous for giving rich breaks while middle class etc close the gaps", ">\n\nThe last line, \"The Inflation Reduction Act provides the IRS with $80 billion in future funding to ramp up its audits and potentially target the wealthiest taxpayers.\"", ">\n\nThe cure is not the root cause, but the middle class and the poor will eventually bear the burden after the capital operation", ">\n\nIt’s like they timed the “research” and the drop of the article with the speech. Sad man.", ">\n\nWatch Madoff. The wealthy skate and steal billions. The poor are in prison over thousands.", ">\n\nWhy does their sign look like a Card Against Humanity", ">\n\nFucking Trump, still at it.", ">\n\nOh you mean the thing people said would happen once they got massive funding actually happened? Checks out", ">\n\nOf course they did, because millionaires will lawyer up.", ">\n\nBecause the poor can't afford to fight back.", ">\n\nIt's so unfair the poor and the middle class taxpayers suffer so much while the millionaries got away with not paying the taxes It's really hurting the poor. The middle class is fading", ">\n\nAll of this can be fixed if we just use no-exemption graduated income", ">\n\nYeah we know", ">\n\nShow of hands for all surprised.\ncrickets\nHmm. Seems like Reddit suffers from a plague of double amputees...", ">\n\nWhat the actual fuck", ">\n\nAnd 2021, 2020, 2019, …", ">\n\nSounds about right.", ">\n\nOf course. Poor people can’t afford attorneys.", ">\n\nI made a mistake on my forms while I was overseas and ticked “self-employed” instead of “employed”. I was on a student visa and had two children and was making less than 10k a year. They hounded me for years. By the time I figured out what had happened I could not amend the forms and had paid thousands in penalties and interest.\nMeanwhile I knew lots of people who were there fully employed not reporting their income.\nFuck them.", ">\n\nYep! During the pandemic, even while I wasn't working didn't come after me the entire time that I was working but the minute that I wasn't nobody was cuz we were in lockdown they started popping up", ">\n\nI just now realized that the Cards Against Humanity box looks like the IRS sign", ">\n\nWhy is the sign a Cards Against Humanity question?", ">\n\nI am shocked and appalled. clutches pearls", ">\n\nRich should be taxed more than the average not right at all. Or at least there is a tier system based on pay only makes sense. Come on now", ">\n\nSounds about right, make the rich richer again.", ">\n\nWho are we going to vote for in the future ,all of them are decayed , corrupted and useless , the “most rich country in the world , governed by the most ignorant an corrupted. What a contrast .", ">\n\nGod bless America", ">\n\nno way. wait until you see those people responds. Those people are chipping away.", ">\n\nSounds about right", ">\n\nWe know.", ">\n\nI find it rather comical that Fox news is reporting on this since they are all about pushing the Republican agenda and that is all about pushing everyone else down that isn't rich and keeping them there. Not to mention they had no problem with Trump not paying taxes for years.", ">\n\nCan fucking confirm.", ">\n\nYeah, they (millionaires) have accountants who generally do things right and due to their millions being in investments it's not like it's taxable all the time. \nThen there's the ability to sell any stocks when they're down to build up losses on paper can reinvest them at a loss that can carry over across multiple years.", ">\n\nsounds about right. i don’t have a pot to piss in but they’re all over me for someone stealing my identity and filing a double tax return one year.", ">\n\nDuh", ">\n\nThere’s a reason why FOX is posting this article. The less people at the IRS, the more likely they come after folks who can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nIn order to pursue wealthy tax cheats, the IRS needs more resources and personnel. Otherwise it’s business as usual, picking on the low hanging fruit that earns under 6 figures.", ">\n\nSo wrong ....people need to be fired", ">\n\nIt’s because they can’t afford to take them to court", ">\n\nOf course it is about protecting the rich like Trump who lies ,lies , and about his tax returns . No wonder he did not want them released .", ">\n\nEasy prey bc most ppl can not lawyer up. Pretty heart breaking system we have at times.", ">\n\nWhy does the irs sign look like it's from cards against humanity?", ">\n\nCurrently getting audited over \\~$1500, which they owe me, when the rich get away with murder. Fucking unbelievably and unnecessarily stressful for me.", ">\n\nHas t this been know for a while?", ">\n\nyep and they are the same people getting tax cuts while everyone else does it tough ....\nAny one with too much money is your enemy .... not a hero of democracy", ">\n\nGet rid of taxes and the gov’t should just do stuff for free, or what ever.", ">\n\nYou have to be careful when you get one of those CP2000 notices from the IRS. The way they are written is a trap.\nIf you dispute it you are supposed to indicate that you disagree and send it back with documents supporting your dispute.\nYou are only supposed to sign it if you agree with them and when you sign it you are signing away your rights to dispute the back taxes and penalties they are demanding.\nMere worker bees like us can expect to be getting a lot of those from this years tax returns considering how the threshold for 1099k forms has been dropped to $600.\nGuys like Trump? The IRS doesn't even know where to begin.", ">\n\nThanks Biden", ">\n\nI presume those lower-income bracket filers might be more likely to reach out to 1-800-infomercial [quickie settlement/long-term penalties most favorable to gov/proprietor] than retain proper legal counsel?\nRegardless it’s got to be a lot less work for IRS agent to go after under-represented citizen(s), rather than someone who can afford to appeal, properly negotiate on their own terms?", ">\n\nLmfao Dems tax and spend. But I have to admit there Republicans that tax and spend to. Where do these Politicians get off taxing me or business and give to people who don't work what do you cause d the inflation. You can not print money \nI am Conservative not a Republican. To much money is wasted and put in pockets of people ot don't belong.\nBut all dems know how to tax tax tax. \nIts all great and good until you run out if other peoples money. \nMillionaire just like Berny he hated Millionaires until he became one now he hates Trillionaires. Funny how the gold post changes. And good old Nancy her I side stock trading. So I think you need to rethink.", ">\n\nThe IRS is only doing as directed by whomever controls the White House.", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised by this? Really?", ">\n\nThe sign in the thumbnail looks like a Cards Against Humanity card.", ">\n\nWhile this is mostly true, don’t believe everything you read. I’m no more an accountant than I am a ladies man, but someone (said they’re an accountant) posted a few days ago about this. They explained that the most likely people getting audited are trying to, fraudulently or mistakenly, claim the EITC. \nYES, it’s super easy to “bust” these people for an easy “mistake”. This is who the IRS is cracking down on. \nDo I think it’s better to bust poor people for claiming a few thousand in tax credits vs billionaires who avoid taxes altogether? Of course not, but don’t think they’re actively targeting people who fudge their mileage deductions or miss a decimal point in their calculations as small business owners. It’s simply not happening. \nAnd the reported “87,000 new IRS agents” are replacing the 10’s of 1,000’s of employees set to retire or quit over the next 10 years which doesn’t even begin to fill the gaps we’ve been growing for decades by not hiring and training more willing workers. Not to mention they’re not even close to all employees who will actively audit tax payers. They’re people who answer phones, file papers, assist others, etc… They’re mostly just average people with average jobs so of course the GOP wants to end this. They hate upward mobility and job creation unless that means tax breaks for their billionaire friends.", ">\n\nI wish everyone wasn’t a sheep and would understand this.", ">\n\nI can see the Media doing their best to turn the public against the IRS.", ">\n\nPicking on the week and helpless. That’s what we humans do. We suck. I’m waiting for that big meteor reset button.", ">\n\nAnd Fox news loves this.", ">\n\nLove it, Faux 'News' taking the piss, for 4 years under Dear Leader they campaigned for tax breaks for the rich, now they're pretending to care about the poor !", ">\n\nEvery millionaire should be audited yearly. Period.", ">\n\nAND now the gqp cult promises to rescind the money Biden set aside to aid the IRS to recover taxes from mega millionaire tax cheats like benedict donald, who paid less taxes than most working Americans.", ">\n\nRepublicans want to stop the IRS and Congress from taxing rich people, making the burden of maintaining civilization fall more heavily on poorer people. This is why Republicans vote for tax cuts for the rich and against funding for the IRS.\nAnd since Republican beliefs are based on wishful thinking, Republicans can screw over poor, rural Republicans while simultaneously taking credit for doing it to make Republicans happy about it and blaming it on Democrats to make those same Republicans resentful against Democrats for it. And what else would we expect from a Republican Party that blames Democrats for tricking them into attacking the Capitol to make Trump look bad and justifies and approves of assaulting Capitol police while brandishing their \"thin blue line\" flags.", ">\n\nThe IRS is like any other law enforcement agency, they prefer pursuing the poor because they don't have the resources to protect themselves.", ">\n\nThe IRS building sign looks like its from cards against humanity.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nNot a reliable news source.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nThat picture looks like the worst cards against humanity card too get.", ">\n\nScrew the Murdoch media empire and their failed trickle down ideologies.", ">\n\nOf course, the poorest haven’t paid over 400+ billion for decades. Not sure about the rich, we haven’t checked.", ">\n\nThis is not a surprise. With the recent inflation reduction act, the IRS an additional $80B over 10 years or $8B per year. The IRS budget for 2021 was $13.7B. The additional $8B over the year would be an increase of 58% to their budget. They will be looking to get a lot more money from taxpayers, due to this very large increase in their budget.", ">\n\nFox reported this? I'm in shock", ">\n\nAll propagandists publish clickbaity stuff that makes them sound like maybe they've let up on the evil. Unfortunately it works, since people just upvote headlines.", ">\n\nIt’s only going to get worse in 2023. Those 87k new IRS agents will not be going after the wealthy.", ">\n\nWhy?\nThat’s literally why they were being added. The IRS goes after the poorer taxpayers because they are low-hanging fruit and don’t have the lawyers and accountants to protect them. \nThe additional IRS employees were to give the personnel staffing sufficient to go after the wealthy.", ">\n\nIt doesn’t matter how many IRS agents there are. It will always be easier and more profitable for the IRS to nickel and dime the average taxpayer rather than go after the wealthy, who have the resources to lawyer up with the best lawyers and challenge the IRS in court.", ">\n\nEasier? Yes. More profitable? Doubtful.", ">\n\nIf Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?" ]
> Are we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?	[ "If Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nAnd when Barry was president they targeted conservative groups. I think phone calls can be made to tell them to back off of the little guy.", ">\n\n\nthey targeted conservative groups.\n\nNo. They went after specifically anti-tax tea party groups. The groups who openly flaunted tax laws", ">\n\nThey also went after progressive, left leaning groups - how do you explain that ? it was political", ">\n\nWait, did they target conservatives or progressives? Lol", ">\n\nBoth- it was quite clear they were involving themselves in politics - that’s what the IG found", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.", ">\n\nYep!\nAlso this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious.\nThe real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade.", ">\n\nThanks for the informative reply.\nYou make great points which I don't doubt. But there are times when I think it's important to consider both the letter and spirit of law at times.\nEven though it is perfectly by the letter of the law that people should be checked, it also seems against the intended spirit of said law that only a certain group of people are checked.\nI am not familiar with US law, but I think most of us can feel some degree of injustice with how things currently are.", ">\n\nThe point is to automate more checking of income common to wealthier people, and devote more resources to auditing those people. The Fox News article is disingenuous in how it describes the automated checking that goes on. It’s not great that rich people aren’t really audited, but there’s no reason to stop the automated checking of income where it’s already being done and essentially free to continue.\nIf you feel differently, explain yourself.", ">\n\nNo, we are in alignment concerning this.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nFUCK FOX NEWS\nFox is pretending to care about us poors. \nDon't reward these fascist fucks with upvotes for a disingenuous clickbait headline. They still hate us for not voting gop.", ">\n\nThey want people to hate the IRS and help defund it so they don’t go after the rich, which was the purpose of the additional funding", ">\n\nThey want people to link this to “87000” new agents, which is obviously happening on social media posts, but it’s not even a thing.", ">\n\nArticle is trash. The author is including correspondence audits (which means the IRS asked for some documentation by mail) for low income filers but not for millionaires when comparing their audit rates. Here are actual numbers according to their own source:\nAudit rates including correspondence audits\nlow income 1.27%\nmillionaires 2.38% \nAudit rates excluding correspondence audits\nlow income 0.0376%\nmillionaires 1.24%\n.\nFor low income filers, nearly all their audits were correspondence audits.", ">\n\nIt's hilarious when Fox News and the GOP pretend they care about poor people.\nNo amount of hypocrisy is too much to try to make democrats look bad.", ">\n\nIts unfortunately far easier to prove married couples who live together filed HoH for extra earned income credit than it is to prove complicated returns were incorrect.", ">\n\nIt's also trivially easy to prove the same child was claimed by two parents which is a lot of correspondence audits.", ">\n\nSo can my back taxes please just get forgiven already. 20% income being taxed is not livable", ">\n\nRepublican love flat rate taxes, you should talk to them.", ">\n\nThey’re required to audit the president and vice president, and that didn’t happen either.", ">\n\nThis isn't new, it's been been having for the last 5 - 6 years.", ">\n\nHopefully some wake up and realize its all just preparing us for the inevitable destruction of our economy. I imagine its almost too late to realize this. If we all realized this wed sell our 401Ks and not lean on money and use it to help our neighbors.", ">\n\nK bro.", ">\n\nMy wife and I are on social security. She works part time to keep us afloat. All in, we earned $50K in 2022. iRS wants $4500 from us. Really? 5X what Trump paid? Don't know if anyone is paying attention but $50k ain't rich. Oh, and out of that comes almost $4k in Medicare premiums. A program we paid into for 40+ years.\nEveryone of these arrogant, unqualified,, spoon fed assholes in Congress should be made to live on SSI or welfare, with no medical coverage, for a year. Then tell me I am acting entitled.\nSelf serving bastards.", ">\n\nDon't upvote this crap.\nDo you really think Fox cares about the working class??\nThis is just right wing propaganda, timed to coincide with McCarthy's promise to get rid of the new IRS agents who make it possible to audit the rich.\nDon't be used.", ">\n\nWhatever happened to \"dont shoot the messenger?\"", ">\n\nIRS understaffing would naturally trend to go after low-lying fruit. Easy pickings. Too many man hours to go after super complex cases. These moneyed fuckers and their bullshit. It's outrageous.", ">\n\nThe vast majority of these audits are automatically generated correspondence audits that have to be issued. We can't just turn off the program that raises a red flag when two people claim the same child as a dependent because we don't have enough forensic accountants. If you mistype your W2 you'll get an \"audit\" showing the correct info from the copy your boss sent them and telling you they'll correct it unless you tell them otherwise and you don't have to do anything if the info they have is correct.", ">\n\nYeah, all the nonsense about the IRS \"going after\" low income people is so stupid. Low income people make money in a way that their reporting is easily verifiable by a computer. They're also most likely to mess up and claim child tax credits incorrectly, etc - all of which is verifiable and issued a letter by a computer. \n-\nOther than actually being able to get someone on the phone when you call the IRS, and increased budget isn't going to impact the average person in any way.", ">\n\nMy thing is even assuming the 87k don't successfully get more money out of the rich, that's still 87k jobs. That's a net positive. I just don't understand the conservative logic here. Do they think these 87k new jobs are specifically for being insidiously predatory toward the poor? Where's the logic here? (I know I'll get hyperbolic answers, but I genuinely would like to know)", ">\n\nIt's 87,000 jobs over 10 years, the majority of which are replacement during that period. It's just a budget supplemental to stop hemorrhaging agents as they retire or cycle out into other jobs.", ">\n\nso.. this is on fox, which I assume support republican efforts to ensure that this is the permanent state of affairs. I don't really get anything anymore.", ">\n\nAnd that is the way the GOP wants it.", ">\n\n💯 Exactly what this Fox article is trying to do.", ">\n\nIt's who can afford a lawyer", ">\n\nAs the article hints at, the IRS does not do a lot of actual auditing. What it does is computer matching, which automatically generates material for a correspondence audit. Most correspondence audits occur because som poor working Joe didn't know he/her was supposed to include or exclude something, and the IRS caught it in its matching. Of course, the problem is that we have a complex code and little help in actually helping people through the various forms, rules, and so on. But millionaires don't have these issues, so they can escape most of the traps that lead to a correspondence audit. If a lot of these 87,000 were in taxpayer service (which I expect) it would lead to fewer audits at the low end, more robust audits for large corporations, wealthy individuals, and those who actively use tax avoidance strategies. But of course that is not the dialogue that gets promoted when the 87,000 agents are discussed.", ">\n\nThis is exactly why Fox News needs to be dismantled and thrown in the garbage. Ugh, \"look poors! They're coming for yoU!!!\". Scare tactics. And guess what? It sadly works. Every time.\nThey're lower than scum.", ">\n\nExactly. It's when someone misreports a number from their W2, didn't report 1099s they received, both separated parents claim a tax credit for the same kid, etc. All stuff that's easily checked by a computer. The IRS isn't \"auditing\" random low to middle income people. That would be a complete waste of their time.", ">\n\nlooks at Trump You don't say.", ">\n\nThe poor can't defend themselves, it's easier to take a little bit of money from people that won't fight back than a lot of money from people that will.", ">\n\nThe mega rich seem like they’re on a mission to destroy America, as we know it.", ">\n\nHiring 87,000 new IRS agents makes it possible to audit billionaires. So they pay their share. Those audits require an actual person or team that knows what they are doing. But Kevin McCarthy's first item of business was to announce legislation to overturn the hiring of 87,000 IRS agents. Meaning only the little guy (who can be audited by computer software) pays taxes.\nSSDD", ">\n\nThe \"87,000\" agents budget is over a ten year period. It's not for 87,000 new positions.", ">\n\nThe title is so misleading. Im surprised fox even put the juicy bit in the article about how (this stat is due to there not being enough IRS workers because) these \"audits\" on low earners are just automated letters asking for more info.\nYet again, this is just millionairs paid by billionairs to mislead the masses into blaming the poor for crimes committed by said billionairs.", ">\n\nWhich is why the IRS needs more manpower and budget, so they can go after the big fish.\nFuck Fox News and their Republican propaganda pieces. This article coincides with McCarthy saying they’ll cut the IRS budget and that the IRS is coming for you.\nFuck off Republican propaganda rag!\nStop upvoting any Fox News story. Fox should not be on the white list.", ">\n\nThis is a terrible article. It seems to include questions about tax returns as audits. If a low income filer makes a mistake it should be corrected. Is that an audit? If anyone makes a mistake and is contacted, is that an audit? Also there is no reason to go after low income as they rarely pay tax or are required to. The money requested would also pay for people to answer a phone. Those against increasing funding lie when they say all of it goes to audits. If you tell the truth, who cares if you are audited? Are y’all aware you can track your personal return online? However a business cannot. Businesses have to rely on humans that can’t be reached. I’ve waited a year for a refund. Didn’t know if IRS received the return. Didn’t know if there was an issue. Didn’t know if it was mailed or lost. I’m getting tired of Republicans pushing their crap on people.", ">\n\nwho keeps upvoting this right wing propaganda", ">\n\nWhy would the GOP want to give the agency the power to go after their donors.", ">\n\nAnd it was trumps guy that mandated it while Biden replaced him", ">\n\nApparently the mere use of an accounting firm somehow protected corps and the rich from the IRS who still (mistakenly) believe the accounting firms are trustworthy. How naive.", ">\n\nThe \"audits\" talked about are mostly form letters requesting more info about specific items.", ">\n\nThe poor can't pay for top flight attorneys.", ">\n\nYep keep the IRS underfunded so they can only go after the poors at the same time telling all the poors that the IRS is bad cause it goes after them but leave out the fact that they do that cause the poors are low hanging fruit.\nRepublicans are evil.", ">\n\nWell the GOP wants to cut funding to the IRS for new agents, so I’m sure the poor folk will continue to get screwed. I say toss the 50,000+ page tax code out and replace with a percentage based on total revenue/income made. Took a loss? No write-offs. Oh well, better luck next year. It’ll never happen because the wealthy don’t want it to.", ">\n\nWhere did you get this info? I know GOPers have been slashing IRS budgets and staffing for years but can't find reliable sources for what this has done to the actual audits - like who gets audited.", ">\n\nTheir link is Fox. This is a bad faith post.", ">\n\nThis says a lot coming from fox “news”", ">\n\nTo paraphrase Gilbert K. Chesterton, \"The Poor have sometimes objected to being taxed too heavily; The Rich have always objected to being taxed at all.\"", ">\n\ndon't post Fox news here....", ">\n\nCorporations and millionaires have the means to hire accountants and attorneys. Our tax code is gray in several areas. It’s easy to go after the poor that do not have the resources and will have no choice but to pay anything the IRS says. The additional agents will continue to target the poor and middle class because they are easy, It’s happened before, it will continue to happen.", ">\n\nI think it's funny/sad that a poor person can win the lottery and they get taxed at a higher rate than any billionaire has ever been taxed at. The system is built to keep the rich - rich and the poor - poor.", ">\n\nThe poorest can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nThe current system cannot be sustained. We are hurtling towards disaster.", ">\n\nThe only reason the bastards have the majority is because the corrupt SCOTUS allowed illegal gerrymanders to stand while they were fought in the courts.", ">\n\nThe I.R.S. goes after the poorer people because it's easier. They can't afford lawyers and accountants. So the poor can do nothing but roll over and take it up the rump. The Inflation Reduction Act that Biden signed into law in August is supposed to give $80 Billion to the I.R.S. so they can go after the millionaires. But we know that won't happen. More poor people are going to get screwed.", ">\n\nI'm confused. For decades, Faux news and the conservatives have been saying that millionaires deserve to keep more of their money than we do. That was a huge part of the 2017 tax scam that Trump signed. Now Faux is saying it's a problem? And they are rightly detailing that Republicans are the cause, along with Biden trying to fix the same issue that Fox has helped create?", ">\n\nFox News", ">\n\nHey IRS, don't forget to crawl up my ass this year because I sold some old stuff on eBay for a loss but make sure you put a few man hours into figuring out if it is legit or not.", ">\n\nlol, and the people opposed to IRS funding will say they are anti-establishment.", ">\n\nImagine how much they could squeeze the middle class with 87,000 more agents! But really, it’ll be good to see if the increase in officers actually increases tax revenue without changing the underlying laws.", ">\n\nSo, this is the newest Republican boogeyman, the IRS.\nWell, better than Drag Queens I guess.", ">\n\nOh hey just like last year, and the year before that, I think there might be a pattern", ">\n\nThank you republicans, always sticking up in the back on the small guys…", ">\n\nFox News saying this like it’s not something Rupert Murdoch’s network supports is pretty funny.", ">\n\nFox News. Ignore it.", ">\n\nFox News is still allowed in here?", ">\n\nFake news. This is Republican propaganda coming from Fox News.", ">\n\nFox News is NOT news", ">\n\nHmm sounds like it was underfunded then. Good thing now we helped ease that problem. Thanks Biden", ">\n\nIt's simply laziness by the IRS. Lower-income households have less complicated returns and easier to process. I'm sure IRS runs a non-effective but management-pleasing metric like \"how many returns were corrected\" opposed to how much money was recouped.", ">\n\nWe know. They don't have the resources to do anything. That was the point of increasing the staffing at the IRS so they had even the slightest hope of going after the big offenders with their armies or lawyers.", ">\n\nThere's less millionaires and billionaires than there are us. I'm not sure that answer fits the accuracy on hiring more workers but I'll go ahead and amuse that", ">\n\nIt's not a game of tax guy vs rich guy. The rich literally have armies of lawyers. You need the staff to overcome all the paper and challenges they'll throw at you. \nIf you throw one person to audit a millionaire, their lawyers can make it so it'll take a year to review a week of operations. Investigations will never finish unless there's sufficient staff to overcome their obstruction.", ">\n\nTo this day I do not understand why the IRS can demand our documents every year without a warrant. The 16th amendment does not alter the 4th, and the 4th does not apply only to criminal actions (as the 5th explicitly does). Yet no one seems to care about this annual violations.", ">\n\nReminder, Fox News is not news. It's entertainment, and should be regarded as such.", ">\n\nNo shit, poor ppl tend to file their own taxes and screw up where as millionaires hire expensive accountants to exploit all the legal loopholes without getting their clients in trouble.\nI don't think it's an intentional targeting as the article may be implying.", ">\n\nOne might imagine the resources of agents would be better put to use by focusing on returns that might produce more revenue, however it may be just a lot easier to collect a few bucks from easier targets.", ">\n\nThey are short staffed and accountants make it so difficult to find wrongdoing, if there is even wrongdoing to be found, that it would take a decent chunk of their workforce just to tackle it. It's like trying to find needle in a haystack but you don't know if there's a needle or not.", ">\n\nSo true....", ">\n\nShocked pikachu face.", ">\n\nYeah I’d believe this if it weren’t Fox News. They could give a fuck about the poor and middle class.", ">\n\nI would literally rather the IRS spend its time auditing 5 extraordinarily rich people or a single business than anyone who makes less than 100k per year\nETA: I’m aware that this article represents part of the Republican agenda to just gut the IRS and welfare spending generally. And I understand the difficulties in auditing the rich/businesses v lower income people claiming tax credits, etc", ">\n\nAlmost all of the little people \"audits\" are just a computer issuing a correspondence \"audit\" because the person misreported something from their W2, didn't report as much 1099 income as was reported to the IRS by others, or separated parents both trying to claim kids for tax credits or something. \n-\nThey don't really pull from the same resources. The rich people audits require human beings. Little people \"audits\" aren't really audits and a computer can do it. So if we want to audit more rich people, they need actual budget for human beings. The little people are going to be caught anyways because a computer can do it.", ">\n\nI interned at the IRS during the summer of 2012 when Lois Lerner made batshit crazy commrnts that they were targetting conservative groups", ">\n\nI say this every time it gets brought up. This is by design. I used to work in auditing and also used to do tax stuff. It’s super easy to find tax fraud on someone who only has a simple W-2 and no other income. You could find those people through a basic algorithm. Meanwhile, auditing a multi millionaire is expensive, time consuming, and often fruitless. If I was in charge of an underfunded, understaffed IRS I would tell my staff to go for the easy wins too.", ">\n\nUnpopular opinion - More funding won't resolve this. \nThe IRS will keep doing this. Unless rules & regulations forbid or disincentivize this practice, the IRS will keep this stupid practice", ">\n\nI make $40,000 a year and the IRS froze my bank accounts until I paid them $1000 in taxes I owed them because of an error I made filling my taxes. They froze my bank accounts for $1000. I was fucked for a month. I had to borrow cash from people just for food and gas money to get to work to get paid money that I couldn’t access. It was a scary time for me. Meanwhile millionaires are purposely avoiding taxes worth more than what I make in a year and nothing happens to them.", ">\n\nThe IRS sends no less than a dozen letters to a taxpayer prior to leaving a bank account. Why didn't you just put it into a repayment plan? Takes about ten minutes online.", ">\n\nDon't you just hate autocorrect?", ">\n\nIf true, its a holdover from jrbush who slashed IRS staff and budget and told them to spend more time auditing tip jars and busboys than millionaires because the millionaires had better lawyers than the IRS and service workers were unlikely to have any lawyers at all.", ">\n\nFox News solution: remove the IRS", ">\n\nAbsolutely. They’ll NEVER target the rich, adding more agents just made them a lot more capable to target all the lower class.", ">\n\nWhat people don't realize..Those 87K \"Agents\" aren't that. It's 87K employees over 25 years. Clerks etc. People are so fucking stupid when they just believe these clowns.", ">\n\nThose numbers also count it as an \"audit\" when a person misreports a number from a W2, 1099s, etc and the irs number matching software sends an automatically generated correspondence letter that basically says \"we actually show this number, this is what your tax return would have been if you reported that number correctly\". \nThe IRS isn't wasting time doing random \"audits\" as people think of them for low to middle income people. It would be a complete waste of their time. The computer just catches obvious verifiable mistakes and it counts as an audit in those numbers.", ">\n\n“those in the lowest income bracket hit 12.7 per 1,000….. The odds of a millionaire facing an audit were around 1.1%.”\nSo they’re saying 1.27% vs 1.1%!!! And acting like that’s a scandal 🙄", ">\n\nWhich means millionaires REALLY don't want more IRS auditors which means when our new resident house fascist fires five thousand auditors, said fascist (McCarthy) is making sure those millionaires aren't going to get audited. \nCha CHING !!! Go the \"donations\" into house rat republican's pockets. \nThe grift will be in full swing shortly.\nAnd with putin whispering in their ears and telling them EXACTLY how break the law - how can they lose?", ">\n\n💯 Exactly why theres a Fox link here pushing for that same reason.", ">\n\nTwo things. First of all, this is from a far right-wing propaganda outlet which should immediately raise red flags. They're trying to scare you into allowing a republican-initiated movement to entirely remove all remaining power from the IRS by making it seem like they're coming after you.\nSecond, the reason the IRS is already already virtually powerless against the rich is because the republicans have already eviscerated them in the past several decades, largely through defunding them leading to not only staffing cuts, but the inability to pursue the wealthiest people who have the resources for endless litigation. So as a result, the FBI can only really afford to go after people who cannot financially defend themselves.", ">\n\nThird, you might as well throw in that the aiming low guidance was under a Trump appointee who is no longer in that position.", ">\n\nThe GOP intentionally defunded the IRS so that it could not audit the wealthy. It takes a great deal more money upfront to audit them but the payback is far greater.", ">\n\nI'm not sure why dems voted against an amendment that would have mandated the giant infusion of cash into the IRS couldn't be used to audit folks making >$400k.", ">\n\nHrm this is pretty fucked I'd like to hear about why the Dems voted nay.", ">\n\nBecause they work for the same people as Republicans. \nThey are different but only when their owners allow them to be. \nI don't know how many times we are going to have to learn this lesson before it sticks.", ">\n\nDemocrats are responsible for this", ">\n\nThe rich returns are just too hard, enough lower class errors you can leave the rich alone. Love to see it… sigh", ">\n\nIt takes money to police the wealthy. Can't have that can we?!", ">\n\nr/noshitsherlock", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised?\nI’m not even American and this seemed obvious to me. All you have to do is look at how the poor live and compare that to the news about someone like Elon musk or Donald trump.", ">\n\nThis is why the IRS needs to go.", ">\n\nFox News helped make that happen.", ">\n\nThey'll never change,all the time when the guys in charge benefit from doing the same shit.", ">\n\nAnd yet the republicans dont submit or pass legislations to change the rules to favor targeting rich people. Curious.", ">\n\nThen 78,000 new, armed tax collectors should be able to extract even more money from the poor, middle-class and small business owners.", ">\n\nWhy did they focus on the Poorest? The thought of 87,000 more of them will actually do what? If the existing can’t focus on the wealthy! Then what makes anybody think more can?", ">\n\nMillionaires and billionaires make the government more money by creating lobbying loopholes and exploiting the economy to bilk the 99%. It's really cheap to go after the poorest who are struggling to pay day to day obligations and don't have loopholes or government sanctioned exploitation to take advantage of.", ">\n\nI could have told you this would happen. You think millionaires get $600 Venmo transactions?", ">\n\nThat's a move democrats should not make. That's one month of rent for me. What of folks worse-off?", ">\n\nHonestly it’s like squeezing blood from the stone over here anyway.", ">\n\nDuh lmfao theyve already stated it costs too much to tax weathy people previously and its most cost effective to audit the poor due to many factors...", ">\n\nI mean 99% of us are poor compared to the other 1%", ">\n\nColor me surprised", ">\n\nWe need some laws for equitable auditing.", ">\n\nYou are an Army commander about to attack the enemy. Do you prefer to attack where they have experienced career solders backed up by artillery, tanks, and airplanes, or do you attack where there are poorly armed and equipped untrained conscripts?", ">\n\nThey must be upset someone replaced their sign with a card from Cards Against Humanity", ">\n\nMay it ever be so…. Don’t reproduce if you only consume and can’t accumulate or help a Dow Jones winter water witch. Like snow, weathermen.", ">\n\nIt’s weirdly fitting how much their building sign in the photo looks like a cards against humanity card.", ">\n\nTypical", ">\n\nWow? How unusual.", ">\n\nI’d support double the number of IRS agents", ">\n\nI was low income and won about 3,000 gambling, the irs went after me", ">\n\nThe IRS came after me hard for 8$", ">\n\nAudit frequency should correlate to income, someone with a million in income should be audited 10x those with 100k income", ">\n\nSomeone should explain Pareto charts to the IRS.", ">\n\nI've been audited three times. First when I was 27, did some consulting and didn't do the 1099 prepayments. Ended up owing $17k. Second audit was after moving across country for a job. The tax preparer we hired made a mistake with the move expense deductions, owed a few thousand. Third audit was another tax preparer mistake, but this time we overpaid and were owed money we credited to the next year. \nIf you assume for discussion that the average audit on an ordinary tax payer returns $10,000, it would take 100,000,000 audits to make $1 trillion. By just doing the easy work, the IRS is leaving the real money on the table.", ">\n\nRepublicans are famous for giving rich breaks while middle class etc close the gaps", ">\n\nThe last line, \"The Inflation Reduction Act provides the IRS with $80 billion in future funding to ramp up its audits and potentially target the wealthiest taxpayers.\"", ">\n\nThe cure is not the root cause, but the middle class and the poor will eventually bear the burden after the capital operation", ">\n\nIt’s like they timed the “research” and the drop of the article with the speech. Sad man.", ">\n\nWatch Madoff. The wealthy skate and steal billions. The poor are in prison over thousands.", ">\n\nWhy does their sign look like a Card Against Humanity", ">\n\nFucking Trump, still at it.", ">\n\nOh you mean the thing people said would happen once they got massive funding actually happened? Checks out", ">\n\nOf course they did, because millionaires will lawyer up.", ">\n\nBecause the poor can't afford to fight back.", ">\n\nIt's so unfair the poor and the middle class taxpayers suffer so much while the millionaries got away with not paying the taxes It's really hurting the poor. The middle class is fading", ">\n\nAll of this can be fixed if we just use no-exemption graduated income", ">\n\nYeah we know", ">\n\nShow of hands for all surprised.\ncrickets\nHmm. Seems like Reddit suffers from a plague of double amputees...", ">\n\nWhat the actual fuck", ">\n\nAnd 2021, 2020, 2019, …", ">\n\nSounds about right.", ">\n\nOf course. Poor people can’t afford attorneys.", ">\n\nI made a mistake on my forms while I was overseas and ticked “self-employed” instead of “employed”. I was on a student visa and had two children and was making less than 10k a year. They hounded me for years. By the time I figured out what had happened I could not amend the forms and had paid thousands in penalties and interest.\nMeanwhile I knew lots of people who were there fully employed not reporting their income.\nFuck them.", ">\n\nYep! During the pandemic, even while I wasn't working didn't come after me the entire time that I was working but the minute that I wasn't nobody was cuz we were in lockdown they started popping up", ">\n\nI just now realized that the Cards Against Humanity box looks like the IRS sign", ">\n\nWhy is the sign a Cards Against Humanity question?", ">\n\nI am shocked and appalled. clutches pearls", ">\n\nRich should be taxed more than the average not right at all. Or at least there is a tier system based on pay only makes sense. Come on now", ">\n\nSounds about right, make the rich richer again.", ">\n\nWho are we going to vote for in the future ,all of them are decayed , corrupted and useless , the “most rich country in the world , governed by the most ignorant an corrupted. What a contrast .", ">\n\nGod bless America", ">\n\nno way. wait until you see those people responds. Those people are chipping away.", ">\n\nSounds about right", ">\n\nWe know.", ">\n\nI find it rather comical that Fox news is reporting on this since they are all about pushing the Republican agenda and that is all about pushing everyone else down that isn't rich and keeping them there. Not to mention they had no problem with Trump not paying taxes for years.", ">\n\nCan fucking confirm.", ">\n\nYeah, they (millionaires) have accountants who generally do things right and due to their millions being in investments it's not like it's taxable all the time. \nThen there's the ability to sell any stocks when they're down to build up losses on paper can reinvest them at a loss that can carry over across multiple years.", ">\n\nsounds about right. i don’t have a pot to piss in but they’re all over me for someone stealing my identity and filing a double tax return one year.", ">\n\nDuh", ">\n\nThere’s a reason why FOX is posting this article. The less people at the IRS, the more likely they come after folks who can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nIn order to pursue wealthy tax cheats, the IRS needs more resources and personnel. Otherwise it’s business as usual, picking on the low hanging fruit that earns under 6 figures.", ">\n\nSo wrong ....people need to be fired", ">\n\nIt’s because they can’t afford to take them to court", ">\n\nOf course it is about protecting the rich like Trump who lies ,lies , and about his tax returns . No wonder he did not want them released .", ">\n\nEasy prey bc most ppl can not lawyer up. Pretty heart breaking system we have at times.", ">\n\nWhy does the irs sign look like it's from cards against humanity?", ">\n\nCurrently getting audited over \\~$1500, which they owe me, when the rich get away with murder. Fucking unbelievably and unnecessarily stressful for me.", ">\n\nHas t this been know for a while?", ">\n\nyep and they are the same people getting tax cuts while everyone else does it tough ....\nAny one with too much money is your enemy .... not a hero of democracy", ">\n\nGet rid of taxes and the gov’t should just do stuff for free, or what ever.", ">\n\nYou have to be careful when you get one of those CP2000 notices from the IRS. The way they are written is a trap.\nIf you dispute it you are supposed to indicate that you disagree and send it back with documents supporting your dispute.\nYou are only supposed to sign it if you agree with them and when you sign it you are signing away your rights to dispute the back taxes and penalties they are demanding.\nMere worker bees like us can expect to be getting a lot of those from this years tax returns considering how the threshold for 1099k forms has been dropped to $600.\nGuys like Trump? The IRS doesn't even know where to begin.", ">\n\nThanks Biden", ">\n\nI presume those lower-income bracket filers might be more likely to reach out to 1-800-infomercial [quickie settlement/long-term penalties most favorable to gov/proprietor] than retain proper legal counsel?\nRegardless it’s got to be a lot less work for IRS agent to go after under-represented citizen(s), rather than someone who can afford to appeal, properly negotiate on their own terms?", ">\n\nLmfao Dems tax and spend. But I have to admit there Republicans that tax and spend to. Where do these Politicians get off taxing me or business and give to people who don't work what do you cause d the inflation. You can not print money \nI am Conservative not a Republican. To much money is wasted and put in pockets of people ot don't belong.\nBut all dems know how to tax tax tax. \nIts all great and good until you run out if other peoples money. \nMillionaire just like Berny he hated Millionaires until he became one now he hates Trillionaires. Funny how the gold post changes. And good old Nancy her I side stock trading. So I think you need to rethink.", ">\n\nThe IRS is only doing as directed by whomever controls the White House.", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised by this? Really?", ">\n\nThe sign in the thumbnail looks like a Cards Against Humanity card.", ">\n\nWhile this is mostly true, don’t believe everything you read. I’m no more an accountant than I am a ladies man, but someone (said they’re an accountant) posted a few days ago about this. They explained that the most likely people getting audited are trying to, fraudulently or mistakenly, claim the EITC. \nYES, it’s super easy to “bust” these people for an easy “mistake”. This is who the IRS is cracking down on. \nDo I think it’s better to bust poor people for claiming a few thousand in tax credits vs billionaires who avoid taxes altogether? Of course not, but don’t think they’re actively targeting people who fudge their mileage deductions or miss a decimal point in their calculations as small business owners. It’s simply not happening. \nAnd the reported “87,000 new IRS agents” are replacing the 10’s of 1,000’s of employees set to retire or quit over the next 10 years which doesn’t even begin to fill the gaps we’ve been growing for decades by not hiring and training more willing workers. Not to mention they’re not even close to all employees who will actively audit tax payers. They’re people who answer phones, file papers, assist others, etc… They’re mostly just average people with average jobs so of course the GOP wants to end this. They hate upward mobility and job creation unless that means tax breaks for their billionaire friends.", ">\n\nI wish everyone wasn’t a sheep and would understand this.", ">\n\nI can see the Media doing their best to turn the public against the IRS.", ">\n\nPicking on the week and helpless. That’s what we humans do. We suck. I’m waiting for that big meteor reset button.", ">\n\nAnd Fox news loves this.", ">\n\nLove it, Faux 'News' taking the piss, for 4 years under Dear Leader they campaigned for tax breaks for the rich, now they're pretending to care about the poor !", ">\n\nEvery millionaire should be audited yearly. Period.", ">\n\nAND now the gqp cult promises to rescind the money Biden set aside to aid the IRS to recover taxes from mega millionaire tax cheats like benedict donald, who paid less taxes than most working Americans.", ">\n\nRepublicans want to stop the IRS and Congress from taxing rich people, making the burden of maintaining civilization fall more heavily on poorer people. This is why Republicans vote for tax cuts for the rich and against funding for the IRS.\nAnd since Republican beliefs are based on wishful thinking, Republicans can screw over poor, rural Republicans while simultaneously taking credit for doing it to make Republicans happy about it and blaming it on Democrats to make those same Republicans resentful against Democrats for it. And what else would we expect from a Republican Party that blames Democrats for tricking them into attacking the Capitol to make Trump look bad and justifies and approves of assaulting Capitol police while brandishing their \"thin blue line\" flags.", ">\n\nThe IRS is like any other law enforcement agency, they prefer pursuing the poor because they don't have the resources to protect themselves.", ">\n\nThe IRS building sign looks like its from cards against humanity.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nNot a reliable news source.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nThat picture looks like the worst cards against humanity card too get.", ">\n\nScrew the Murdoch media empire and their failed trickle down ideologies.", ">\n\nOf course, the poorest haven’t paid over 400+ billion for decades. Not sure about the rich, we haven’t checked.", ">\n\nThis is not a surprise. With the recent inflation reduction act, the IRS an additional $80B over 10 years or $8B per year. The IRS budget for 2021 was $13.7B. The additional $8B over the year would be an increase of 58% to their budget. They will be looking to get a lot more money from taxpayers, due to this very large increase in their budget.", ">\n\nFox reported this? I'm in shock", ">\n\nAll propagandists publish clickbaity stuff that makes them sound like maybe they've let up on the evil. Unfortunately it works, since people just upvote headlines.", ">\n\nIt’s only going to get worse in 2023. Those 87k new IRS agents will not be going after the wealthy.", ">\n\nWhy?\nThat’s literally why they were being added. The IRS goes after the poorer taxpayers because they are low-hanging fruit and don’t have the lawyers and accountants to protect them. \nThe additional IRS employees were to give the personnel staffing sufficient to go after the wealthy.", ">\n\nIt doesn’t matter how many IRS agents there are. It will always be easier and more profitable for the IRS to nickel and dime the average taxpayer rather than go after the wealthy, who have the resources to lawyer up with the best lawyers and challenge the IRS in court.", ">\n\nEasier? Yes. More profitable? Doubtful.", ">\n\nIf Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control." ]
> Lock them up with the conservatives	[ "If Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nAnd when Barry was president they targeted conservative groups. I think phone calls can be made to tell them to back off of the little guy.", ">\n\n\nthey targeted conservative groups.\n\nNo. They went after specifically anti-tax tea party groups. The groups who openly flaunted tax laws", ">\n\nThey also went after progressive, left leaning groups - how do you explain that ? it was political", ">\n\nWait, did they target conservatives or progressives? Lol", ">\n\nBoth- it was quite clear they were involving themselves in politics - that’s what the IG found", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.", ">\n\nYep!\nAlso this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious.\nThe real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade.", ">\n\nThanks for the informative reply.\nYou make great points which I don't doubt. But there are times when I think it's important to consider both the letter and spirit of law at times.\nEven though it is perfectly by the letter of the law that people should be checked, it also seems against the intended spirit of said law that only a certain group of people are checked.\nI am not familiar with US law, but I think most of us can feel some degree of injustice with how things currently are.", ">\n\nThe point is to automate more checking of income common to wealthier people, and devote more resources to auditing those people. The Fox News article is disingenuous in how it describes the automated checking that goes on. It’s not great that rich people aren’t really audited, but there’s no reason to stop the automated checking of income where it’s already being done and essentially free to continue.\nIf you feel differently, explain yourself.", ">\n\nNo, we are in alignment concerning this.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nFUCK FOX NEWS\nFox is pretending to care about us poors. \nDon't reward these fascist fucks with upvotes for a disingenuous clickbait headline. They still hate us for not voting gop.", ">\n\nThey want people to hate the IRS and help defund it so they don’t go after the rich, which was the purpose of the additional funding", ">\n\nThey want people to link this to “87000” new agents, which is obviously happening on social media posts, but it’s not even a thing.", ">\n\nArticle is trash. The author is including correspondence audits (which means the IRS asked for some documentation by mail) for low income filers but not for millionaires when comparing their audit rates. Here are actual numbers according to their own source:\nAudit rates including correspondence audits\nlow income 1.27%\nmillionaires 2.38% \nAudit rates excluding correspondence audits\nlow income 0.0376%\nmillionaires 1.24%\n.\nFor low income filers, nearly all their audits were correspondence audits.", ">\n\nIt's hilarious when Fox News and the GOP pretend they care about poor people.\nNo amount of hypocrisy is too much to try to make democrats look bad.", ">\n\nIts unfortunately far easier to prove married couples who live together filed HoH for extra earned income credit than it is to prove complicated returns were incorrect.", ">\n\nIt's also trivially easy to prove the same child was claimed by two parents which is a lot of correspondence audits.", ">\n\nSo can my back taxes please just get forgiven already. 20% income being taxed is not livable", ">\n\nRepublican love flat rate taxes, you should talk to them.", ">\n\nThey’re required to audit the president and vice president, and that didn’t happen either.", ">\n\nThis isn't new, it's been been having for the last 5 - 6 years.", ">\n\nHopefully some wake up and realize its all just preparing us for the inevitable destruction of our economy. I imagine its almost too late to realize this. If we all realized this wed sell our 401Ks and not lean on money and use it to help our neighbors.", ">\n\nK bro.", ">\n\nMy wife and I are on social security. She works part time to keep us afloat. All in, we earned $50K in 2022. iRS wants $4500 from us. Really? 5X what Trump paid? Don't know if anyone is paying attention but $50k ain't rich. Oh, and out of that comes almost $4k in Medicare premiums. A program we paid into for 40+ years.\nEveryone of these arrogant, unqualified,, spoon fed assholes in Congress should be made to live on SSI or welfare, with no medical coverage, for a year. Then tell me I am acting entitled.\nSelf serving bastards.", ">\n\nDon't upvote this crap.\nDo you really think Fox cares about the working class??\nThis is just right wing propaganda, timed to coincide with McCarthy's promise to get rid of the new IRS agents who make it possible to audit the rich.\nDon't be used.", ">\n\nWhatever happened to \"dont shoot the messenger?\"", ">\n\nIRS understaffing would naturally trend to go after low-lying fruit. Easy pickings. Too many man hours to go after super complex cases. These moneyed fuckers and their bullshit. It's outrageous.", ">\n\nThe vast majority of these audits are automatically generated correspondence audits that have to be issued. We can't just turn off the program that raises a red flag when two people claim the same child as a dependent because we don't have enough forensic accountants. If you mistype your W2 you'll get an \"audit\" showing the correct info from the copy your boss sent them and telling you they'll correct it unless you tell them otherwise and you don't have to do anything if the info they have is correct.", ">\n\nYeah, all the nonsense about the IRS \"going after\" low income people is so stupid. Low income people make money in a way that their reporting is easily verifiable by a computer. They're also most likely to mess up and claim child tax credits incorrectly, etc - all of which is verifiable and issued a letter by a computer. \n-\nOther than actually being able to get someone on the phone when you call the IRS, and increased budget isn't going to impact the average person in any way.", ">\n\nMy thing is even assuming the 87k don't successfully get more money out of the rich, that's still 87k jobs. That's a net positive. I just don't understand the conservative logic here. Do they think these 87k new jobs are specifically for being insidiously predatory toward the poor? Where's the logic here? (I know I'll get hyperbolic answers, but I genuinely would like to know)", ">\n\nIt's 87,000 jobs over 10 years, the majority of which are replacement during that period. It's just a budget supplemental to stop hemorrhaging agents as they retire or cycle out into other jobs.", ">\n\nso.. this is on fox, which I assume support republican efforts to ensure that this is the permanent state of affairs. I don't really get anything anymore.", ">\n\nAnd that is the way the GOP wants it.", ">\n\n💯 Exactly what this Fox article is trying to do.", ">\n\nIt's who can afford a lawyer", ">\n\nAs the article hints at, the IRS does not do a lot of actual auditing. What it does is computer matching, which automatically generates material for a correspondence audit. Most correspondence audits occur because som poor working Joe didn't know he/her was supposed to include or exclude something, and the IRS caught it in its matching. Of course, the problem is that we have a complex code and little help in actually helping people through the various forms, rules, and so on. But millionaires don't have these issues, so they can escape most of the traps that lead to a correspondence audit. If a lot of these 87,000 were in taxpayer service (which I expect) it would lead to fewer audits at the low end, more robust audits for large corporations, wealthy individuals, and those who actively use tax avoidance strategies. But of course that is not the dialogue that gets promoted when the 87,000 agents are discussed.", ">\n\nThis is exactly why Fox News needs to be dismantled and thrown in the garbage. Ugh, \"look poors! They're coming for yoU!!!\". Scare tactics. And guess what? It sadly works. Every time.\nThey're lower than scum.", ">\n\nExactly. It's when someone misreports a number from their W2, didn't report 1099s they received, both separated parents claim a tax credit for the same kid, etc. All stuff that's easily checked by a computer. The IRS isn't \"auditing\" random low to middle income people. That would be a complete waste of their time.", ">\n\nlooks at Trump You don't say.", ">\n\nThe poor can't defend themselves, it's easier to take a little bit of money from people that won't fight back than a lot of money from people that will.", ">\n\nThe mega rich seem like they’re on a mission to destroy America, as we know it.", ">\n\nHiring 87,000 new IRS agents makes it possible to audit billionaires. So they pay their share. Those audits require an actual person or team that knows what they are doing. But Kevin McCarthy's first item of business was to announce legislation to overturn the hiring of 87,000 IRS agents. Meaning only the little guy (who can be audited by computer software) pays taxes.\nSSDD", ">\n\nThe \"87,000\" agents budget is over a ten year period. It's not for 87,000 new positions.", ">\n\nThe title is so misleading. Im surprised fox even put the juicy bit in the article about how (this stat is due to there not being enough IRS workers because) these \"audits\" on low earners are just automated letters asking for more info.\nYet again, this is just millionairs paid by billionairs to mislead the masses into blaming the poor for crimes committed by said billionairs.", ">\n\nWhich is why the IRS needs more manpower and budget, so they can go after the big fish.\nFuck Fox News and their Republican propaganda pieces. This article coincides with McCarthy saying they’ll cut the IRS budget and that the IRS is coming for you.\nFuck off Republican propaganda rag!\nStop upvoting any Fox News story. Fox should not be on the white list.", ">\n\nThis is a terrible article. It seems to include questions about tax returns as audits. If a low income filer makes a mistake it should be corrected. Is that an audit? If anyone makes a mistake and is contacted, is that an audit? Also there is no reason to go after low income as they rarely pay tax or are required to. The money requested would also pay for people to answer a phone. Those against increasing funding lie when they say all of it goes to audits. If you tell the truth, who cares if you are audited? Are y’all aware you can track your personal return online? However a business cannot. Businesses have to rely on humans that can’t be reached. I’ve waited a year for a refund. Didn’t know if IRS received the return. Didn’t know if there was an issue. Didn’t know if it was mailed or lost. I’m getting tired of Republicans pushing their crap on people.", ">\n\nwho keeps upvoting this right wing propaganda", ">\n\nWhy would the GOP want to give the agency the power to go after their donors.", ">\n\nAnd it was trumps guy that mandated it while Biden replaced him", ">\n\nApparently the mere use of an accounting firm somehow protected corps and the rich from the IRS who still (mistakenly) believe the accounting firms are trustworthy. How naive.", ">\n\nThe \"audits\" talked about are mostly form letters requesting more info about specific items.", ">\n\nThe poor can't pay for top flight attorneys.", ">\n\nYep keep the IRS underfunded so they can only go after the poors at the same time telling all the poors that the IRS is bad cause it goes after them but leave out the fact that they do that cause the poors are low hanging fruit.\nRepublicans are evil.", ">\n\nWell the GOP wants to cut funding to the IRS for new agents, so I’m sure the poor folk will continue to get screwed. I say toss the 50,000+ page tax code out and replace with a percentage based on total revenue/income made. Took a loss? No write-offs. Oh well, better luck next year. It’ll never happen because the wealthy don’t want it to.", ">\n\nWhere did you get this info? I know GOPers have been slashing IRS budgets and staffing for years but can't find reliable sources for what this has done to the actual audits - like who gets audited.", ">\n\nTheir link is Fox. This is a bad faith post.", ">\n\nThis says a lot coming from fox “news”", ">\n\nTo paraphrase Gilbert K. Chesterton, \"The Poor have sometimes objected to being taxed too heavily; The Rich have always objected to being taxed at all.\"", ">\n\ndon't post Fox news here....", ">\n\nCorporations and millionaires have the means to hire accountants and attorneys. Our tax code is gray in several areas. It’s easy to go after the poor that do not have the resources and will have no choice but to pay anything the IRS says. The additional agents will continue to target the poor and middle class because they are easy, It’s happened before, it will continue to happen.", ">\n\nI think it's funny/sad that a poor person can win the lottery and they get taxed at a higher rate than any billionaire has ever been taxed at. The system is built to keep the rich - rich and the poor - poor.", ">\n\nThe poorest can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nThe current system cannot be sustained. We are hurtling towards disaster.", ">\n\nThe only reason the bastards have the majority is because the corrupt SCOTUS allowed illegal gerrymanders to stand while they were fought in the courts.", ">\n\nThe I.R.S. goes after the poorer people because it's easier. They can't afford lawyers and accountants. So the poor can do nothing but roll over and take it up the rump. The Inflation Reduction Act that Biden signed into law in August is supposed to give $80 Billion to the I.R.S. so they can go after the millionaires. But we know that won't happen. More poor people are going to get screwed.", ">\n\nI'm confused. For decades, Faux news and the conservatives have been saying that millionaires deserve to keep more of their money than we do. That was a huge part of the 2017 tax scam that Trump signed. Now Faux is saying it's a problem? And they are rightly detailing that Republicans are the cause, along with Biden trying to fix the same issue that Fox has helped create?", ">\n\nFox News", ">\n\nHey IRS, don't forget to crawl up my ass this year because I sold some old stuff on eBay for a loss but make sure you put a few man hours into figuring out if it is legit or not.", ">\n\nlol, and the people opposed to IRS funding will say they are anti-establishment.", ">\n\nImagine how much they could squeeze the middle class with 87,000 more agents! But really, it’ll be good to see if the increase in officers actually increases tax revenue without changing the underlying laws.", ">\n\nSo, this is the newest Republican boogeyman, the IRS.\nWell, better than Drag Queens I guess.", ">\n\nOh hey just like last year, and the year before that, I think there might be a pattern", ">\n\nThank you republicans, always sticking up in the back on the small guys…", ">\n\nFox News saying this like it’s not something Rupert Murdoch’s network supports is pretty funny.", ">\n\nFox News. Ignore it.", ">\n\nFox News is still allowed in here?", ">\n\nFake news. This is Republican propaganda coming from Fox News.", ">\n\nFox News is NOT news", ">\n\nHmm sounds like it was underfunded then. Good thing now we helped ease that problem. Thanks Biden", ">\n\nIt's simply laziness by the IRS. Lower-income households have less complicated returns and easier to process. I'm sure IRS runs a non-effective but management-pleasing metric like \"how many returns were corrected\" opposed to how much money was recouped.", ">\n\nWe know. They don't have the resources to do anything. That was the point of increasing the staffing at the IRS so they had even the slightest hope of going after the big offenders with their armies or lawyers.", ">\n\nThere's less millionaires and billionaires than there are us. I'm not sure that answer fits the accuracy on hiring more workers but I'll go ahead and amuse that", ">\n\nIt's not a game of tax guy vs rich guy. The rich literally have armies of lawyers. You need the staff to overcome all the paper and challenges they'll throw at you. \nIf you throw one person to audit a millionaire, their lawyers can make it so it'll take a year to review a week of operations. Investigations will never finish unless there's sufficient staff to overcome their obstruction.", ">\n\nTo this day I do not understand why the IRS can demand our documents every year without a warrant. The 16th amendment does not alter the 4th, and the 4th does not apply only to criminal actions (as the 5th explicitly does). Yet no one seems to care about this annual violations.", ">\n\nReminder, Fox News is not news. It's entertainment, and should be regarded as such.", ">\n\nNo shit, poor ppl tend to file their own taxes and screw up where as millionaires hire expensive accountants to exploit all the legal loopholes without getting their clients in trouble.\nI don't think it's an intentional targeting as the article may be implying.", ">\n\nOne might imagine the resources of agents would be better put to use by focusing on returns that might produce more revenue, however it may be just a lot easier to collect a few bucks from easier targets.", ">\n\nThey are short staffed and accountants make it so difficult to find wrongdoing, if there is even wrongdoing to be found, that it would take a decent chunk of their workforce just to tackle it. It's like trying to find needle in a haystack but you don't know if there's a needle or not.", ">\n\nSo true....", ">\n\nShocked pikachu face.", ">\n\nYeah I’d believe this if it weren’t Fox News. They could give a fuck about the poor and middle class.", ">\n\nI would literally rather the IRS spend its time auditing 5 extraordinarily rich people or a single business than anyone who makes less than 100k per year\nETA: I’m aware that this article represents part of the Republican agenda to just gut the IRS and welfare spending generally. And I understand the difficulties in auditing the rich/businesses v lower income people claiming tax credits, etc", ">\n\nAlmost all of the little people \"audits\" are just a computer issuing a correspondence \"audit\" because the person misreported something from their W2, didn't report as much 1099 income as was reported to the IRS by others, or separated parents both trying to claim kids for tax credits or something. \n-\nThey don't really pull from the same resources. The rich people audits require human beings. Little people \"audits\" aren't really audits and a computer can do it. So if we want to audit more rich people, they need actual budget for human beings. The little people are going to be caught anyways because a computer can do it.", ">\n\nI interned at the IRS during the summer of 2012 when Lois Lerner made batshit crazy commrnts that they were targetting conservative groups", ">\n\nI say this every time it gets brought up. This is by design. I used to work in auditing and also used to do tax stuff. It’s super easy to find tax fraud on someone who only has a simple W-2 and no other income. You could find those people through a basic algorithm. Meanwhile, auditing a multi millionaire is expensive, time consuming, and often fruitless. If I was in charge of an underfunded, understaffed IRS I would tell my staff to go for the easy wins too.", ">\n\nUnpopular opinion - More funding won't resolve this. \nThe IRS will keep doing this. Unless rules & regulations forbid or disincentivize this practice, the IRS will keep this stupid practice", ">\n\nI make $40,000 a year and the IRS froze my bank accounts until I paid them $1000 in taxes I owed them because of an error I made filling my taxes. They froze my bank accounts for $1000. I was fucked for a month. I had to borrow cash from people just for food and gas money to get to work to get paid money that I couldn’t access. It was a scary time for me. Meanwhile millionaires are purposely avoiding taxes worth more than what I make in a year and nothing happens to them.", ">\n\nThe IRS sends no less than a dozen letters to a taxpayer prior to leaving a bank account. Why didn't you just put it into a repayment plan? Takes about ten minutes online.", ">\n\nDon't you just hate autocorrect?", ">\n\nIf true, its a holdover from jrbush who slashed IRS staff and budget and told them to spend more time auditing tip jars and busboys than millionaires because the millionaires had better lawyers than the IRS and service workers were unlikely to have any lawyers at all.", ">\n\nFox News solution: remove the IRS", ">\n\nAbsolutely. They’ll NEVER target the rich, adding more agents just made them a lot more capable to target all the lower class.", ">\n\nWhat people don't realize..Those 87K \"Agents\" aren't that. It's 87K employees over 25 years. Clerks etc. People are so fucking stupid when they just believe these clowns.", ">\n\nThose numbers also count it as an \"audit\" when a person misreports a number from a W2, 1099s, etc and the irs number matching software sends an automatically generated correspondence letter that basically says \"we actually show this number, this is what your tax return would have been if you reported that number correctly\". \nThe IRS isn't wasting time doing random \"audits\" as people think of them for low to middle income people. It would be a complete waste of their time. The computer just catches obvious verifiable mistakes and it counts as an audit in those numbers.", ">\n\n“those in the lowest income bracket hit 12.7 per 1,000….. The odds of a millionaire facing an audit were around 1.1%.”\nSo they’re saying 1.27% vs 1.1%!!! And acting like that’s a scandal 🙄", ">\n\nWhich means millionaires REALLY don't want more IRS auditors which means when our new resident house fascist fires five thousand auditors, said fascist (McCarthy) is making sure those millionaires aren't going to get audited. \nCha CHING !!! Go the \"donations\" into house rat republican's pockets. \nThe grift will be in full swing shortly.\nAnd with putin whispering in their ears and telling them EXACTLY how break the law - how can they lose?", ">\n\n💯 Exactly why theres a Fox link here pushing for that same reason.", ">\n\nTwo things. First of all, this is from a far right-wing propaganda outlet which should immediately raise red flags. They're trying to scare you into allowing a republican-initiated movement to entirely remove all remaining power from the IRS by making it seem like they're coming after you.\nSecond, the reason the IRS is already already virtually powerless against the rich is because the republicans have already eviscerated them in the past several decades, largely through defunding them leading to not only staffing cuts, but the inability to pursue the wealthiest people who have the resources for endless litigation. So as a result, the FBI can only really afford to go after people who cannot financially defend themselves.", ">\n\nThird, you might as well throw in that the aiming low guidance was under a Trump appointee who is no longer in that position.", ">\n\nThe GOP intentionally defunded the IRS so that it could not audit the wealthy. It takes a great deal more money upfront to audit them but the payback is far greater.", ">\n\nI'm not sure why dems voted against an amendment that would have mandated the giant infusion of cash into the IRS couldn't be used to audit folks making >$400k.", ">\n\nHrm this is pretty fucked I'd like to hear about why the Dems voted nay.", ">\n\nBecause they work for the same people as Republicans. \nThey are different but only when their owners allow them to be. \nI don't know how many times we are going to have to learn this lesson before it sticks.", ">\n\nDemocrats are responsible for this", ">\n\nThe rich returns are just too hard, enough lower class errors you can leave the rich alone. Love to see it… sigh", ">\n\nIt takes money to police the wealthy. Can't have that can we?!", ">\n\nr/noshitsherlock", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised?\nI’m not even American and this seemed obvious to me. All you have to do is look at how the poor live and compare that to the news about someone like Elon musk or Donald trump.", ">\n\nThis is why the IRS needs to go.", ">\n\nFox News helped make that happen.", ">\n\nThey'll never change,all the time when the guys in charge benefit from doing the same shit.", ">\n\nAnd yet the republicans dont submit or pass legislations to change the rules to favor targeting rich people. Curious.", ">\n\nThen 78,000 new, armed tax collectors should be able to extract even more money from the poor, middle-class and small business owners.", ">\n\nWhy did they focus on the Poorest? The thought of 87,000 more of them will actually do what? If the existing can’t focus on the wealthy! Then what makes anybody think more can?", ">\n\nMillionaires and billionaires make the government more money by creating lobbying loopholes and exploiting the economy to bilk the 99%. It's really cheap to go after the poorest who are struggling to pay day to day obligations and don't have loopholes or government sanctioned exploitation to take advantage of.", ">\n\nI could have told you this would happen. You think millionaires get $600 Venmo transactions?", ">\n\nThat's a move democrats should not make. That's one month of rent for me. What of folks worse-off?", ">\n\nHonestly it’s like squeezing blood from the stone over here anyway.", ">\n\nDuh lmfao theyve already stated it costs too much to tax weathy people previously and its most cost effective to audit the poor due to many factors...", ">\n\nI mean 99% of us are poor compared to the other 1%", ">\n\nColor me surprised", ">\n\nWe need some laws for equitable auditing.", ">\n\nYou are an Army commander about to attack the enemy. Do you prefer to attack where they have experienced career solders backed up by artillery, tanks, and airplanes, or do you attack where there are poorly armed and equipped untrained conscripts?", ">\n\nThey must be upset someone replaced their sign with a card from Cards Against Humanity", ">\n\nMay it ever be so…. Don’t reproduce if you only consume and can’t accumulate or help a Dow Jones winter water witch. Like snow, weathermen.", ">\n\nIt’s weirdly fitting how much their building sign in the photo looks like a cards against humanity card.", ">\n\nTypical", ">\n\nWow? How unusual.", ">\n\nI’d support double the number of IRS agents", ">\n\nI was low income and won about 3,000 gambling, the irs went after me", ">\n\nThe IRS came after me hard for 8$", ">\n\nAudit frequency should correlate to income, someone with a million in income should be audited 10x those with 100k income", ">\n\nSomeone should explain Pareto charts to the IRS.", ">\n\nI've been audited three times. First when I was 27, did some consulting and didn't do the 1099 prepayments. Ended up owing $17k. Second audit was after moving across country for a job. The tax preparer we hired made a mistake with the move expense deductions, owed a few thousand. Third audit was another tax preparer mistake, but this time we overpaid and were owed money we credited to the next year. \nIf you assume for discussion that the average audit on an ordinary tax payer returns $10,000, it would take 100,000,000 audits to make $1 trillion. By just doing the easy work, the IRS is leaving the real money on the table.", ">\n\nRepublicans are famous for giving rich breaks while middle class etc close the gaps", ">\n\nThe last line, \"The Inflation Reduction Act provides the IRS with $80 billion in future funding to ramp up its audits and potentially target the wealthiest taxpayers.\"", ">\n\nThe cure is not the root cause, but the middle class and the poor will eventually bear the burden after the capital operation", ">\n\nIt’s like they timed the “research” and the drop of the article with the speech. Sad man.", ">\n\nWatch Madoff. The wealthy skate and steal billions. The poor are in prison over thousands.", ">\n\nWhy does their sign look like a Card Against Humanity", ">\n\nFucking Trump, still at it.", ">\n\nOh you mean the thing people said would happen once they got massive funding actually happened? Checks out", ">\n\nOf course they did, because millionaires will lawyer up.", ">\n\nBecause the poor can't afford to fight back.", ">\n\nIt's so unfair the poor and the middle class taxpayers suffer so much while the millionaries got away with not paying the taxes It's really hurting the poor. The middle class is fading", ">\n\nAll of this can be fixed if we just use no-exemption graduated income", ">\n\nYeah we know", ">\n\nShow of hands for all surprised.\ncrickets\nHmm. Seems like Reddit suffers from a plague of double amputees...", ">\n\nWhat the actual fuck", ">\n\nAnd 2021, 2020, 2019, …", ">\n\nSounds about right.", ">\n\nOf course. Poor people can’t afford attorneys.", ">\n\nI made a mistake on my forms while I was overseas and ticked “self-employed” instead of “employed”. I was on a student visa and had two children and was making less than 10k a year. They hounded me for years. By the time I figured out what had happened I could not amend the forms and had paid thousands in penalties and interest.\nMeanwhile I knew lots of people who were there fully employed not reporting their income.\nFuck them.", ">\n\nYep! During the pandemic, even while I wasn't working didn't come after me the entire time that I was working but the minute that I wasn't nobody was cuz we were in lockdown they started popping up", ">\n\nI just now realized that the Cards Against Humanity box looks like the IRS sign", ">\n\nWhy is the sign a Cards Against Humanity question?", ">\n\nI am shocked and appalled. clutches pearls", ">\n\nRich should be taxed more than the average not right at all. Or at least there is a tier system based on pay only makes sense. Come on now", ">\n\nSounds about right, make the rich richer again.", ">\n\nWho are we going to vote for in the future ,all of them are decayed , corrupted and useless , the “most rich country in the world , governed by the most ignorant an corrupted. What a contrast .", ">\n\nGod bless America", ">\n\nno way. wait until you see those people responds. Those people are chipping away.", ">\n\nSounds about right", ">\n\nWe know.", ">\n\nI find it rather comical that Fox news is reporting on this since they are all about pushing the Republican agenda and that is all about pushing everyone else down that isn't rich and keeping them there. Not to mention they had no problem with Trump not paying taxes for years.", ">\n\nCan fucking confirm.", ">\n\nYeah, they (millionaires) have accountants who generally do things right and due to their millions being in investments it's not like it's taxable all the time. \nThen there's the ability to sell any stocks when they're down to build up losses on paper can reinvest them at a loss that can carry over across multiple years.", ">\n\nsounds about right. i don’t have a pot to piss in but they’re all over me for someone stealing my identity and filing a double tax return one year.", ">\n\nDuh", ">\n\nThere’s a reason why FOX is posting this article. The less people at the IRS, the more likely they come after folks who can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nIn order to pursue wealthy tax cheats, the IRS needs more resources and personnel. Otherwise it’s business as usual, picking on the low hanging fruit that earns under 6 figures.", ">\n\nSo wrong ....people need to be fired", ">\n\nIt’s because they can’t afford to take them to court", ">\n\nOf course it is about protecting the rich like Trump who lies ,lies , and about his tax returns . No wonder he did not want them released .", ">\n\nEasy prey bc most ppl can not lawyer up. Pretty heart breaking system we have at times.", ">\n\nWhy does the irs sign look like it's from cards against humanity?", ">\n\nCurrently getting audited over \\~$1500, which they owe me, when the rich get away with murder. Fucking unbelievably and unnecessarily stressful for me.", ">\n\nHas t this been know for a while?", ">\n\nyep and they are the same people getting tax cuts while everyone else does it tough ....\nAny one with too much money is your enemy .... not a hero of democracy", ">\n\nGet rid of taxes and the gov’t should just do stuff for free, or what ever.", ">\n\nYou have to be careful when you get one of those CP2000 notices from the IRS. The way they are written is a trap.\nIf you dispute it you are supposed to indicate that you disagree and send it back with documents supporting your dispute.\nYou are only supposed to sign it if you agree with them and when you sign it you are signing away your rights to dispute the back taxes and penalties they are demanding.\nMere worker bees like us can expect to be getting a lot of those from this years tax returns considering how the threshold for 1099k forms has been dropped to $600.\nGuys like Trump? The IRS doesn't even know where to begin.", ">\n\nThanks Biden", ">\n\nI presume those lower-income bracket filers might be more likely to reach out to 1-800-infomercial [quickie settlement/long-term penalties most favorable to gov/proprietor] than retain proper legal counsel?\nRegardless it’s got to be a lot less work for IRS agent to go after under-represented citizen(s), rather than someone who can afford to appeal, properly negotiate on their own terms?", ">\n\nLmfao Dems tax and spend. But I have to admit there Republicans that tax and spend to. Where do these Politicians get off taxing me or business and give to people who don't work what do you cause d the inflation. You can not print money \nI am Conservative not a Republican. To much money is wasted and put in pockets of people ot don't belong.\nBut all dems know how to tax tax tax. \nIts all great and good until you run out if other peoples money. \nMillionaire just like Berny he hated Millionaires until he became one now he hates Trillionaires. Funny how the gold post changes. And good old Nancy her I side stock trading. So I think you need to rethink.", ">\n\nThe IRS is only doing as directed by whomever controls the White House.", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised by this? Really?", ">\n\nThe sign in the thumbnail looks like a Cards Against Humanity card.", ">\n\nWhile this is mostly true, don’t believe everything you read. I’m no more an accountant than I am a ladies man, but someone (said they’re an accountant) posted a few days ago about this. They explained that the most likely people getting audited are trying to, fraudulently or mistakenly, claim the EITC. \nYES, it’s super easy to “bust” these people for an easy “mistake”. This is who the IRS is cracking down on. \nDo I think it’s better to bust poor people for claiming a few thousand in tax credits vs billionaires who avoid taxes altogether? Of course not, but don’t think they’re actively targeting people who fudge their mileage deductions or miss a decimal point in their calculations as small business owners. It’s simply not happening. \nAnd the reported “87,000 new IRS agents” are replacing the 10’s of 1,000’s of employees set to retire or quit over the next 10 years which doesn’t even begin to fill the gaps we’ve been growing for decades by not hiring and training more willing workers. Not to mention they’re not even close to all employees who will actively audit tax payers. They’re people who answer phones, file papers, assist others, etc… They’re mostly just average people with average jobs so of course the GOP wants to end this. They hate upward mobility and job creation unless that means tax breaks for their billionaire friends.", ">\n\nI wish everyone wasn’t a sheep and would understand this.", ">\n\nI can see the Media doing their best to turn the public against the IRS.", ">\n\nPicking on the week and helpless. That’s what we humans do. We suck. I’m waiting for that big meteor reset button.", ">\n\nAnd Fox news loves this.", ">\n\nLove it, Faux 'News' taking the piss, for 4 years under Dear Leader they campaigned for tax breaks for the rich, now they're pretending to care about the poor !", ">\n\nEvery millionaire should be audited yearly. Period.", ">\n\nAND now the gqp cult promises to rescind the money Biden set aside to aid the IRS to recover taxes from mega millionaire tax cheats like benedict donald, who paid less taxes than most working Americans.", ">\n\nRepublicans want to stop the IRS and Congress from taxing rich people, making the burden of maintaining civilization fall more heavily on poorer people. This is why Republicans vote for tax cuts for the rich and against funding for the IRS.\nAnd since Republican beliefs are based on wishful thinking, Republicans can screw over poor, rural Republicans while simultaneously taking credit for doing it to make Republicans happy about it and blaming it on Democrats to make those same Republicans resentful against Democrats for it. And what else would we expect from a Republican Party that blames Democrats for tricking them into attacking the Capitol to make Trump look bad and justifies and approves of assaulting Capitol police while brandishing their \"thin blue line\" flags.", ">\n\nThe IRS is like any other law enforcement agency, they prefer pursuing the poor because they don't have the resources to protect themselves.", ">\n\nThe IRS building sign looks like its from cards against humanity.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nNot a reliable news source.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nThat picture looks like the worst cards against humanity card too get.", ">\n\nScrew the Murdoch media empire and their failed trickle down ideologies.", ">\n\nOf course, the poorest haven’t paid over 400+ billion for decades. Not sure about the rich, we haven’t checked.", ">\n\nThis is not a surprise. With the recent inflation reduction act, the IRS an additional $80B over 10 years or $8B per year. The IRS budget for 2021 was $13.7B. The additional $8B over the year would be an increase of 58% to their budget. They will be looking to get a lot more money from taxpayers, due to this very large increase in their budget.", ">\n\nFox reported this? I'm in shock", ">\n\nAll propagandists publish clickbaity stuff that makes them sound like maybe they've let up on the evil. Unfortunately it works, since people just upvote headlines.", ">\n\nIt’s only going to get worse in 2023. Those 87k new IRS agents will not be going after the wealthy.", ">\n\nWhy?\nThat’s literally why they were being added. The IRS goes after the poorer taxpayers because they are low-hanging fruit and don’t have the lawyers and accountants to protect them. \nThe additional IRS employees were to give the personnel staffing sufficient to go after the wealthy.", ">\n\nIt doesn’t matter how many IRS agents there are. It will always be easier and more profitable for the IRS to nickel and dime the average taxpayer rather than go after the wealthy, who have the resources to lawyer up with the best lawyers and challenge the IRS in court.", ">\n\nEasier? Yes. More profitable? Doubtful.", ">\n\nIf Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?" ]
> This is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt	[ "If Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nAnd when Barry was president they targeted conservative groups. I think phone calls can be made to tell them to back off of the little guy.", ">\n\n\nthey targeted conservative groups.\n\nNo. They went after specifically anti-tax tea party groups. The groups who openly flaunted tax laws", ">\n\nThey also went after progressive, left leaning groups - how do you explain that ? it was political", ">\n\nWait, did they target conservatives or progressives? Lol", ">\n\nBoth- it was quite clear they were involving themselves in politics - that’s what the IG found", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.", ">\n\nYep!\nAlso this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious.\nThe real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade.", ">\n\nThanks for the informative reply.\nYou make great points which I don't doubt. But there are times when I think it's important to consider both the letter and spirit of law at times.\nEven though it is perfectly by the letter of the law that people should be checked, it also seems against the intended spirit of said law that only a certain group of people are checked.\nI am not familiar with US law, but I think most of us can feel some degree of injustice with how things currently are.", ">\n\nThe point is to automate more checking of income common to wealthier people, and devote more resources to auditing those people. The Fox News article is disingenuous in how it describes the automated checking that goes on. It’s not great that rich people aren’t really audited, but there’s no reason to stop the automated checking of income where it’s already being done and essentially free to continue.\nIf you feel differently, explain yourself.", ">\n\nNo, we are in alignment concerning this.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nFUCK FOX NEWS\nFox is pretending to care about us poors. \nDon't reward these fascist fucks with upvotes for a disingenuous clickbait headline. They still hate us for not voting gop.", ">\n\nThey want people to hate the IRS and help defund it so they don’t go after the rich, which was the purpose of the additional funding", ">\n\nThey want people to link this to “87000” new agents, which is obviously happening on social media posts, but it’s not even a thing.", ">\n\nArticle is trash. The author is including correspondence audits (which means the IRS asked for some documentation by mail) for low income filers but not for millionaires when comparing their audit rates. Here are actual numbers according to their own source:\nAudit rates including correspondence audits\nlow income 1.27%\nmillionaires 2.38% \nAudit rates excluding correspondence audits\nlow income 0.0376%\nmillionaires 1.24%\n.\nFor low income filers, nearly all their audits were correspondence audits.", ">\n\nIt's hilarious when Fox News and the GOP pretend they care about poor people.\nNo amount of hypocrisy is too much to try to make democrats look bad.", ">\n\nIts unfortunately far easier to prove married couples who live together filed HoH for extra earned income credit than it is to prove complicated returns were incorrect.", ">\n\nIt's also trivially easy to prove the same child was claimed by two parents which is a lot of correspondence audits.", ">\n\nSo can my back taxes please just get forgiven already. 20% income being taxed is not livable", ">\n\nRepublican love flat rate taxes, you should talk to them.", ">\n\nThey’re required to audit the president and vice president, and that didn’t happen either.", ">\n\nThis isn't new, it's been been having for the last 5 - 6 years.", ">\n\nHopefully some wake up and realize its all just preparing us for the inevitable destruction of our economy. I imagine its almost too late to realize this. If we all realized this wed sell our 401Ks and not lean on money and use it to help our neighbors.", ">\n\nK bro.", ">\n\nMy wife and I are on social security. She works part time to keep us afloat. All in, we earned $50K in 2022. iRS wants $4500 from us. Really? 5X what Trump paid? Don't know if anyone is paying attention but $50k ain't rich. Oh, and out of that comes almost $4k in Medicare premiums. A program we paid into for 40+ years.\nEveryone of these arrogant, unqualified,, spoon fed assholes in Congress should be made to live on SSI or welfare, with no medical coverage, for a year. Then tell me I am acting entitled.\nSelf serving bastards.", ">\n\nDon't upvote this crap.\nDo you really think Fox cares about the working class??\nThis is just right wing propaganda, timed to coincide with McCarthy's promise to get rid of the new IRS agents who make it possible to audit the rich.\nDon't be used.", ">\n\nWhatever happened to \"dont shoot the messenger?\"", ">\n\nIRS understaffing would naturally trend to go after low-lying fruit. Easy pickings. Too many man hours to go after super complex cases. These moneyed fuckers and their bullshit. It's outrageous.", ">\n\nThe vast majority of these audits are automatically generated correspondence audits that have to be issued. We can't just turn off the program that raises a red flag when two people claim the same child as a dependent because we don't have enough forensic accountants. If you mistype your W2 you'll get an \"audit\" showing the correct info from the copy your boss sent them and telling you they'll correct it unless you tell them otherwise and you don't have to do anything if the info they have is correct.", ">\n\nYeah, all the nonsense about the IRS \"going after\" low income people is so stupid. Low income people make money in a way that their reporting is easily verifiable by a computer. They're also most likely to mess up and claim child tax credits incorrectly, etc - all of which is verifiable and issued a letter by a computer. \n-\nOther than actually being able to get someone on the phone when you call the IRS, and increased budget isn't going to impact the average person in any way.", ">\n\nMy thing is even assuming the 87k don't successfully get more money out of the rich, that's still 87k jobs. That's a net positive. I just don't understand the conservative logic here. Do they think these 87k new jobs are specifically for being insidiously predatory toward the poor? Where's the logic here? (I know I'll get hyperbolic answers, but I genuinely would like to know)", ">\n\nIt's 87,000 jobs over 10 years, the majority of which are replacement during that period. It's just a budget supplemental to stop hemorrhaging agents as they retire or cycle out into other jobs.", ">\n\nso.. this is on fox, which I assume support republican efforts to ensure that this is the permanent state of affairs. I don't really get anything anymore.", ">\n\nAnd that is the way the GOP wants it.", ">\n\n💯 Exactly what this Fox article is trying to do.", ">\n\nIt's who can afford a lawyer", ">\n\nAs the article hints at, the IRS does not do a lot of actual auditing. What it does is computer matching, which automatically generates material for a correspondence audit. Most correspondence audits occur because som poor working Joe didn't know he/her was supposed to include or exclude something, and the IRS caught it in its matching. Of course, the problem is that we have a complex code and little help in actually helping people through the various forms, rules, and so on. But millionaires don't have these issues, so they can escape most of the traps that lead to a correspondence audit. If a lot of these 87,000 were in taxpayer service (which I expect) it would lead to fewer audits at the low end, more robust audits for large corporations, wealthy individuals, and those who actively use tax avoidance strategies. But of course that is not the dialogue that gets promoted when the 87,000 agents are discussed.", ">\n\nThis is exactly why Fox News needs to be dismantled and thrown in the garbage. Ugh, \"look poors! They're coming for yoU!!!\". Scare tactics. And guess what? It sadly works. Every time.\nThey're lower than scum.", ">\n\nExactly. It's when someone misreports a number from their W2, didn't report 1099s they received, both separated parents claim a tax credit for the same kid, etc. All stuff that's easily checked by a computer. The IRS isn't \"auditing\" random low to middle income people. That would be a complete waste of their time.", ">\n\nlooks at Trump You don't say.", ">\n\nThe poor can't defend themselves, it's easier to take a little bit of money from people that won't fight back than a lot of money from people that will.", ">\n\nThe mega rich seem like they’re on a mission to destroy America, as we know it.", ">\n\nHiring 87,000 new IRS agents makes it possible to audit billionaires. So they pay their share. Those audits require an actual person or team that knows what they are doing. But Kevin McCarthy's first item of business was to announce legislation to overturn the hiring of 87,000 IRS agents. Meaning only the little guy (who can be audited by computer software) pays taxes.\nSSDD", ">\n\nThe \"87,000\" agents budget is over a ten year period. It's not for 87,000 new positions.", ">\n\nThe title is so misleading. Im surprised fox even put the juicy bit in the article about how (this stat is due to there not being enough IRS workers because) these \"audits\" on low earners are just automated letters asking for more info.\nYet again, this is just millionairs paid by billionairs to mislead the masses into blaming the poor for crimes committed by said billionairs.", ">\n\nWhich is why the IRS needs more manpower and budget, so they can go after the big fish.\nFuck Fox News and their Republican propaganda pieces. This article coincides with McCarthy saying they’ll cut the IRS budget and that the IRS is coming for you.\nFuck off Republican propaganda rag!\nStop upvoting any Fox News story. Fox should not be on the white list.", ">\n\nThis is a terrible article. It seems to include questions about tax returns as audits. If a low income filer makes a mistake it should be corrected. Is that an audit? If anyone makes a mistake and is contacted, is that an audit? Also there is no reason to go after low income as they rarely pay tax or are required to. The money requested would also pay for people to answer a phone. Those against increasing funding lie when they say all of it goes to audits. If you tell the truth, who cares if you are audited? Are y’all aware you can track your personal return online? However a business cannot. Businesses have to rely on humans that can’t be reached. I’ve waited a year for a refund. Didn’t know if IRS received the return. Didn’t know if there was an issue. Didn’t know if it was mailed or lost. I’m getting tired of Republicans pushing their crap on people.", ">\n\nwho keeps upvoting this right wing propaganda", ">\n\nWhy would the GOP want to give the agency the power to go after their donors.", ">\n\nAnd it was trumps guy that mandated it while Biden replaced him", ">\n\nApparently the mere use of an accounting firm somehow protected corps and the rich from the IRS who still (mistakenly) believe the accounting firms are trustworthy. How naive.", ">\n\nThe \"audits\" talked about are mostly form letters requesting more info about specific items.", ">\n\nThe poor can't pay for top flight attorneys.", ">\n\nYep keep the IRS underfunded so they can only go after the poors at the same time telling all the poors that the IRS is bad cause it goes after them but leave out the fact that they do that cause the poors are low hanging fruit.\nRepublicans are evil.", ">\n\nWell the GOP wants to cut funding to the IRS for new agents, so I’m sure the poor folk will continue to get screwed. I say toss the 50,000+ page tax code out and replace with a percentage based on total revenue/income made. Took a loss? No write-offs. Oh well, better luck next year. It’ll never happen because the wealthy don’t want it to.", ">\n\nWhere did you get this info? I know GOPers have been slashing IRS budgets and staffing for years but can't find reliable sources for what this has done to the actual audits - like who gets audited.", ">\n\nTheir link is Fox. This is a bad faith post.", ">\n\nThis says a lot coming from fox “news”", ">\n\nTo paraphrase Gilbert K. Chesterton, \"The Poor have sometimes objected to being taxed too heavily; The Rich have always objected to being taxed at all.\"", ">\n\ndon't post Fox news here....", ">\n\nCorporations and millionaires have the means to hire accountants and attorneys. Our tax code is gray in several areas. It’s easy to go after the poor that do not have the resources and will have no choice but to pay anything the IRS says. The additional agents will continue to target the poor and middle class because they are easy, It’s happened before, it will continue to happen.", ">\n\nI think it's funny/sad that a poor person can win the lottery and they get taxed at a higher rate than any billionaire has ever been taxed at. The system is built to keep the rich - rich and the poor - poor.", ">\n\nThe poorest can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nThe current system cannot be sustained. We are hurtling towards disaster.", ">\n\nThe only reason the bastards have the majority is because the corrupt SCOTUS allowed illegal gerrymanders to stand while they were fought in the courts.", ">\n\nThe I.R.S. goes after the poorer people because it's easier. They can't afford lawyers and accountants. So the poor can do nothing but roll over and take it up the rump. The Inflation Reduction Act that Biden signed into law in August is supposed to give $80 Billion to the I.R.S. so they can go after the millionaires. But we know that won't happen. More poor people are going to get screwed.", ">\n\nI'm confused. For decades, Faux news and the conservatives have been saying that millionaires deserve to keep more of their money than we do. That was a huge part of the 2017 tax scam that Trump signed. Now Faux is saying it's a problem? And they are rightly detailing that Republicans are the cause, along with Biden trying to fix the same issue that Fox has helped create?", ">\n\nFox News", ">\n\nHey IRS, don't forget to crawl up my ass this year because I sold some old stuff on eBay for a loss but make sure you put a few man hours into figuring out if it is legit or not.", ">\n\nlol, and the people opposed to IRS funding will say they are anti-establishment.", ">\n\nImagine how much they could squeeze the middle class with 87,000 more agents! But really, it’ll be good to see if the increase in officers actually increases tax revenue without changing the underlying laws.", ">\n\nSo, this is the newest Republican boogeyman, the IRS.\nWell, better than Drag Queens I guess.", ">\n\nOh hey just like last year, and the year before that, I think there might be a pattern", ">\n\nThank you republicans, always sticking up in the back on the small guys…", ">\n\nFox News saying this like it’s not something Rupert Murdoch’s network supports is pretty funny.", ">\n\nFox News. Ignore it.", ">\n\nFox News is still allowed in here?", ">\n\nFake news. This is Republican propaganda coming from Fox News.", ">\n\nFox News is NOT news", ">\n\nHmm sounds like it was underfunded then. Good thing now we helped ease that problem. Thanks Biden", ">\n\nIt's simply laziness by the IRS. Lower-income households have less complicated returns and easier to process. I'm sure IRS runs a non-effective but management-pleasing metric like \"how many returns were corrected\" opposed to how much money was recouped.", ">\n\nWe know. They don't have the resources to do anything. That was the point of increasing the staffing at the IRS so they had even the slightest hope of going after the big offenders with their armies or lawyers.", ">\n\nThere's less millionaires and billionaires than there are us. I'm not sure that answer fits the accuracy on hiring more workers but I'll go ahead and amuse that", ">\n\nIt's not a game of tax guy vs rich guy. The rich literally have armies of lawyers. You need the staff to overcome all the paper and challenges they'll throw at you. \nIf you throw one person to audit a millionaire, their lawyers can make it so it'll take a year to review a week of operations. Investigations will never finish unless there's sufficient staff to overcome their obstruction.", ">\n\nTo this day I do not understand why the IRS can demand our documents every year without a warrant. The 16th amendment does not alter the 4th, and the 4th does not apply only to criminal actions (as the 5th explicitly does). Yet no one seems to care about this annual violations.", ">\n\nReminder, Fox News is not news. It's entertainment, and should be regarded as such.", ">\n\nNo shit, poor ppl tend to file their own taxes and screw up where as millionaires hire expensive accountants to exploit all the legal loopholes without getting their clients in trouble.\nI don't think it's an intentional targeting as the article may be implying.", ">\n\nOne might imagine the resources of agents would be better put to use by focusing on returns that might produce more revenue, however it may be just a lot easier to collect a few bucks from easier targets.", ">\n\nThey are short staffed and accountants make it so difficult to find wrongdoing, if there is even wrongdoing to be found, that it would take a decent chunk of their workforce just to tackle it. It's like trying to find needle in a haystack but you don't know if there's a needle or not.", ">\n\nSo true....", ">\n\nShocked pikachu face.", ">\n\nYeah I’d believe this if it weren’t Fox News. They could give a fuck about the poor and middle class.", ">\n\nI would literally rather the IRS spend its time auditing 5 extraordinarily rich people or a single business than anyone who makes less than 100k per year\nETA: I’m aware that this article represents part of the Republican agenda to just gut the IRS and welfare spending generally. And I understand the difficulties in auditing the rich/businesses v lower income people claiming tax credits, etc", ">\n\nAlmost all of the little people \"audits\" are just a computer issuing a correspondence \"audit\" because the person misreported something from their W2, didn't report as much 1099 income as was reported to the IRS by others, or separated parents both trying to claim kids for tax credits or something. \n-\nThey don't really pull from the same resources. The rich people audits require human beings. Little people \"audits\" aren't really audits and a computer can do it. So if we want to audit more rich people, they need actual budget for human beings. The little people are going to be caught anyways because a computer can do it.", ">\n\nI interned at the IRS during the summer of 2012 when Lois Lerner made batshit crazy commrnts that they were targetting conservative groups", ">\n\nI say this every time it gets brought up. This is by design. I used to work in auditing and also used to do tax stuff. It’s super easy to find tax fraud on someone who only has a simple W-2 and no other income. You could find those people through a basic algorithm. Meanwhile, auditing a multi millionaire is expensive, time consuming, and often fruitless. If I was in charge of an underfunded, understaffed IRS I would tell my staff to go for the easy wins too.", ">\n\nUnpopular opinion - More funding won't resolve this. \nThe IRS will keep doing this. Unless rules & regulations forbid or disincentivize this practice, the IRS will keep this stupid practice", ">\n\nI make $40,000 a year and the IRS froze my bank accounts until I paid them $1000 in taxes I owed them because of an error I made filling my taxes. They froze my bank accounts for $1000. I was fucked for a month. I had to borrow cash from people just for food and gas money to get to work to get paid money that I couldn’t access. It was a scary time for me. Meanwhile millionaires are purposely avoiding taxes worth more than what I make in a year and nothing happens to them.", ">\n\nThe IRS sends no less than a dozen letters to a taxpayer prior to leaving a bank account. Why didn't you just put it into a repayment plan? Takes about ten minutes online.", ">\n\nDon't you just hate autocorrect?", ">\n\nIf true, its a holdover from jrbush who slashed IRS staff and budget and told them to spend more time auditing tip jars and busboys than millionaires because the millionaires had better lawyers than the IRS and service workers were unlikely to have any lawyers at all.", ">\n\nFox News solution: remove the IRS", ">\n\nAbsolutely. They’ll NEVER target the rich, adding more agents just made them a lot more capable to target all the lower class.", ">\n\nWhat people don't realize..Those 87K \"Agents\" aren't that. It's 87K employees over 25 years. Clerks etc. People are so fucking stupid when they just believe these clowns.", ">\n\nThose numbers also count it as an \"audit\" when a person misreports a number from a W2, 1099s, etc and the irs number matching software sends an automatically generated correspondence letter that basically says \"we actually show this number, this is what your tax return would have been if you reported that number correctly\". \nThe IRS isn't wasting time doing random \"audits\" as people think of them for low to middle income people. It would be a complete waste of their time. The computer just catches obvious verifiable mistakes and it counts as an audit in those numbers.", ">\n\n“those in the lowest income bracket hit 12.7 per 1,000….. The odds of a millionaire facing an audit were around 1.1%.”\nSo they’re saying 1.27% vs 1.1%!!! And acting like that’s a scandal 🙄", ">\n\nWhich means millionaires REALLY don't want more IRS auditors which means when our new resident house fascist fires five thousand auditors, said fascist (McCarthy) is making sure those millionaires aren't going to get audited. \nCha CHING !!! Go the \"donations\" into house rat republican's pockets. \nThe grift will be in full swing shortly.\nAnd with putin whispering in their ears and telling them EXACTLY how break the law - how can they lose?", ">\n\n💯 Exactly why theres a Fox link here pushing for that same reason.", ">\n\nTwo things. First of all, this is from a far right-wing propaganda outlet which should immediately raise red flags. They're trying to scare you into allowing a republican-initiated movement to entirely remove all remaining power from the IRS by making it seem like they're coming after you.\nSecond, the reason the IRS is already already virtually powerless against the rich is because the republicans have already eviscerated them in the past several decades, largely through defunding them leading to not only staffing cuts, but the inability to pursue the wealthiest people who have the resources for endless litigation. So as a result, the FBI can only really afford to go after people who cannot financially defend themselves.", ">\n\nThird, you might as well throw in that the aiming low guidance was under a Trump appointee who is no longer in that position.", ">\n\nThe GOP intentionally defunded the IRS so that it could not audit the wealthy. It takes a great deal more money upfront to audit them but the payback is far greater.", ">\n\nI'm not sure why dems voted against an amendment that would have mandated the giant infusion of cash into the IRS couldn't be used to audit folks making >$400k.", ">\n\nHrm this is pretty fucked I'd like to hear about why the Dems voted nay.", ">\n\nBecause they work for the same people as Republicans. \nThey are different but only when their owners allow them to be. \nI don't know how many times we are going to have to learn this lesson before it sticks.", ">\n\nDemocrats are responsible for this", ">\n\nThe rich returns are just too hard, enough lower class errors you can leave the rich alone. Love to see it… sigh", ">\n\nIt takes money to police the wealthy. Can't have that can we?!", ">\n\nr/noshitsherlock", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised?\nI’m not even American and this seemed obvious to me. All you have to do is look at how the poor live and compare that to the news about someone like Elon musk or Donald trump.", ">\n\nThis is why the IRS needs to go.", ">\n\nFox News helped make that happen.", ">\n\nThey'll never change,all the time when the guys in charge benefit from doing the same shit.", ">\n\nAnd yet the republicans dont submit or pass legislations to change the rules to favor targeting rich people. Curious.", ">\n\nThen 78,000 new, armed tax collectors should be able to extract even more money from the poor, middle-class and small business owners.", ">\n\nWhy did they focus on the Poorest? The thought of 87,000 more of them will actually do what? If the existing can’t focus on the wealthy! Then what makes anybody think more can?", ">\n\nMillionaires and billionaires make the government more money by creating lobbying loopholes and exploiting the economy to bilk the 99%. It's really cheap to go after the poorest who are struggling to pay day to day obligations and don't have loopholes or government sanctioned exploitation to take advantage of.", ">\n\nI could have told you this would happen. You think millionaires get $600 Venmo transactions?", ">\n\nThat's a move democrats should not make. That's one month of rent for me. What of folks worse-off?", ">\n\nHonestly it’s like squeezing blood from the stone over here anyway.", ">\n\nDuh lmfao theyve already stated it costs too much to tax weathy people previously and its most cost effective to audit the poor due to many factors...", ">\n\nI mean 99% of us are poor compared to the other 1%", ">\n\nColor me surprised", ">\n\nWe need some laws for equitable auditing.", ">\n\nYou are an Army commander about to attack the enemy. Do you prefer to attack where they have experienced career solders backed up by artillery, tanks, and airplanes, or do you attack where there are poorly armed and equipped untrained conscripts?", ">\n\nThey must be upset someone replaced their sign with a card from Cards Against Humanity", ">\n\nMay it ever be so…. Don’t reproduce if you only consume and can’t accumulate or help a Dow Jones winter water witch. Like snow, weathermen.", ">\n\nIt’s weirdly fitting how much their building sign in the photo looks like a cards against humanity card.", ">\n\nTypical", ">\n\nWow? How unusual.", ">\n\nI’d support double the number of IRS agents", ">\n\nI was low income and won about 3,000 gambling, the irs went after me", ">\n\nThe IRS came after me hard for 8$", ">\n\nAudit frequency should correlate to income, someone with a million in income should be audited 10x those with 100k income", ">\n\nSomeone should explain Pareto charts to the IRS.", ">\n\nI've been audited three times. First when I was 27, did some consulting and didn't do the 1099 prepayments. Ended up owing $17k. Second audit was after moving across country for a job. The tax preparer we hired made a mistake with the move expense deductions, owed a few thousand. Third audit was another tax preparer mistake, but this time we overpaid and were owed money we credited to the next year. \nIf you assume for discussion that the average audit on an ordinary tax payer returns $10,000, it would take 100,000,000 audits to make $1 trillion. By just doing the easy work, the IRS is leaving the real money on the table.", ">\n\nRepublicans are famous for giving rich breaks while middle class etc close the gaps", ">\n\nThe last line, \"The Inflation Reduction Act provides the IRS with $80 billion in future funding to ramp up its audits and potentially target the wealthiest taxpayers.\"", ">\n\nThe cure is not the root cause, but the middle class and the poor will eventually bear the burden after the capital operation", ">\n\nIt’s like they timed the “research” and the drop of the article with the speech. Sad man.", ">\n\nWatch Madoff. The wealthy skate and steal billions. The poor are in prison over thousands.", ">\n\nWhy does their sign look like a Card Against Humanity", ">\n\nFucking Trump, still at it.", ">\n\nOh you mean the thing people said would happen once they got massive funding actually happened? Checks out", ">\n\nOf course they did, because millionaires will lawyer up.", ">\n\nBecause the poor can't afford to fight back.", ">\n\nIt's so unfair the poor and the middle class taxpayers suffer so much while the millionaries got away with not paying the taxes It's really hurting the poor. The middle class is fading", ">\n\nAll of this can be fixed if we just use no-exemption graduated income", ">\n\nYeah we know", ">\n\nShow of hands for all surprised.\ncrickets\nHmm. Seems like Reddit suffers from a plague of double amputees...", ">\n\nWhat the actual fuck", ">\n\nAnd 2021, 2020, 2019, …", ">\n\nSounds about right.", ">\n\nOf course. Poor people can’t afford attorneys.", ">\n\nI made a mistake on my forms while I was overseas and ticked “self-employed” instead of “employed”. I was on a student visa and had two children and was making less than 10k a year. They hounded me for years. By the time I figured out what had happened I could not amend the forms and had paid thousands in penalties and interest.\nMeanwhile I knew lots of people who were there fully employed not reporting their income.\nFuck them.", ">\n\nYep! During the pandemic, even while I wasn't working didn't come after me the entire time that I was working but the minute that I wasn't nobody was cuz we were in lockdown they started popping up", ">\n\nI just now realized that the Cards Against Humanity box looks like the IRS sign", ">\n\nWhy is the sign a Cards Against Humanity question?", ">\n\nI am shocked and appalled. clutches pearls", ">\n\nRich should be taxed more than the average not right at all. Or at least there is a tier system based on pay only makes sense. Come on now", ">\n\nSounds about right, make the rich richer again.", ">\n\nWho are we going to vote for in the future ,all of them are decayed , corrupted and useless , the “most rich country in the world , governed by the most ignorant an corrupted. What a contrast .", ">\n\nGod bless America", ">\n\nno way. wait until you see those people responds. Those people are chipping away.", ">\n\nSounds about right", ">\n\nWe know.", ">\n\nI find it rather comical that Fox news is reporting on this since they are all about pushing the Republican agenda and that is all about pushing everyone else down that isn't rich and keeping them there. Not to mention they had no problem with Trump not paying taxes for years.", ">\n\nCan fucking confirm.", ">\n\nYeah, they (millionaires) have accountants who generally do things right and due to their millions being in investments it's not like it's taxable all the time. \nThen there's the ability to sell any stocks when they're down to build up losses on paper can reinvest them at a loss that can carry over across multiple years.", ">\n\nsounds about right. i don’t have a pot to piss in but they’re all over me for someone stealing my identity and filing a double tax return one year.", ">\n\nDuh", ">\n\nThere’s a reason why FOX is posting this article. The less people at the IRS, the more likely they come after folks who can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nIn order to pursue wealthy tax cheats, the IRS needs more resources and personnel. Otherwise it’s business as usual, picking on the low hanging fruit that earns under 6 figures.", ">\n\nSo wrong ....people need to be fired", ">\n\nIt’s because they can’t afford to take them to court", ">\n\nOf course it is about protecting the rich like Trump who lies ,lies , and about his tax returns . No wonder he did not want them released .", ">\n\nEasy prey bc most ppl can not lawyer up. Pretty heart breaking system we have at times.", ">\n\nWhy does the irs sign look like it's from cards against humanity?", ">\n\nCurrently getting audited over \\~$1500, which they owe me, when the rich get away with murder. Fucking unbelievably and unnecessarily stressful for me.", ">\n\nHas t this been know for a while?", ">\n\nyep and they are the same people getting tax cuts while everyone else does it tough ....\nAny one with too much money is your enemy .... not a hero of democracy", ">\n\nGet rid of taxes and the gov’t should just do stuff for free, or what ever.", ">\n\nYou have to be careful when you get one of those CP2000 notices from the IRS. The way they are written is a trap.\nIf you dispute it you are supposed to indicate that you disagree and send it back with documents supporting your dispute.\nYou are only supposed to sign it if you agree with them and when you sign it you are signing away your rights to dispute the back taxes and penalties they are demanding.\nMere worker bees like us can expect to be getting a lot of those from this years tax returns considering how the threshold for 1099k forms has been dropped to $600.\nGuys like Trump? The IRS doesn't even know where to begin.", ">\n\nThanks Biden", ">\n\nI presume those lower-income bracket filers might be more likely to reach out to 1-800-infomercial [quickie settlement/long-term penalties most favorable to gov/proprietor] than retain proper legal counsel?\nRegardless it’s got to be a lot less work for IRS agent to go after under-represented citizen(s), rather than someone who can afford to appeal, properly negotiate on their own terms?", ">\n\nLmfao Dems tax and spend. But I have to admit there Republicans that tax and spend to. Where do these Politicians get off taxing me or business and give to people who don't work what do you cause d the inflation. You can not print money \nI am Conservative not a Republican. To much money is wasted and put in pockets of people ot don't belong.\nBut all dems know how to tax tax tax. \nIts all great and good until you run out if other peoples money. \nMillionaire just like Berny he hated Millionaires until he became one now he hates Trillionaires. Funny how the gold post changes. And good old Nancy her I side stock trading. So I think you need to rethink.", ">\n\nThe IRS is only doing as directed by whomever controls the White House.", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised by this? Really?", ">\n\nThe sign in the thumbnail looks like a Cards Against Humanity card.", ">\n\nWhile this is mostly true, don’t believe everything you read. I’m no more an accountant than I am a ladies man, but someone (said they’re an accountant) posted a few days ago about this. They explained that the most likely people getting audited are trying to, fraudulently or mistakenly, claim the EITC. \nYES, it’s super easy to “bust” these people for an easy “mistake”. This is who the IRS is cracking down on. \nDo I think it’s better to bust poor people for claiming a few thousand in tax credits vs billionaires who avoid taxes altogether? Of course not, but don’t think they’re actively targeting people who fudge their mileage deductions or miss a decimal point in their calculations as small business owners. It’s simply not happening. \nAnd the reported “87,000 new IRS agents” are replacing the 10’s of 1,000’s of employees set to retire or quit over the next 10 years which doesn’t even begin to fill the gaps we’ve been growing for decades by not hiring and training more willing workers. Not to mention they’re not even close to all employees who will actively audit tax payers. They’re people who answer phones, file papers, assist others, etc… They’re mostly just average people with average jobs so of course the GOP wants to end this. They hate upward mobility and job creation unless that means tax breaks for their billionaire friends.", ">\n\nI wish everyone wasn’t a sheep and would understand this.", ">\n\nI can see the Media doing their best to turn the public against the IRS.", ">\n\nPicking on the week and helpless. That’s what we humans do. We suck. I’m waiting for that big meteor reset button.", ">\n\nAnd Fox news loves this.", ">\n\nLove it, Faux 'News' taking the piss, for 4 years under Dear Leader they campaigned for tax breaks for the rich, now they're pretending to care about the poor !", ">\n\nEvery millionaire should be audited yearly. Period.", ">\n\nAND now the gqp cult promises to rescind the money Biden set aside to aid the IRS to recover taxes from mega millionaire tax cheats like benedict donald, who paid less taxes than most working Americans.", ">\n\nRepublicans want to stop the IRS and Congress from taxing rich people, making the burden of maintaining civilization fall more heavily on poorer people. This is why Republicans vote for tax cuts for the rich and against funding for the IRS.\nAnd since Republican beliefs are based on wishful thinking, Republicans can screw over poor, rural Republicans while simultaneously taking credit for doing it to make Republicans happy about it and blaming it on Democrats to make those same Republicans resentful against Democrats for it. And what else would we expect from a Republican Party that blames Democrats for tricking them into attacking the Capitol to make Trump look bad and justifies and approves of assaulting Capitol police while brandishing their \"thin blue line\" flags.", ">\n\nThe IRS is like any other law enforcement agency, they prefer pursuing the poor because they don't have the resources to protect themselves.", ">\n\nThe IRS building sign looks like its from cards against humanity.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nNot a reliable news source.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nThat picture looks like the worst cards against humanity card too get.", ">\n\nScrew the Murdoch media empire and their failed trickle down ideologies.", ">\n\nOf course, the poorest haven’t paid over 400+ billion for decades. Not sure about the rich, we haven’t checked.", ">\n\nThis is not a surprise. With the recent inflation reduction act, the IRS an additional $80B over 10 years or $8B per year. The IRS budget for 2021 was $13.7B. The additional $8B over the year would be an increase of 58% to their budget. They will be looking to get a lot more money from taxpayers, due to this very large increase in their budget.", ">\n\nFox reported this? I'm in shock", ">\n\nAll propagandists publish clickbaity stuff that makes them sound like maybe they've let up on the evil. Unfortunately it works, since people just upvote headlines.", ">\n\nIt’s only going to get worse in 2023. Those 87k new IRS agents will not be going after the wealthy.", ">\n\nWhy?\nThat’s literally why they were being added. The IRS goes after the poorer taxpayers because they are low-hanging fruit and don’t have the lawyers and accountants to protect them. \nThe additional IRS employees were to give the personnel staffing sufficient to go after the wealthy.", ">\n\nIt doesn’t matter how many IRS agents there are. It will always be easier and more profitable for the IRS to nickel and dime the average taxpayer rather than go after the wealthy, who have the resources to lawyer up with the best lawyers and challenge the IRS in court.", ">\n\nEasier? Yes. More profitable? Doubtful.", ">\n\nIf Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives" ]
> While I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here. There are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues. Which party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.	[ "If Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nAnd when Barry was president they targeted conservative groups. I think phone calls can be made to tell them to back off of the little guy.", ">\n\n\nthey targeted conservative groups.\n\nNo. They went after specifically anti-tax tea party groups. The groups who openly flaunted tax laws", ">\n\nThey also went after progressive, left leaning groups - how do you explain that ? it was political", ">\n\nWait, did they target conservatives or progressives? Lol", ">\n\nBoth- it was quite clear they were involving themselves in politics - that’s what the IG found", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.", ">\n\nYep!\nAlso this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious.\nThe real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade.", ">\n\nThanks for the informative reply.\nYou make great points which I don't doubt. But there are times when I think it's important to consider both the letter and spirit of law at times.\nEven though it is perfectly by the letter of the law that people should be checked, it also seems against the intended spirit of said law that only a certain group of people are checked.\nI am not familiar with US law, but I think most of us can feel some degree of injustice with how things currently are.", ">\n\nThe point is to automate more checking of income common to wealthier people, and devote more resources to auditing those people. The Fox News article is disingenuous in how it describes the automated checking that goes on. It’s not great that rich people aren’t really audited, but there’s no reason to stop the automated checking of income where it’s already being done and essentially free to continue.\nIf you feel differently, explain yourself.", ">\n\nNo, we are in alignment concerning this.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nFUCK FOX NEWS\nFox is pretending to care about us poors. \nDon't reward these fascist fucks with upvotes for a disingenuous clickbait headline. They still hate us for not voting gop.", ">\n\nThey want people to hate the IRS and help defund it so they don’t go after the rich, which was the purpose of the additional funding", ">\n\nThey want people to link this to “87000” new agents, which is obviously happening on social media posts, but it’s not even a thing.", ">\n\nArticle is trash. The author is including correspondence audits (which means the IRS asked for some documentation by mail) for low income filers but not for millionaires when comparing their audit rates. Here are actual numbers according to their own source:\nAudit rates including correspondence audits\nlow income 1.27%\nmillionaires 2.38% \nAudit rates excluding correspondence audits\nlow income 0.0376%\nmillionaires 1.24%\n.\nFor low income filers, nearly all their audits were correspondence audits.", ">\n\nIt's hilarious when Fox News and the GOP pretend they care about poor people.\nNo amount of hypocrisy is too much to try to make democrats look bad.", ">\n\nIts unfortunately far easier to prove married couples who live together filed HoH for extra earned income credit than it is to prove complicated returns were incorrect.", ">\n\nIt's also trivially easy to prove the same child was claimed by two parents which is a lot of correspondence audits.", ">\n\nSo can my back taxes please just get forgiven already. 20% income being taxed is not livable", ">\n\nRepublican love flat rate taxes, you should talk to them.", ">\n\nThey’re required to audit the president and vice president, and that didn’t happen either.", ">\n\nThis isn't new, it's been been having for the last 5 - 6 years.", ">\n\nHopefully some wake up and realize its all just preparing us for the inevitable destruction of our economy. I imagine its almost too late to realize this. If we all realized this wed sell our 401Ks and not lean on money and use it to help our neighbors.", ">\n\nK bro.", ">\n\nMy wife and I are on social security. She works part time to keep us afloat. All in, we earned $50K in 2022. iRS wants $4500 from us. Really? 5X what Trump paid? Don't know if anyone is paying attention but $50k ain't rich. Oh, and out of that comes almost $4k in Medicare premiums. A program we paid into for 40+ years.\nEveryone of these arrogant, unqualified,, spoon fed assholes in Congress should be made to live on SSI or welfare, with no medical coverage, for a year. Then tell me I am acting entitled.\nSelf serving bastards.", ">\n\nDon't upvote this crap.\nDo you really think Fox cares about the working class??\nThis is just right wing propaganda, timed to coincide with McCarthy's promise to get rid of the new IRS agents who make it possible to audit the rich.\nDon't be used.", ">\n\nWhatever happened to \"dont shoot the messenger?\"", ">\n\nIRS understaffing would naturally trend to go after low-lying fruit. Easy pickings. Too many man hours to go after super complex cases. These moneyed fuckers and their bullshit. It's outrageous.", ">\n\nThe vast majority of these audits are automatically generated correspondence audits that have to be issued. We can't just turn off the program that raises a red flag when two people claim the same child as a dependent because we don't have enough forensic accountants. If you mistype your W2 you'll get an \"audit\" showing the correct info from the copy your boss sent them and telling you they'll correct it unless you tell them otherwise and you don't have to do anything if the info they have is correct.", ">\n\nYeah, all the nonsense about the IRS \"going after\" low income people is so stupid. Low income people make money in a way that their reporting is easily verifiable by a computer. They're also most likely to mess up and claim child tax credits incorrectly, etc - all of which is verifiable and issued a letter by a computer. \n-\nOther than actually being able to get someone on the phone when you call the IRS, and increased budget isn't going to impact the average person in any way.", ">\n\nMy thing is even assuming the 87k don't successfully get more money out of the rich, that's still 87k jobs. That's a net positive. I just don't understand the conservative logic here. Do they think these 87k new jobs are specifically for being insidiously predatory toward the poor? Where's the logic here? (I know I'll get hyperbolic answers, but I genuinely would like to know)", ">\n\nIt's 87,000 jobs over 10 years, the majority of which are replacement during that period. It's just a budget supplemental to stop hemorrhaging agents as they retire or cycle out into other jobs.", ">\n\nso.. this is on fox, which I assume support republican efforts to ensure that this is the permanent state of affairs. I don't really get anything anymore.", ">\n\nAnd that is the way the GOP wants it.", ">\n\n💯 Exactly what this Fox article is trying to do.", ">\n\nIt's who can afford a lawyer", ">\n\nAs the article hints at, the IRS does not do a lot of actual auditing. What it does is computer matching, which automatically generates material for a correspondence audit. Most correspondence audits occur because som poor working Joe didn't know he/her was supposed to include or exclude something, and the IRS caught it in its matching. Of course, the problem is that we have a complex code and little help in actually helping people through the various forms, rules, and so on. But millionaires don't have these issues, so they can escape most of the traps that lead to a correspondence audit. If a lot of these 87,000 were in taxpayer service (which I expect) it would lead to fewer audits at the low end, more robust audits for large corporations, wealthy individuals, and those who actively use tax avoidance strategies. But of course that is not the dialogue that gets promoted when the 87,000 agents are discussed.", ">\n\nThis is exactly why Fox News needs to be dismantled and thrown in the garbage. Ugh, \"look poors! They're coming for yoU!!!\". Scare tactics. And guess what? It sadly works. Every time.\nThey're lower than scum.", ">\n\nExactly. It's when someone misreports a number from their W2, didn't report 1099s they received, both separated parents claim a tax credit for the same kid, etc. All stuff that's easily checked by a computer. The IRS isn't \"auditing\" random low to middle income people. That would be a complete waste of their time.", ">\n\nlooks at Trump You don't say.", ">\n\nThe poor can't defend themselves, it's easier to take a little bit of money from people that won't fight back than a lot of money from people that will.", ">\n\nThe mega rich seem like they’re on a mission to destroy America, as we know it.", ">\n\nHiring 87,000 new IRS agents makes it possible to audit billionaires. So they pay their share. Those audits require an actual person or team that knows what they are doing. But Kevin McCarthy's first item of business was to announce legislation to overturn the hiring of 87,000 IRS agents. Meaning only the little guy (who can be audited by computer software) pays taxes.\nSSDD", ">\n\nThe \"87,000\" agents budget is over a ten year period. It's not for 87,000 new positions.", ">\n\nThe title is so misleading. Im surprised fox even put the juicy bit in the article about how (this stat is due to there not being enough IRS workers because) these \"audits\" on low earners are just automated letters asking for more info.\nYet again, this is just millionairs paid by billionairs to mislead the masses into blaming the poor for crimes committed by said billionairs.", ">\n\nWhich is why the IRS needs more manpower and budget, so they can go after the big fish.\nFuck Fox News and their Republican propaganda pieces. This article coincides with McCarthy saying they’ll cut the IRS budget and that the IRS is coming for you.\nFuck off Republican propaganda rag!\nStop upvoting any Fox News story. Fox should not be on the white list.", ">\n\nThis is a terrible article. It seems to include questions about tax returns as audits. If a low income filer makes a mistake it should be corrected. Is that an audit? If anyone makes a mistake and is contacted, is that an audit? Also there is no reason to go after low income as they rarely pay tax or are required to. The money requested would also pay for people to answer a phone. Those against increasing funding lie when they say all of it goes to audits. If you tell the truth, who cares if you are audited? Are y’all aware you can track your personal return online? However a business cannot. Businesses have to rely on humans that can’t be reached. I’ve waited a year for a refund. Didn’t know if IRS received the return. Didn’t know if there was an issue. Didn’t know if it was mailed or lost. I’m getting tired of Republicans pushing their crap on people.", ">\n\nwho keeps upvoting this right wing propaganda", ">\n\nWhy would the GOP want to give the agency the power to go after their donors.", ">\n\nAnd it was trumps guy that mandated it while Biden replaced him", ">\n\nApparently the mere use of an accounting firm somehow protected corps and the rich from the IRS who still (mistakenly) believe the accounting firms are trustworthy. How naive.", ">\n\nThe \"audits\" talked about are mostly form letters requesting more info about specific items.", ">\n\nThe poor can't pay for top flight attorneys.", ">\n\nYep keep the IRS underfunded so they can only go after the poors at the same time telling all the poors that the IRS is bad cause it goes after them but leave out the fact that they do that cause the poors are low hanging fruit.\nRepublicans are evil.", ">\n\nWell the GOP wants to cut funding to the IRS for new agents, so I’m sure the poor folk will continue to get screwed. I say toss the 50,000+ page tax code out and replace with a percentage based on total revenue/income made. Took a loss? No write-offs. Oh well, better luck next year. It’ll never happen because the wealthy don’t want it to.", ">\n\nWhere did you get this info? I know GOPers have been slashing IRS budgets and staffing for years but can't find reliable sources for what this has done to the actual audits - like who gets audited.", ">\n\nTheir link is Fox. This is a bad faith post.", ">\n\nThis says a lot coming from fox “news”", ">\n\nTo paraphrase Gilbert K. Chesterton, \"The Poor have sometimes objected to being taxed too heavily; The Rich have always objected to being taxed at all.\"", ">\n\ndon't post Fox news here....", ">\n\nCorporations and millionaires have the means to hire accountants and attorneys. Our tax code is gray in several areas. It’s easy to go after the poor that do not have the resources and will have no choice but to pay anything the IRS says. The additional agents will continue to target the poor and middle class because they are easy, It’s happened before, it will continue to happen.", ">\n\nI think it's funny/sad that a poor person can win the lottery and they get taxed at a higher rate than any billionaire has ever been taxed at. The system is built to keep the rich - rich and the poor - poor.", ">\n\nThe poorest can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nThe current system cannot be sustained. We are hurtling towards disaster.", ">\n\nThe only reason the bastards have the majority is because the corrupt SCOTUS allowed illegal gerrymanders to stand while they were fought in the courts.", ">\n\nThe I.R.S. goes after the poorer people because it's easier. They can't afford lawyers and accountants. So the poor can do nothing but roll over and take it up the rump. The Inflation Reduction Act that Biden signed into law in August is supposed to give $80 Billion to the I.R.S. so they can go after the millionaires. But we know that won't happen. More poor people are going to get screwed.", ">\n\nI'm confused. For decades, Faux news and the conservatives have been saying that millionaires deserve to keep more of their money than we do. That was a huge part of the 2017 tax scam that Trump signed. Now Faux is saying it's a problem? And they are rightly detailing that Republicans are the cause, along with Biden trying to fix the same issue that Fox has helped create?", ">\n\nFox News", ">\n\nHey IRS, don't forget to crawl up my ass this year because I sold some old stuff on eBay for a loss but make sure you put a few man hours into figuring out if it is legit or not.", ">\n\nlol, and the people opposed to IRS funding will say they are anti-establishment.", ">\n\nImagine how much they could squeeze the middle class with 87,000 more agents! But really, it’ll be good to see if the increase in officers actually increases tax revenue without changing the underlying laws.", ">\n\nSo, this is the newest Republican boogeyman, the IRS.\nWell, better than Drag Queens I guess.", ">\n\nOh hey just like last year, and the year before that, I think there might be a pattern", ">\n\nThank you republicans, always sticking up in the back on the small guys…", ">\n\nFox News saying this like it’s not something Rupert Murdoch’s network supports is pretty funny.", ">\n\nFox News. Ignore it.", ">\n\nFox News is still allowed in here?", ">\n\nFake news. This is Republican propaganda coming from Fox News.", ">\n\nFox News is NOT news", ">\n\nHmm sounds like it was underfunded then. Good thing now we helped ease that problem. Thanks Biden", ">\n\nIt's simply laziness by the IRS. Lower-income households have less complicated returns and easier to process. I'm sure IRS runs a non-effective but management-pleasing metric like \"how many returns were corrected\" opposed to how much money was recouped.", ">\n\nWe know. They don't have the resources to do anything. That was the point of increasing the staffing at the IRS so they had even the slightest hope of going after the big offenders with their armies or lawyers.", ">\n\nThere's less millionaires and billionaires than there are us. I'm not sure that answer fits the accuracy on hiring more workers but I'll go ahead and amuse that", ">\n\nIt's not a game of tax guy vs rich guy. The rich literally have armies of lawyers. You need the staff to overcome all the paper and challenges they'll throw at you. \nIf you throw one person to audit a millionaire, their lawyers can make it so it'll take a year to review a week of operations. Investigations will never finish unless there's sufficient staff to overcome their obstruction.", ">\n\nTo this day I do not understand why the IRS can demand our documents every year without a warrant. The 16th amendment does not alter the 4th, and the 4th does not apply only to criminal actions (as the 5th explicitly does). Yet no one seems to care about this annual violations.", ">\n\nReminder, Fox News is not news. It's entertainment, and should be regarded as such.", ">\n\nNo shit, poor ppl tend to file their own taxes and screw up where as millionaires hire expensive accountants to exploit all the legal loopholes without getting their clients in trouble.\nI don't think it's an intentional targeting as the article may be implying.", ">\n\nOne might imagine the resources of agents would be better put to use by focusing on returns that might produce more revenue, however it may be just a lot easier to collect a few bucks from easier targets.", ">\n\nThey are short staffed and accountants make it so difficult to find wrongdoing, if there is even wrongdoing to be found, that it would take a decent chunk of their workforce just to tackle it. It's like trying to find needle in a haystack but you don't know if there's a needle or not.", ">\n\nSo true....", ">\n\nShocked pikachu face.", ">\n\nYeah I’d believe this if it weren’t Fox News. They could give a fuck about the poor and middle class.", ">\n\nI would literally rather the IRS spend its time auditing 5 extraordinarily rich people or a single business than anyone who makes less than 100k per year\nETA: I’m aware that this article represents part of the Republican agenda to just gut the IRS and welfare spending generally. And I understand the difficulties in auditing the rich/businesses v lower income people claiming tax credits, etc", ">\n\nAlmost all of the little people \"audits\" are just a computer issuing a correspondence \"audit\" because the person misreported something from their W2, didn't report as much 1099 income as was reported to the IRS by others, or separated parents both trying to claim kids for tax credits or something. \n-\nThey don't really pull from the same resources. The rich people audits require human beings. Little people \"audits\" aren't really audits and a computer can do it. So if we want to audit more rich people, they need actual budget for human beings. The little people are going to be caught anyways because a computer can do it.", ">\n\nI interned at the IRS during the summer of 2012 when Lois Lerner made batshit crazy commrnts that they were targetting conservative groups", ">\n\nI say this every time it gets brought up. This is by design. I used to work in auditing and also used to do tax stuff. It’s super easy to find tax fraud on someone who only has a simple W-2 and no other income. You could find those people through a basic algorithm. Meanwhile, auditing a multi millionaire is expensive, time consuming, and often fruitless. If I was in charge of an underfunded, understaffed IRS I would tell my staff to go for the easy wins too.", ">\n\nUnpopular opinion - More funding won't resolve this. \nThe IRS will keep doing this. Unless rules & regulations forbid or disincentivize this practice, the IRS will keep this stupid practice", ">\n\nI make $40,000 a year and the IRS froze my bank accounts until I paid them $1000 in taxes I owed them because of an error I made filling my taxes. They froze my bank accounts for $1000. I was fucked for a month. I had to borrow cash from people just for food and gas money to get to work to get paid money that I couldn’t access. It was a scary time for me. Meanwhile millionaires are purposely avoiding taxes worth more than what I make in a year and nothing happens to them.", ">\n\nThe IRS sends no less than a dozen letters to a taxpayer prior to leaving a bank account. Why didn't you just put it into a repayment plan? Takes about ten minutes online.", ">\n\nDon't you just hate autocorrect?", ">\n\nIf true, its a holdover from jrbush who slashed IRS staff and budget and told them to spend more time auditing tip jars and busboys than millionaires because the millionaires had better lawyers than the IRS and service workers were unlikely to have any lawyers at all.", ">\n\nFox News solution: remove the IRS", ">\n\nAbsolutely. They’ll NEVER target the rich, adding more agents just made them a lot more capable to target all the lower class.", ">\n\nWhat people don't realize..Those 87K \"Agents\" aren't that. It's 87K employees over 25 years. Clerks etc. People are so fucking stupid when they just believe these clowns.", ">\n\nThose numbers also count it as an \"audit\" when a person misreports a number from a W2, 1099s, etc and the irs number matching software sends an automatically generated correspondence letter that basically says \"we actually show this number, this is what your tax return would have been if you reported that number correctly\". \nThe IRS isn't wasting time doing random \"audits\" as people think of them for low to middle income people. It would be a complete waste of their time. The computer just catches obvious verifiable mistakes and it counts as an audit in those numbers.", ">\n\n“those in the lowest income bracket hit 12.7 per 1,000….. The odds of a millionaire facing an audit were around 1.1%.”\nSo they’re saying 1.27% vs 1.1%!!! And acting like that’s a scandal 🙄", ">\n\nWhich means millionaires REALLY don't want more IRS auditors which means when our new resident house fascist fires five thousand auditors, said fascist (McCarthy) is making sure those millionaires aren't going to get audited. \nCha CHING !!! Go the \"donations\" into house rat republican's pockets. \nThe grift will be in full swing shortly.\nAnd with putin whispering in their ears and telling them EXACTLY how break the law - how can they lose?", ">\n\n💯 Exactly why theres a Fox link here pushing for that same reason.", ">\n\nTwo things. First of all, this is from a far right-wing propaganda outlet which should immediately raise red flags. They're trying to scare you into allowing a republican-initiated movement to entirely remove all remaining power from the IRS by making it seem like they're coming after you.\nSecond, the reason the IRS is already already virtually powerless against the rich is because the republicans have already eviscerated them in the past several decades, largely through defunding them leading to not only staffing cuts, but the inability to pursue the wealthiest people who have the resources for endless litigation. So as a result, the FBI can only really afford to go after people who cannot financially defend themselves.", ">\n\nThird, you might as well throw in that the aiming low guidance was under a Trump appointee who is no longer in that position.", ">\n\nThe GOP intentionally defunded the IRS so that it could not audit the wealthy. It takes a great deal more money upfront to audit them but the payback is far greater.", ">\n\nI'm not sure why dems voted against an amendment that would have mandated the giant infusion of cash into the IRS couldn't be used to audit folks making >$400k.", ">\n\nHrm this is pretty fucked I'd like to hear about why the Dems voted nay.", ">\n\nBecause they work for the same people as Republicans. \nThey are different but only when their owners allow them to be. \nI don't know how many times we are going to have to learn this lesson before it sticks.", ">\n\nDemocrats are responsible for this", ">\n\nThe rich returns are just too hard, enough lower class errors you can leave the rich alone. Love to see it… sigh", ">\n\nIt takes money to police the wealthy. Can't have that can we?!", ">\n\nr/noshitsherlock", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised?\nI’m not even American and this seemed obvious to me. All you have to do is look at how the poor live and compare that to the news about someone like Elon musk or Donald trump.", ">\n\nThis is why the IRS needs to go.", ">\n\nFox News helped make that happen.", ">\n\nThey'll never change,all the time when the guys in charge benefit from doing the same shit.", ">\n\nAnd yet the republicans dont submit or pass legislations to change the rules to favor targeting rich people. Curious.", ">\n\nThen 78,000 new, armed tax collectors should be able to extract even more money from the poor, middle-class and small business owners.", ">\n\nWhy did they focus on the Poorest? The thought of 87,000 more of them will actually do what? If the existing can’t focus on the wealthy! Then what makes anybody think more can?", ">\n\nMillionaires and billionaires make the government more money by creating lobbying loopholes and exploiting the economy to bilk the 99%. It's really cheap to go after the poorest who are struggling to pay day to day obligations and don't have loopholes or government sanctioned exploitation to take advantage of.", ">\n\nI could have told you this would happen. You think millionaires get $600 Venmo transactions?", ">\n\nThat's a move democrats should not make. That's one month of rent for me. What of folks worse-off?", ">\n\nHonestly it’s like squeezing blood from the stone over here anyway.", ">\n\nDuh lmfao theyve already stated it costs too much to tax weathy people previously and its most cost effective to audit the poor due to many factors...", ">\n\nI mean 99% of us are poor compared to the other 1%", ">\n\nColor me surprised", ">\n\nWe need some laws for equitable auditing.", ">\n\nYou are an Army commander about to attack the enemy. Do you prefer to attack where they have experienced career solders backed up by artillery, tanks, and airplanes, or do you attack where there are poorly armed and equipped untrained conscripts?", ">\n\nThey must be upset someone replaced their sign with a card from Cards Against Humanity", ">\n\nMay it ever be so…. Don’t reproduce if you only consume and can’t accumulate or help a Dow Jones winter water witch. Like snow, weathermen.", ">\n\nIt’s weirdly fitting how much their building sign in the photo looks like a cards against humanity card.", ">\n\nTypical", ">\n\nWow? How unusual.", ">\n\nI’d support double the number of IRS agents", ">\n\nI was low income and won about 3,000 gambling, the irs went after me", ">\n\nThe IRS came after me hard for 8$", ">\n\nAudit frequency should correlate to income, someone with a million in income should be audited 10x those with 100k income", ">\n\nSomeone should explain Pareto charts to the IRS.", ">\n\nI've been audited three times. First when I was 27, did some consulting and didn't do the 1099 prepayments. Ended up owing $17k. Second audit was after moving across country for a job. The tax preparer we hired made a mistake with the move expense deductions, owed a few thousand. Third audit was another tax preparer mistake, but this time we overpaid and were owed money we credited to the next year. \nIf you assume for discussion that the average audit on an ordinary tax payer returns $10,000, it would take 100,000,000 audits to make $1 trillion. By just doing the easy work, the IRS is leaving the real money on the table.", ">\n\nRepublicans are famous for giving rich breaks while middle class etc close the gaps", ">\n\nThe last line, \"The Inflation Reduction Act provides the IRS with $80 billion in future funding to ramp up its audits and potentially target the wealthiest taxpayers.\"", ">\n\nThe cure is not the root cause, but the middle class and the poor will eventually bear the burden after the capital operation", ">\n\nIt’s like they timed the “research” and the drop of the article with the speech. Sad man.", ">\n\nWatch Madoff. The wealthy skate and steal billions. The poor are in prison over thousands.", ">\n\nWhy does their sign look like a Card Against Humanity", ">\n\nFucking Trump, still at it.", ">\n\nOh you mean the thing people said would happen once they got massive funding actually happened? Checks out", ">\n\nOf course they did, because millionaires will lawyer up.", ">\n\nBecause the poor can't afford to fight back.", ">\n\nIt's so unfair the poor and the middle class taxpayers suffer so much while the millionaries got away with not paying the taxes It's really hurting the poor. The middle class is fading", ">\n\nAll of this can be fixed if we just use no-exemption graduated income", ">\n\nYeah we know", ">\n\nShow of hands for all surprised.\ncrickets\nHmm. Seems like Reddit suffers from a plague of double amputees...", ">\n\nWhat the actual fuck", ">\n\nAnd 2021, 2020, 2019, …", ">\n\nSounds about right.", ">\n\nOf course. Poor people can’t afford attorneys.", ">\n\nI made a mistake on my forms while I was overseas and ticked “self-employed” instead of “employed”. I was on a student visa and had two children and was making less than 10k a year. They hounded me for years. By the time I figured out what had happened I could not amend the forms and had paid thousands in penalties and interest.\nMeanwhile I knew lots of people who were there fully employed not reporting their income.\nFuck them.", ">\n\nYep! During the pandemic, even while I wasn't working didn't come after me the entire time that I was working but the minute that I wasn't nobody was cuz we were in lockdown they started popping up", ">\n\nI just now realized that the Cards Against Humanity box looks like the IRS sign", ">\n\nWhy is the sign a Cards Against Humanity question?", ">\n\nI am shocked and appalled. clutches pearls", ">\n\nRich should be taxed more than the average not right at all. Or at least there is a tier system based on pay only makes sense. Come on now", ">\n\nSounds about right, make the rich richer again.", ">\n\nWho are we going to vote for in the future ,all of them are decayed , corrupted and useless , the “most rich country in the world , governed by the most ignorant an corrupted. What a contrast .", ">\n\nGod bless America", ">\n\nno way. wait until you see those people responds. Those people are chipping away.", ">\n\nSounds about right", ">\n\nWe know.", ">\n\nI find it rather comical that Fox news is reporting on this since they are all about pushing the Republican agenda and that is all about pushing everyone else down that isn't rich and keeping them there. Not to mention they had no problem with Trump not paying taxes for years.", ">\n\nCan fucking confirm.", ">\n\nYeah, they (millionaires) have accountants who generally do things right and due to their millions being in investments it's not like it's taxable all the time. \nThen there's the ability to sell any stocks when they're down to build up losses on paper can reinvest them at a loss that can carry over across multiple years.", ">\n\nsounds about right. i don’t have a pot to piss in but they’re all over me for someone stealing my identity and filing a double tax return one year.", ">\n\nDuh", ">\n\nThere’s a reason why FOX is posting this article. The less people at the IRS, the more likely they come after folks who can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nIn order to pursue wealthy tax cheats, the IRS needs more resources and personnel. Otherwise it’s business as usual, picking on the low hanging fruit that earns under 6 figures.", ">\n\nSo wrong ....people need to be fired", ">\n\nIt’s because they can’t afford to take them to court", ">\n\nOf course it is about protecting the rich like Trump who lies ,lies , and about his tax returns . No wonder he did not want them released .", ">\n\nEasy prey bc most ppl can not lawyer up. Pretty heart breaking system we have at times.", ">\n\nWhy does the irs sign look like it's from cards against humanity?", ">\n\nCurrently getting audited over \\~$1500, which they owe me, when the rich get away with murder. Fucking unbelievably and unnecessarily stressful for me.", ">\n\nHas t this been know for a while?", ">\n\nyep and they are the same people getting tax cuts while everyone else does it tough ....\nAny one with too much money is your enemy .... not a hero of democracy", ">\n\nGet rid of taxes and the gov’t should just do stuff for free, or what ever.", ">\n\nYou have to be careful when you get one of those CP2000 notices from the IRS. The way they are written is a trap.\nIf you dispute it you are supposed to indicate that you disagree and send it back with documents supporting your dispute.\nYou are only supposed to sign it if you agree with them and when you sign it you are signing away your rights to dispute the back taxes and penalties they are demanding.\nMere worker bees like us can expect to be getting a lot of those from this years tax returns considering how the threshold for 1099k forms has been dropped to $600.\nGuys like Trump? The IRS doesn't even know where to begin.", ">\n\nThanks Biden", ">\n\nI presume those lower-income bracket filers might be more likely to reach out to 1-800-infomercial [quickie settlement/long-term penalties most favorable to gov/proprietor] than retain proper legal counsel?\nRegardless it’s got to be a lot less work for IRS agent to go after under-represented citizen(s), rather than someone who can afford to appeal, properly negotiate on their own terms?", ">\n\nLmfao Dems tax and spend. But I have to admit there Republicans that tax and spend to. Where do these Politicians get off taxing me or business and give to people who don't work what do you cause d the inflation. You can not print money \nI am Conservative not a Republican. To much money is wasted and put in pockets of people ot don't belong.\nBut all dems know how to tax tax tax. \nIts all great and good until you run out if other peoples money. \nMillionaire just like Berny he hated Millionaires until he became one now he hates Trillionaires. Funny how the gold post changes. And good old Nancy her I side stock trading. So I think you need to rethink.", ">\n\nThe IRS is only doing as directed by whomever controls the White House.", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised by this? Really?", ">\n\nThe sign in the thumbnail looks like a Cards Against Humanity card.", ">\n\nWhile this is mostly true, don’t believe everything you read. I’m no more an accountant than I am a ladies man, but someone (said they’re an accountant) posted a few days ago about this. They explained that the most likely people getting audited are trying to, fraudulently or mistakenly, claim the EITC. \nYES, it’s super easy to “bust” these people for an easy “mistake”. This is who the IRS is cracking down on. \nDo I think it’s better to bust poor people for claiming a few thousand in tax credits vs billionaires who avoid taxes altogether? Of course not, but don’t think they’re actively targeting people who fudge their mileage deductions or miss a decimal point in their calculations as small business owners. It’s simply not happening. \nAnd the reported “87,000 new IRS agents” are replacing the 10’s of 1,000’s of employees set to retire or quit over the next 10 years which doesn’t even begin to fill the gaps we’ve been growing for decades by not hiring and training more willing workers. Not to mention they’re not even close to all employees who will actively audit tax payers. They’re people who answer phones, file papers, assist others, etc… They’re mostly just average people with average jobs so of course the GOP wants to end this. They hate upward mobility and job creation unless that means tax breaks for their billionaire friends.", ">\n\nI wish everyone wasn’t a sheep and would understand this.", ">\n\nI can see the Media doing their best to turn the public against the IRS.", ">\n\nPicking on the week and helpless. That’s what we humans do. We suck. I’m waiting for that big meteor reset button.", ">\n\nAnd Fox news loves this.", ">\n\nLove it, Faux 'News' taking the piss, for 4 years under Dear Leader they campaigned for tax breaks for the rich, now they're pretending to care about the poor !", ">\n\nEvery millionaire should be audited yearly. Period.", ">\n\nAND now the gqp cult promises to rescind the money Biden set aside to aid the IRS to recover taxes from mega millionaire tax cheats like benedict donald, who paid less taxes than most working Americans.", ">\n\nRepublicans want to stop the IRS and Congress from taxing rich people, making the burden of maintaining civilization fall more heavily on poorer people. This is why Republicans vote for tax cuts for the rich and against funding for the IRS.\nAnd since Republican beliefs are based on wishful thinking, Republicans can screw over poor, rural Republicans while simultaneously taking credit for doing it to make Republicans happy about it and blaming it on Democrats to make those same Republicans resentful against Democrats for it. And what else would we expect from a Republican Party that blames Democrats for tricking them into attacking the Capitol to make Trump look bad and justifies and approves of assaulting Capitol police while brandishing their \"thin blue line\" flags.", ">\n\nThe IRS is like any other law enforcement agency, they prefer pursuing the poor because they don't have the resources to protect themselves.", ">\n\nThe IRS building sign looks like its from cards against humanity.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nNot a reliable news source.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nThat picture looks like the worst cards against humanity card too get.", ">\n\nScrew the Murdoch media empire and their failed trickle down ideologies.", ">\n\nOf course, the poorest haven’t paid over 400+ billion for decades. Not sure about the rich, we haven’t checked.", ">\n\nThis is not a surprise. With the recent inflation reduction act, the IRS an additional $80B over 10 years or $8B per year. The IRS budget for 2021 was $13.7B. The additional $8B over the year would be an increase of 58% to their budget. They will be looking to get a lot more money from taxpayers, due to this very large increase in their budget.", ">\n\nFox reported this? I'm in shock", ">\n\nAll propagandists publish clickbaity stuff that makes them sound like maybe they've let up on the evil. Unfortunately it works, since people just upvote headlines.", ">\n\nIt’s only going to get worse in 2023. Those 87k new IRS agents will not be going after the wealthy.", ">\n\nWhy?\nThat’s literally why they were being added. The IRS goes after the poorer taxpayers because they are low-hanging fruit and don’t have the lawyers and accountants to protect them. \nThe additional IRS employees were to give the personnel staffing sufficient to go after the wealthy.", ">\n\nIt doesn’t matter how many IRS agents there are. It will always be easier and more profitable for the IRS to nickel and dime the average taxpayer rather than go after the wealthy, who have the resources to lawyer up with the best lawyers and challenge the IRS in court.", ">\n\nEasier? Yes. More profitable? Doubtful.", ">\n\nIf Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt" ]
> Looking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.	[ "If Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nAnd when Barry was president they targeted conservative groups. I think phone calls can be made to tell them to back off of the little guy.", ">\n\n\nthey targeted conservative groups.\n\nNo. They went after specifically anti-tax tea party groups. The groups who openly flaunted tax laws", ">\n\nThey also went after progressive, left leaning groups - how do you explain that ? it was political", ">\n\nWait, did they target conservatives or progressives? Lol", ">\n\nBoth- it was quite clear they were involving themselves in politics - that’s what the IG found", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.", ">\n\nYep!\nAlso this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious.\nThe real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade.", ">\n\nThanks for the informative reply.\nYou make great points which I don't doubt. But there are times when I think it's important to consider both the letter and spirit of law at times.\nEven though it is perfectly by the letter of the law that people should be checked, it also seems against the intended spirit of said law that only a certain group of people are checked.\nI am not familiar with US law, but I think most of us can feel some degree of injustice with how things currently are.", ">\n\nThe point is to automate more checking of income common to wealthier people, and devote more resources to auditing those people. The Fox News article is disingenuous in how it describes the automated checking that goes on. It’s not great that rich people aren’t really audited, but there’s no reason to stop the automated checking of income where it’s already being done and essentially free to continue.\nIf you feel differently, explain yourself.", ">\n\nNo, we are in alignment concerning this.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nFUCK FOX NEWS\nFox is pretending to care about us poors. \nDon't reward these fascist fucks with upvotes for a disingenuous clickbait headline. They still hate us for not voting gop.", ">\n\nThey want people to hate the IRS and help defund it so they don’t go after the rich, which was the purpose of the additional funding", ">\n\nThey want people to link this to “87000” new agents, which is obviously happening on social media posts, but it’s not even a thing.", ">\n\nArticle is trash. The author is including correspondence audits (which means the IRS asked for some documentation by mail) for low income filers but not for millionaires when comparing their audit rates. Here are actual numbers according to their own source:\nAudit rates including correspondence audits\nlow income 1.27%\nmillionaires 2.38% \nAudit rates excluding correspondence audits\nlow income 0.0376%\nmillionaires 1.24%\n.\nFor low income filers, nearly all their audits were correspondence audits.", ">\n\nIt's hilarious when Fox News and the GOP pretend they care about poor people.\nNo amount of hypocrisy is too much to try to make democrats look bad.", ">\n\nIts unfortunately far easier to prove married couples who live together filed HoH for extra earned income credit than it is to prove complicated returns were incorrect.", ">\n\nIt's also trivially easy to prove the same child was claimed by two parents which is a lot of correspondence audits.", ">\n\nSo can my back taxes please just get forgiven already. 20% income being taxed is not livable", ">\n\nRepublican love flat rate taxes, you should talk to them.", ">\n\nThey’re required to audit the president and vice president, and that didn’t happen either.", ">\n\nThis isn't new, it's been been having for the last 5 - 6 years.", ">\n\nHopefully some wake up and realize its all just preparing us for the inevitable destruction of our economy. I imagine its almost too late to realize this. If we all realized this wed sell our 401Ks and not lean on money and use it to help our neighbors.", ">\n\nK bro.", ">\n\nMy wife and I are on social security. She works part time to keep us afloat. All in, we earned $50K in 2022. iRS wants $4500 from us. Really? 5X what Trump paid? Don't know if anyone is paying attention but $50k ain't rich. Oh, and out of that comes almost $4k in Medicare premiums. A program we paid into for 40+ years.\nEveryone of these arrogant, unqualified,, spoon fed assholes in Congress should be made to live on SSI or welfare, with no medical coverage, for a year. Then tell me I am acting entitled.\nSelf serving bastards.", ">\n\nDon't upvote this crap.\nDo you really think Fox cares about the working class??\nThis is just right wing propaganda, timed to coincide with McCarthy's promise to get rid of the new IRS agents who make it possible to audit the rich.\nDon't be used.", ">\n\nWhatever happened to \"dont shoot the messenger?\"", ">\n\nIRS understaffing would naturally trend to go after low-lying fruit. Easy pickings. Too many man hours to go after super complex cases. These moneyed fuckers and their bullshit. It's outrageous.", ">\n\nThe vast majority of these audits are automatically generated correspondence audits that have to be issued. We can't just turn off the program that raises a red flag when two people claim the same child as a dependent because we don't have enough forensic accountants. If you mistype your W2 you'll get an \"audit\" showing the correct info from the copy your boss sent them and telling you they'll correct it unless you tell them otherwise and you don't have to do anything if the info they have is correct.", ">\n\nYeah, all the nonsense about the IRS \"going after\" low income people is so stupid. Low income people make money in a way that their reporting is easily verifiable by a computer. They're also most likely to mess up and claim child tax credits incorrectly, etc - all of which is verifiable and issued a letter by a computer. \n-\nOther than actually being able to get someone on the phone when you call the IRS, and increased budget isn't going to impact the average person in any way.", ">\n\nMy thing is even assuming the 87k don't successfully get more money out of the rich, that's still 87k jobs. That's a net positive. I just don't understand the conservative logic here. Do they think these 87k new jobs are specifically for being insidiously predatory toward the poor? Where's the logic here? (I know I'll get hyperbolic answers, but I genuinely would like to know)", ">\n\nIt's 87,000 jobs over 10 years, the majority of which are replacement during that period. It's just a budget supplemental to stop hemorrhaging agents as they retire or cycle out into other jobs.", ">\n\nso.. this is on fox, which I assume support republican efforts to ensure that this is the permanent state of affairs. I don't really get anything anymore.", ">\n\nAnd that is the way the GOP wants it.", ">\n\n💯 Exactly what this Fox article is trying to do.", ">\n\nIt's who can afford a lawyer", ">\n\nAs the article hints at, the IRS does not do a lot of actual auditing. What it does is computer matching, which automatically generates material for a correspondence audit. Most correspondence audits occur because som poor working Joe didn't know he/her was supposed to include or exclude something, and the IRS caught it in its matching. Of course, the problem is that we have a complex code and little help in actually helping people through the various forms, rules, and so on. But millionaires don't have these issues, so they can escape most of the traps that lead to a correspondence audit. If a lot of these 87,000 were in taxpayer service (which I expect) it would lead to fewer audits at the low end, more robust audits for large corporations, wealthy individuals, and those who actively use tax avoidance strategies. But of course that is not the dialogue that gets promoted when the 87,000 agents are discussed.", ">\n\nThis is exactly why Fox News needs to be dismantled and thrown in the garbage. Ugh, \"look poors! They're coming for yoU!!!\". Scare tactics. And guess what? It sadly works. Every time.\nThey're lower than scum.", ">\n\nExactly. It's when someone misreports a number from their W2, didn't report 1099s they received, both separated parents claim a tax credit for the same kid, etc. All stuff that's easily checked by a computer. The IRS isn't \"auditing\" random low to middle income people. That would be a complete waste of their time.", ">\n\nlooks at Trump You don't say.", ">\n\nThe poor can't defend themselves, it's easier to take a little bit of money from people that won't fight back than a lot of money from people that will.", ">\n\nThe mega rich seem like they’re on a mission to destroy America, as we know it.", ">\n\nHiring 87,000 new IRS agents makes it possible to audit billionaires. So they pay their share. Those audits require an actual person or team that knows what they are doing. But Kevin McCarthy's first item of business was to announce legislation to overturn the hiring of 87,000 IRS agents. Meaning only the little guy (who can be audited by computer software) pays taxes.\nSSDD", ">\n\nThe \"87,000\" agents budget is over a ten year period. It's not for 87,000 new positions.", ">\n\nThe title is so misleading. Im surprised fox even put the juicy bit in the article about how (this stat is due to there not being enough IRS workers because) these \"audits\" on low earners are just automated letters asking for more info.\nYet again, this is just millionairs paid by billionairs to mislead the masses into blaming the poor for crimes committed by said billionairs.", ">\n\nWhich is why the IRS needs more manpower and budget, so they can go after the big fish.\nFuck Fox News and their Republican propaganda pieces. This article coincides with McCarthy saying they’ll cut the IRS budget and that the IRS is coming for you.\nFuck off Republican propaganda rag!\nStop upvoting any Fox News story. Fox should not be on the white list.", ">\n\nThis is a terrible article. It seems to include questions about tax returns as audits. If a low income filer makes a mistake it should be corrected. Is that an audit? If anyone makes a mistake and is contacted, is that an audit? Also there is no reason to go after low income as they rarely pay tax or are required to. The money requested would also pay for people to answer a phone. Those against increasing funding lie when they say all of it goes to audits. If you tell the truth, who cares if you are audited? Are y’all aware you can track your personal return online? However a business cannot. Businesses have to rely on humans that can’t be reached. I’ve waited a year for a refund. Didn’t know if IRS received the return. Didn’t know if there was an issue. Didn’t know if it was mailed or lost. I’m getting tired of Republicans pushing their crap on people.", ">\n\nwho keeps upvoting this right wing propaganda", ">\n\nWhy would the GOP want to give the agency the power to go after their donors.", ">\n\nAnd it was trumps guy that mandated it while Biden replaced him", ">\n\nApparently the mere use of an accounting firm somehow protected corps and the rich from the IRS who still (mistakenly) believe the accounting firms are trustworthy. How naive.", ">\n\nThe \"audits\" talked about are mostly form letters requesting more info about specific items.", ">\n\nThe poor can't pay for top flight attorneys.", ">\n\nYep keep the IRS underfunded so they can only go after the poors at the same time telling all the poors that the IRS is bad cause it goes after them but leave out the fact that they do that cause the poors are low hanging fruit.\nRepublicans are evil.", ">\n\nWell the GOP wants to cut funding to the IRS for new agents, so I’m sure the poor folk will continue to get screwed. I say toss the 50,000+ page tax code out and replace with a percentage based on total revenue/income made. Took a loss? No write-offs. Oh well, better luck next year. It’ll never happen because the wealthy don’t want it to.", ">\n\nWhere did you get this info? I know GOPers have been slashing IRS budgets and staffing for years but can't find reliable sources for what this has done to the actual audits - like who gets audited.", ">\n\nTheir link is Fox. This is a bad faith post.", ">\n\nThis says a lot coming from fox “news”", ">\n\nTo paraphrase Gilbert K. Chesterton, \"The Poor have sometimes objected to being taxed too heavily; The Rich have always objected to being taxed at all.\"", ">\n\ndon't post Fox news here....", ">\n\nCorporations and millionaires have the means to hire accountants and attorneys. Our tax code is gray in several areas. It’s easy to go after the poor that do not have the resources and will have no choice but to pay anything the IRS says. The additional agents will continue to target the poor and middle class because they are easy, It’s happened before, it will continue to happen.", ">\n\nI think it's funny/sad that a poor person can win the lottery and they get taxed at a higher rate than any billionaire has ever been taxed at. The system is built to keep the rich - rich and the poor - poor.", ">\n\nThe poorest can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nThe current system cannot be sustained. We are hurtling towards disaster.", ">\n\nThe only reason the bastards have the majority is because the corrupt SCOTUS allowed illegal gerrymanders to stand while they were fought in the courts.", ">\n\nThe I.R.S. goes after the poorer people because it's easier. They can't afford lawyers and accountants. So the poor can do nothing but roll over and take it up the rump. The Inflation Reduction Act that Biden signed into law in August is supposed to give $80 Billion to the I.R.S. so they can go after the millionaires. But we know that won't happen. More poor people are going to get screwed.", ">\n\nI'm confused. For decades, Faux news and the conservatives have been saying that millionaires deserve to keep more of their money than we do. That was a huge part of the 2017 tax scam that Trump signed. Now Faux is saying it's a problem? And they are rightly detailing that Republicans are the cause, along with Biden trying to fix the same issue that Fox has helped create?", ">\n\nFox News", ">\n\nHey IRS, don't forget to crawl up my ass this year because I sold some old stuff on eBay for a loss but make sure you put a few man hours into figuring out if it is legit or not.", ">\n\nlol, and the people opposed to IRS funding will say they are anti-establishment.", ">\n\nImagine how much they could squeeze the middle class with 87,000 more agents! But really, it’ll be good to see if the increase in officers actually increases tax revenue without changing the underlying laws.", ">\n\nSo, this is the newest Republican boogeyman, the IRS.\nWell, better than Drag Queens I guess.", ">\n\nOh hey just like last year, and the year before that, I think there might be a pattern", ">\n\nThank you republicans, always sticking up in the back on the small guys…", ">\n\nFox News saying this like it’s not something Rupert Murdoch’s network supports is pretty funny.", ">\n\nFox News. Ignore it.", ">\n\nFox News is still allowed in here?", ">\n\nFake news. This is Republican propaganda coming from Fox News.", ">\n\nFox News is NOT news", ">\n\nHmm sounds like it was underfunded then. Good thing now we helped ease that problem. Thanks Biden", ">\n\nIt's simply laziness by the IRS. Lower-income households have less complicated returns and easier to process. I'm sure IRS runs a non-effective but management-pleasing metric like \"how many returns were corrected\" opposed to how much money was recouped.", ">\n\nWe know. They don't have the resources to do anything. That was the point of increasing the staffing at the IRS so they had even the slightest hope of going after the big offenders with their armies or lawyers.", ">\n\nThere's less millionaires and billionaires than there are us. I'm not sure that answer fits the accuracy on hiring more workers but I'll go ahead and amuse that", ">\n\nIt's not a game of tax guy vs rich guy. The rich literally have armies of lawyers. You need the staff to overcome all the paper and challenges they'll throw at you. \nIf you throw one person to audit a millionaire, their lawyers can make it so it'll take a year to review a week of operations. Investigations will never finish unless there's sufficient staff to overcome their obstruction.", ">\n\nTo this day I do not understand why the IRS can demand our documents every year without a warrant. The 16th amendment does not alter the 4th, and the 4th does not apply only to criminal actions (as the 5th explicitly does). Yet no one seems to care about this annual violations.", ">\n\nReminder, Fox News is not news. It's entertainment, and should be regarded as such.", ">\n\nNo shit, poor ppl tend to file their own taxes and screw up where as millionaires hire expensive accountants to exploit all the legal loopholes without getting their clients in trouble.\nI don't think it's an intentional targeting as the article may be implying.", ">\n\nOne might imagine the resources of agents would be better put to use by focusing on returns that might produce more revenue, however it may be just a lot easier to collect a few bucks from easier targets.", ">\n\nThey are short staffed and accountants make it so difficult to find wrongdoing, if there is even wrongdoing to be found, that it would take a decent chunk of their workforce just to tackle it. It's like trying to find needle in a haystack but you don't know if there's a needle or not.", ">\n\nSo true....", ">\n\nShocked pikachu face.", ">\n\nYeah I’d believe this if it weren’t Fox News. They could give a fuck about the poor and middle class.", ">\n\nI would literally rather the IRS spend its time auditing 5 extraordinarily rich people or a single business than anyone who makes less than 100k per year\nETA: I’m aware that this article represents part of the Republican agenda to just gut the IRS and welfare spending generally. And I understand the difficulties in auditing the rich/businesses v lower income people claiming tax credits, etc", ">\n\nAlmost all of the little people \"audits\" are just a computer issuing a correspondence \"audit\" because the person misreported something from their W2, didn't report as much 1099 income as was reported to the IRS by others, or separated parents both trying to claim kids for tax credits or something. \n-\nThey don't really pull from the same resources. The rich people audits require human beings. Little people \"audits\" aren't really audits and a computer can do it. So if we want to audit more rich people, they need actual budget for human beings. The little people are going to be caught anyways because a computer can do it.", ">\n\nI interned at the IRS during the summer of 2012 when Lois Lerner made batshit crazy commrnts that they were targetting conservative groups", ">\n\nI say this every time it gets brought up. This is by design. I used to work in auditing and also used to do tax stuff. It’s super easy to find tax fraud on someone who only has a simple W-2 and no other income. You could find those people through a basic algorithm. Meanwhile, auditing a multi millionaire is expensive, time consuming, and often fruitless. If I was in charge of an underfunded, understaffed IRS I would tell my staff to go for the easy wins too.", ">\n\nUnpopular opinion - More funding won't resolve this. \nThe IRS will keep doing this. Unless rules & regulations forbid or disincentivize this practice, the IRS will keep this stupid practice", ">\n\nI make $40,000 a year and the IRS froze my bank accounts until I paid them $1000 in taxes I owed them because of an error I made filling my taxes. They froze my bank accounts for $1000. I was fucked for a month. I had to borrow cash from people just for food and gas money to get to work to get paid money that I couldn’t access. It was a scary time for me. Meanwhile millionaires are purposely avoiding taxes worth more than what I make in a year and nothing happens to them.", ">\n\nThe IRS sends no less than a dozen letters to a taxpayer prior to leaving a bank account. Why didn't you just put it into a repayment plan? Takes about ten minutes online.", ">\n\nDon't you just hate autocorrect?", ">\n\nIf true, its a holdover from jrbush who slashed IRS staff and budget and told them to spend more time auditing tip jars and busboys than millionaires because the millionaires had better lawyers than the IRS and service workers were unlikely to have any lawyers at all.", ">\n\nFox News solution: remove the IRS", ">\n\nAbsolutely. They’ll NEVER target the rich, adding more agents just made them a lot more capable to target all the lower class.", ">\n\nWhat people don't realize..Those 87K \"Agents\" aren't that. It's 87K employees over 25 years. Clerks etc. People are so fucking stupid when they just believe these clowns.", ">\n\nThose numbers also count it as an \"audit\" when a person misreports a number from a W2, 1099s, etc and the irs number matching software sends an automatically generated correspondence letter that basically says \"we actually show this number, this is what your tax return would have been if you reported that number correctly\". \nThe IRS isn't wasting time doing random \"audits\" as people think of them for low to middle income people. It would be a complete waste of their time. The computer just catches obvious verifiable mistakes and it counts as an audit in those numbers.", ">\n\n“those in the lowest income bracket hit 12.7 per 1,000….. The odds of a millionaire facing an audit were around 1.1%.”\nSo they’re saying 1.27% vs 1.1%!!! And acting like that’s a scandal 🙄", ">\n\nWhich means millionaires REALLY don't want more IRS auditors which means when our new resident house fascist fires five thousand auditors, said fascist (McCarthy) is making sure those millionaires aren't going to get audited. \nCha CHING !!! Go the \"donations\" into house rat republican's pockets. \nThe grift will be in full swing shortly.\nAnd with putin whispering in their ears and telling them EXACTLY how break the law - how can they lose?", ">\n\n💯 Exactly why theres a Fox link here pushing for that same reason.", ">\n\nTwo things. First of all, this is from a far right-wing propaganda outlet which should immediately raise red flags. They're trying to scare you into allowing a republican-initiated movement to entirely remove all remaining power from the IRS by making it seem like they're coming after you.\nSecond, the reason the IRS is already already virtually powerless against the rich is because the republicans have already eviscerated them in the past several decades, largely through defunding them leading to not only staffing cuts, but the inability to pursue the wealthiest people who have the resources for endless litigation. So as a result, the FBI can only really afford to go after people who cannot financially defend themselves.", ">\n\nThird, you might as well throw in that the aiming low guidance was under a Trump appointee who is no longer in that position.", ">\n\nThe GOP intentionally defunded the IRS so that it could not audit the wealthy. It takes a great deal more money upfront to audit them but the payback is far greater.", ">\n\nI'm not sure why dems voted against an amendment that would have mandated the giant infusion of cash into the IRS couldn't be used to audit folks making >$400k.", ">\n\nHrm this is pretty fucked I'd like to hear about why the Dems voted nay.", ">\n\nBecause they work for the same people as Republicans. \nThey are different but only when their owners allow them to be. \nI don't know how many times we are going to have to learn this lesson before it sticks.", ">\n\nDemocrats are responsible for this", ">\n\nThe rich returns are just too hard, enough lower class errors you can leave the rich alone. Love to see it… sigh", ">\n\nIt takes money to police the wealthy. Can't have that can we?!", ">\n\nr/noshitsherlock", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised?\nI’m not even American and this seemed obvious to me. All you have to do is look at how the poor live and compare that to the news about someone like Elon musk or Donald trump.", ">\n\nThis is why the IRS needs to go.", ">\n\nFox News helped make that happen.", ">\n\nThey'll never change,all the time when the guys in charge benefit from doing the same shit.", ">\n\nAnd yet the republicans dont submit or pass legislations to change the rules to favor targeting rich people. Curious.", ">\n\nThen 78,000 new, armed tax collectors should be able to extract even more money from the poor, middle-class and small business owners.", ">\n\nWhy did they focus on the Poorest? The thought of 87,000 more of them will actually do what? If the existing can’t focus on the wealthy! Then what makes anybody think more can?", ">\n\nMillionaires and billionaires make the government more money by creating lobbying loopholes and exploiting the economy to bilk the 99%. It's really cheap to go after the poorest who are struggling to pay day to day obligations and don't have loopholes or government sanctioned exploitation to take advantage of.", ">\n\nI could have told you this would happen. You think millionaires get $600 Venmo transactions?", ">\n\nThat's a move democrats should not make. That's one month of rent for me. What of folks worse-off?", ">\n\nHonestly it’s like squeezing blood from the stone over here anyway.", ">\n\nDuh lmfao theyve already stated it costs too much to tax weathy people previously and its most cost effective to audit the poor due to many factors...", ">\n\nI mean 99% of us are poor compared to the other 1%", ">\n\nColor me surprised", ">\n\nWe need some laws for equitable auditing.", ">\n\nYou are an Army commander about to attack the enemy. Do you prefer to attack where they have experienced career solders backed up by artillery, tanks, and airplanes, or do you attack where there are poorly armed and equipped untrained conscripts?", ">\n\nThey must be upset someone replaced their sign with a card from Cards Against Humanity", ">\n\nMay it ever be so…. Don’t reproduce if you only consume and can’t accumulate or help a Dow Jones winter water witch. Like snow, weathermen.", ">\n\nIt’s weirdly fitting how much their building sign in the photo looks like a cards against humanity card.", ">\n\nTypical", ">\n\nWow? How unusual.", ">\n\nI’d support double the number of IRS agents", ">\n\nI was low income and won about 3,000 gambling, the irs went after me", ">\n\nThe IRS came after me hard for 8$", ">\n\nAudit frequency should correlate to income, someone with a million in income should be audited 10x those with 100k income", ">\n\nSomeone should explain Pareto charts to the IRS.", ">\n\nI've been audited three times. First when I was 27, did some consulting and didn't do the 1099 prepayments. Ended up owing $17k. Second audit was after moving across country for a job. The tax preparer we hired made a mistake with the move expense deductions, owed a few thousand. Third audit was another tax preparer mistake, but this time we overpaid and were owed money we credited to the next year. \nIf you assume for discussion that the average audit on an ordinary tax payer returns $10,000, it would take 100,000,000 audits to make $1 trillion. By just doing the easy work, the IRS is leaving the real money on the table.", ">\n\nRepublicans are famous for giving rich breaks while middle class etc close the gaps", ">\n\nThe last line, \"The Inflation Reduction Act provides the IRS with $80 billion in future funding to ramp up its audits and potentially target the wealthiest taxpayers.\"", ">\n\nThe cure is not the root cause, but the middle class and the poor will eventually bear the burden after the capital operation", ">\n\nIt’s like they timed the “research” and the drop of the article with the speech. Sad man.", ">\n\nWatch Madoff. The wealthy skate and steal billions. The poor are in prison over thousands.", ">\n\nWhy does their sign look like a Card Against Humanity", ">\n\nFucking Trump, still at it.", ">\n\nOh you mean the thing people said would happen once they got massive funding actually happened? Checks out", ">\n\nOf course they did, because millionaires will lawyer up.", ">\n\nBecause the poor can't afford to fight back.", ">\n\nIt's so unfair the poor and the middle class taxpayers suffer so much while the millionaries got away with not paying the taxes It's really hurting the poor. The middle class is fading", ">\n\nAll of this can be fixed if we just use no-exemption graduated income", ">\n\nYeah we know", ">\n\nShow of hands for all surprised.\ncrickets\nHmm. Seems like Reddit suffers from a plague of double amputees...", ">\n\nWhat the actual fuck", ">\n\nAnd 2021, 2020, 2019, …", ">\n\nSounds about right.", ">\n\nOf course. Poor people can’t afford attorneys.", ">\n\nI made a mistake on my forms while I was overseas and ticked “self-employed” instead of “employed”. I was on a student visa and had two children and was making less than 10k a year. They hounded me for years. By the time I figured out what had happened I could not amend the forms and had paid thousands in penalties and interest.\nMeanwhile I knew lots of people who were there fully employed not reporting their income.\nFuck them.", ">\n\nYep! During the pandemic, even while I wasn't working didn't come after me the entire time that I was working but the minute that I wasn't nobody was cuz we were in lockdown they started popping up", ">\n\nI just now realized that the Cards Against Humanity box looks like the IRS sign", ">\n\nWhy is the sign a Cards Against Humanity question?", ">\n\nI am shocked and appalled. clutches pearls", ">\n\nRich should be taxed more than the average not right at all. Or at least there is a tier system based on pay only makes sense. Come on now", ">\n\nSounds about right, make the rich richer again.", ">\n\nWho are we going to vote for in the future ,all of them are decayed , corrupted and useless , the “most rich country in the world , governed by the most ignorant an corrupted. What a contrast .", ">\n\nGod bless America", ">\n\nno way. wait until you see those people responds. Those people are chipping away.", ">\n\nSounds about right", ">\n\nWe know.", ">\n\nI find it rather comical that Fox news is reporting on this since they are all about pushing the Republican agenda and that is all about pushing everyone else down that isn't rich and keeping them there. Not to mention they had no problem with Trump not paying taxes for years.", ">\n\nCan fucking confirm.", ">\n\nYeah, they (millionaires) have accountants who generally do things right and due to their millions being in investments it's not like it's taxable all the time. \nThen there's the ability to sell any stocks when they're down to build up losses on paper can reinvest them at a loss that can carry over across multiple years.", ">\n\nsounds about right. i don’t have a pot to piss in but they’re all over me for someone stealing my identity and filing a double tax return one year.", ">\n\nDuh", ">\n\nThere’s a reason why FOX is posting this article. The less people at the IRS, the more likely they come after folks who can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nIn order to pursue wealthy tax cheats, the IRS needs more resources and personnel. Otherwise it’s business as usual, picking on the low hanging fruit that earns under 6 figures.", ">\n\nSo wrong ....people need to be fired", ">\n\nIt’s because they can’t afford to take them to court", ">\n\nOf course it is about protecting the rich like Trump who lies ,lies , and about his tax returns . No wonder he did not want them released .", ">\n\nEasy prey bc most ppl can not lawyer up. Pretty heart breaking system we have at times.", ">\n\nWhy does the irs sign look like it's from cards against humanity?", ">\n\nCurrently getting audited over \\~$1500, which they owe me, when the rich get away with murder. Fucking unbelievably and unnecessarily stressful for me.", ">\n\nHas t this been know for a while?", ">\n\nyep and they are the same people getting tax cuts while everyone else does it tough ....\nAny one with too much money is your enemy .... not a hero of democracy", ">\n\nGet rid of taxes and the gov’t should just do stuff for free, or what ever.", ">\n\nYou have to be careful when you get one of those CP2000 notices from the IRS. The way they are written is a trap.\nIf you dispute it you are supposed to indicate that you disagree and send it back with documents supporting your dispute.\nYou are only supposed to sign it if you agree with them and when you sign it you are signing away your rights to dispute the back taxes and penalties they are demanding.\nMere worker bees like us can expect to be getting a lot of those from this years tax returns considering how the threshold for 1099k forms has been dropped to $600.\nGuys like Trump? The IRS doesn't even know where to begin.", ">\n\nThanks Biden", ">\n\nI presume those lower-income bracket filers might be more likely to reach out to 1-800-infomercial [quickie settlement/long-term penalties most favorable to gov/proprietor] than retain proper legal counsel?\nRegardless it’s got to be a lot less work for IRS agent to go after under-represented citizen(s), rather than someone who can afford to appeal, properly negotiate on their own terms?", ">\n\nLmfao Dems tax and spend. But I have to admit there Republicans that tax and spend to. Where do these Politicians get off taxing me or business and give to people who don't work what do you cause d the inflation. You can not print money \nI am Conservative not a Republican. To much money is wasted and put in pockets of people ot don't belong.\nBut all dems know how to tax tax tax. \nIts all great and good until you run out if other peoples money. \nMillionaire just like Berny he hated Millionaires until he became one now he hates Trillionaires. Funny how the gold post changes. And good old Nancy her I side stock trading. So I think you need to rethink.", ">\n\nThe IRS is only doing as directed by whomever controls the White House.", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised by this? Really?", ">\n\nThe sign in the thumbnail looks like a Cards Against Humanity card.", ">\n\nWhile this is mostly true, don’t believe everything you read. I’m no more an accountant than I am a ladies man, but someone (said they’re an accountant) posted a few days ago about this. They explained that the most likely people getting audited are trying to, fraudulently or mistakenly, claim the EITC. \nYES, it’s super easy to “bust” these people for an easy “mistake”. This is who the IRS is cracking down on. \nDo I think it’s better to bust poor people for claiming a few thousand in tax credits vs billionaires who avoid taxes altogether? Of course not, but don’t think they’re actively targeting people who fudge their mileage deductions or miss a decimal point in their calculations as small business owners. It’s simply not happening. \nAnd the reported “87,000 new IRS agents” are replacing the 10’s of 1,000’s of employees set to retire or quit over the next 10 years which doesn’t even begin to fill the gaps we’ve been growing for decades by not hiring and training more willing workers. Not to mention they’re not even close to all employees who will actively audit tax payers. They’re people who answer phones, file papers, assist others, etc… They’re mostly just average people with average jobs so of course the GOP wants to end this. They hate upward mobility and job creation unless that means tax breaks for their billionaire friends.", ">\n\nI wish everyone wasn’t a sheep and would understand this.", ">\n\nI can see the Media doing their best to turn the public against the IRS.", ">\n\nPicking on the week and helpless. That’s what we humans do. We suck. I’m waiting for that big meteor reset button.", ">\n\nAnd Fox news loves this.", ">\n\nLove it, Faux 'News' taking the piss, for 4 years under Dear Leader they campaigned for tax breaks for the rich, now they're pretending to care about the poor !", ">\n\nEvery millionaire should be audited yearly. Period.", ">\n\nAND now the gqp cult promises to rescind the money Biden set aside to aid the IRS to recover taxes from mega millionaire tax cheats like benedict donald, who paid less taxes than most working Americans.", ">\n\nRepublicans want to stop the IRS and Congress from taxing rich people, making the burden of maintaining civilization fall more heavily on poorer people. This is why Republicans vote for tax cuts for the rich and against funding for the IRS.\nAnd since Republican beliefs are based on wishful thinking, Republicans can screw over poor, rural Republicans while simultaneously taking credit for doing it to make Republicans happy about it and blaming it on Democrats to make those same Republicans resentful against Democrats for it. And what else would we expect from a Republican Party that blames Democrats for tricking them into attacking the Capitol to make Trump look bad and justifies and approves of assaulting Capitol police while brandishing their \"thin blue line\" flags.", ">\n\nThe IRS is like any other law enforcement agency, they prefer pursuing the poor because they don't have the resources to protect themselves.", ">\n\nThe IRS building sign looks like its from cards against humanity.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nNot a reliable news source.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nThat picture looks like the worst cards against humanity card too get.", ">\n\nScrew the Murdoch media empire and their failed trickle down ideologies.", ">\n\nOf course, the poorest haven’t paid over 400+ billion for decades. Not sure about the rich, we haven’t checked.", ">\n\nThis is not a surprise. With the recent inflation reduction act, the IRS an additional $80B over 10 years or $8B per year. The IRS budget for 2021 was $13.7B. The additional $8B over the year would be an increase of 58% to their budget. They will be looking to get a lot more money from taxpayers, due to this very large increase in their budget.", ">\n\nFox reported this? I'm in shock", ">\n\nAll propagandists publish clickbaity stuff that makes them sound like maybe they've let up on the evil. Unfortunately it works, since people just upvote headlines.", ">\n\nIt’s only going to get worse in 2023. Those 87k new IRS agents will not be going after the wealthy.", ">\n\nWhy?\nThat’s literally why they were being added. The IRS goes after the poorer taxpayers because they are low-hanging fruit and don’t have the lawyers and accountants to protect them. \nThe additional IRS employees were to give the personnel staffing sufficient to go after the wealthy.", ">\n\nIt doesn’t matter how many IRS agents there are. It will always be easier and more profitable for the IRS to nickel and dime the average taxpayer rather than go after the wealthy, who have the resources to lawyer up with the best lawyers and challenge the IRS in court.", ">\n\nEasier? Yes. More profitable? Doubtful.", ">\n\nIf Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words." ]
> And McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.	[ "If Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nAnd when Barry was president they targeted conservative groups. I think phone calls can be made to tell them to back off of the little guy.", ">\n\n\nthey targeted conservative groups.\n\nNo. They went after specifically anti-tax tea party groups. The groups who openly flaunted tax laws", ">\n\nThey also went after progressive, left leaning groups - how do you explain that ? it was political", ">\n\nWait, did they target conservatives or progressives? Lol", ">\n\nBoth- it was quite clear they were involving themselves in politics - that’s what the IG found", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.", ">\n\nYep!\nAlso this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious.\nThe real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade.", ">\n\nThanks for the informative reply.\nYou make great points which I don't doubt. But there are times when I think it's important to consider both the letter and spirit of law at times.\nEven though it is perfectly by the letter of the law that people should be checked, it also seems against the intended spirit of said law that only a certain group of people are checked.\nI am not familiar with US law, but I think most of us can feel some degree of injustice with how things currently are.", ">\n\nThe point is to automate more checking of income common to wealthier people, and devote more resources to auditing those people. The Fox News article is disingenuous in how it describes the automated checking that goes on. It’s not great that rich people aren’t really audited, but there’s no reason to stop the automated checking of income where it’s already being done and essentially free to continue.\nIf you feel differently, explain yourself.", ">\n\nNo, we are in alignment concerning this.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nFUCK FOX NEWS\nFox is pretending to care about us poors. \nDon't reward these fascist fucks with upvotes for a disingenuous clickbait headline. They still hate us for not voting gop.", ">\n\nThey want people to hate the IRS and help defund it so they don’t go after the rich, which was the purpose of the additional funding", ">\n\nThey want people to link this to “87000” new agents, which is obviously happening on social media posts, but it’s not even a thing.", ">\n\nArticle is trash. The author is including correspondence audits (which means the IRS asked for some documentation by mail) for low income filers but not for millionaires when comparing their audit rates. Here are actual numbers according to their own source:\nAudit rates including correspondence audits\nlow income 1.27%\nmillionaires 2.38% \nAudit rates excluding correspondence audits\nlow income 0.0376%\nmillionaires 1.24%\n.\nFor low income filers, nearly all their audits were correspondence audits.", ">\n\nIt's hilarious when Fox News and the GOP pretend they care about poor people.\nNo amount of hypocrisy is too much to try to make democrats look bad.", ">\n\nIts unfortunately far easier to prove married couples who live together filed HoH for extra earned income credit than it is to prove complicated returns were incorrect.", ">\n\nIt's also trivially easy to prove the same child was claimed by two parents which is a lot of correspondence audits.", ">\n\nSo can my back taxes please just get forgiven already. 20% income being taxed is not livable", ">\n\nRepublican love flat rate taxes, you should talk to them.", ">\n\nThey’re required to audit the president and vice president, and that didn’t happen either.", ">\n\nThis isn't new, it's been been having for the last 5 - 6 years.", ">\n\nHopefully some wake up and realize its all just preparing us for the inevitable destruction of our economy. I imagine its almost too late to realize this. If we all realized this wed sell our 401Ks and not lean on money and use it to help our neighbors.", ">\n\nK bro.", ">\n\nMy wife and I are on social security. She works part time to keep us afloat. All in, we earned $50K in 2022. iRS wants $4500 from us. Really? 5X what Trump paid? Don't know if anyone is paying attention but $50k ain't rich. Oh, and out of that comes almost $4k in Medicare premiums. A program we paid into for 40+ years.\nEveryone of these arrogant, unqualified,, spoon fed assholes in Congress should be made to live on SSI or welfare, with no medical coverage, for a year. Then tell me I am acting entitled.\nSelf serving bastards.", ">\n\nDon't upvote this crap.\nDo you really think Fox cares about the working class??\nThis is just right wing propaganda, timed to coincide with McCarthy's promise to get rid of the new IRS agents who make it possible to audit the rich.\nDon't be used.", ">\n\nWhatever happened to \"dont shoot the messenger?\"", ">\n\nIRS understaffing would naturally trend to go after low-lying fruit. Easy pickings. Too many man hours to go after super complex cases. These moneyed fuckers and their bullshit. It's outrageous.", ">\n\nThe vast majority of these audits are automatically generated correspondence audits that have to be issued. We can't just turn off the program that raises a red flag when two people claim the same child as a dependent because we don't have enough forensic accountants. If you mistype your W2 you'll get an \"audit\" showing the correct info from the copy your boss sent them and telling you they'll correct it unless you tell them otherwise and you don't have to do anything if the info they have is correct.", ">\n\nYeah, all the nonsense about the IRS \"going after\" low income people is so stupid. Low income people make money in a way that their reporting is easily verifiable by a computer. They're also most likely to mess up and claim child tax credits incorrectly, etc - all of which is verifiable and issued a letter by a computer. \n-\nOther than actually being able to get someone on the phone when you call the IRS, and increased budget isn't going to impact the average person in any way.", ">\n\nMy thing is even assuming the 87k don't successfully get more money out of the rich, that's still 87k jobs. That's a net positive. I just don't understand the conservative logic here. Do they think these 87k new jobs are specifically for being insidiously predatory toward the poor? Where's the logic here? (I know I'll get hyperbolic answers, but I genuinely would like to know)", ">\n\nIt's 87,000 jobs over 10 years, the majority of which are replacement during that period. It's just a budget supplemental to stop hemorrhaging agents as they retire or cycle out into other jobs.", ">\n\nso.. this is on fox, which I assume support republican efforts to ensure that this is the permanent state of affairs. I don't really get anything anymore.", ">\n\nAnd that is the way the GOP wants it.", ">\n\n💯 Exactly what this Fox article is trying to do.", ">\n\nIt's who can afford a lawyer", ">\n\nAs the article hints at, the IRS does not do a lot of actual auditing. What it does is computer matching, which automatically generates material for a correspondence audit. Most correspondence audits occur because som poor working Joe didn't know he/her was supposed to include or exclude something, and the IRS caught it in its matching. Of course, the problem is that we have a complex code and little help in actually helping people through the various forms, rules, and so on. But millionaires don't have these issues, so they can escape most of the traps that lead to a correspondence audit. If a lot of these 87,000 were in taxpayer service (which I expect) it would lead to fewer audits at the low end, more robust audits for large corporations, wealthy individuals, and those who actively use tax avoidance strategies. But of course that is not the dialogue that gets promoted when the 87,000 agents are discussed.", ">\n\nThis is exactly why Fox News needs to be dismantled and thrown in the garbage. Ugh, \"look poors! They're coming for yoU!!!\". Scare tactics. And guess what? It sadly works. Every time.\nThey're lower than scum.", ">\n\nExactly. It's when someone misreports a number from their W2, didn't report 1099s they received, both separated parents claim a tax credit for the same kid, etc. All stuff that's easily checked by a computer. The IRS isn't \"auditing\" random low to middle income people. That would be a complete waste of their time.", ">\n\nlooks at Trump You don't say.", ">\n\nThe poor can't defend themselves, it's easier to take a little bit of money from people that won't fight back than a lot of money from people that will.", ">\n\nThe mega rich seem like they’re on a mission to destroy America, as we know it.", ">\n\nHiring 87,000 new IRS agents makes it possible to audit billionaires. So they pay their share. Those audits require an actual person or team that knows what they are doing. But Kevin McCarthy's first item of business was to announce legislation to overturn the hiring of 87,000 IRS agents. Meaning only the little guy (who can be audited by computer software) pays taxes.\nSSDD", ">\n\nThe \"87,000\" agents budget is over a ten year period. It's not for 87,000 new positions.", ">\n\nThe title is so misleading. Im surprised fox even put the juicy bit in the article about how (this stat is due to there not being enough IRS workers because) these \"audits\" on low earners are just automated letters asking for more info.\nYet again, this is just millionairs paid by billionairs to mislead the masses into blaming the poor for crimes committed by said billionairs.", ">\n\nWhich is why the IRS needs more manpower and budget, so they can go after the big fish.\nFuck Fox News and their Republican propaganda pieces. This article coincides with McCarthy saying they’ll cut the IRS budget and that the IRS is coming for you.\nFuck off Republican propaganda rag!\nStop upvoting any Fox News story. Fox should not be on the white list.", ">\n\nThis is a terrible article. It seems to include questions about tax returns as audits. If a low income filer makes a mistake it should be corrected. Is that an audit? If anyone makes a mistake and is contacted, is that an audit? Also there is no reason to go after low income as they rarely pay tax or are required to. The money requested would also pay for people to answer a phone. Those against increasing funding lie when they say all of it goes to audits. If you tell the truth, who cares if you are audited? Are y’all aware you can track your personal return online? However a business cannot. Businesses have to rely on humans that can’t be reached. I’ve waited a year for a refund. Didn’t know if IRS received the return. Didn’t know if there was an issue. Didn’t know if it was mailed or lost. I’m getting tired of Republicans pushing their crap on people.", ">\n\nwho keeps upvoting this right wing propaganda", ">\n\nWhy would the GOP want to give the agency the power to go after their donors.", ">\n\nAnd it was trumps guy that mandated it while Biden replaced him", ">\n\nApparently the mere use of an accounting firm somehow protected corps and the rich from the IRS who still (mistakenly) believe the accounting firms are trustworthy. How naive.", ">\n\nThe \"audits\" talked about are mostly form letters requesting more info about specific items.", ">\n\nThe poor can't pay for top flight attorneys.", ">\n\nYep keep the IRS underfunded so they can only go after the poors at the same time telling all the poors that the IRS is bad cause it goes after them but leave out the fact that they do that cause the poors are low hanging fruit.\nRepublicans are evil.", ">\n\nWell the GOP wants to cut funding to the IRS for new agents, so I’m sure the poor folk will continue to get screwed. I say toss the 50,000+ page tax code out and replace with a percentage based on total revenue/income made. Took a loss? No write-offs. Oh well, better luck next year. It’ll never happen because the wealthy don’t want it to.", ">\n\nWhere did you get this info? I know GOPers have been slashing IRS budgets and staffing for years but can't find reliable sources for what this has done to the actual audits - like who gets audited.", ">\n\nTheir link is Fox. This is a bad faith post.", ">\n\nThis says a lot coming from fox “news”", ">\n\nTo paraphrase Gilbert K. Chesterton, \"The Poor have sometimes objected to being taxed too heavily; The Rich have always objected to being taxed at all.\"", ">\n\ndon't post Fox news here....", ">\n\nCorporations and millionaires have the means to hire accountants and attorneys. Our tax code is gray in several areas. It’s easy to go after the poor that do not have the resources and will have no choice but to pay anything the IRS says. The additional agents will continue to target the poor and middle class because they are easy, It’s happened before, it will continue to happen.", ">\n\nI think it's funny/sad that a poor person can win the lottery and they get taxed at a higher rate than any billionaire has ever been taxed at. The system is built to keep the rich - rich and the poor - poor.", ">\n\nThe poorest can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nThe current system cannot be sustained. We are hurtling towards disaster.", ">\n\nThe only reason the bastards have the majority is because the corrupt SCOTUS allowed illegal gerrymanders to stand while they were fought in the courts.", ">\n\nThe I.R.S. goes after the poorer people because it's easier. They can't afford lawyers and accountants. So the poor can do nothing but roll over and take it up the rump. The Inflation Reduction Act that Biden signed into law in August is supposed to give $80 Billion to the I.R.S. so they can go after the millionaires. But we know that won't happen. More poor people are going to get screwed.", ">\n\nI'm confused. For decades, Faux news and the conservatives have been saying that millionaires deserve to keep more of their money than we do. That was a huge part of the 2017 tax scam that Trump signed. Now Faux is saying it's a problem? And they are rightly detailing that Republicans are the cause, along with Biden trying to fix the same issue that Fox has helped create?", ">\n\nFox News", ">\n\nHey IRS, don't forget to crawl up my ass this year because I sold some old stuff on eBay for a loss but make sure you put a few man hours into figuring out if it is legit or not.", ">\n\nlol, and the people opposed to IRS funding will say they are anti-establishment.", ">\n\nImagine how much they could squeeze the middle class with 87,000 more agents! But really, it’ll be good to see if the increase in officers actually increases tax revenue without changing the underlying laws.", ">\n\nSo, this is the newest Republican boogeyman, the IRS.\nWell, better than Drag Queens I guess.", ">\n\nOh hey just like last year, and the year before that, I think there might be a pattern", ">\n\nThank you republicans, always sticking up in the back on the small guys…", ">\n\nFox News saying this like it’s not something Rupert Murdoch’s network supports is pretty funny.", ">\n\nFox News. Ignore it.", ">\n\nFox News is still allowed in here?", ">\n\nFake news. This is Republican propaganda coming from Fox News.", ">\n\nFox News is NOT news", ">\n\nHmm sounds like it was underfunded then. Good thing now we helped ease that problem. Thanks Biden", ">\n\nIt's simply laziness by the IRS. Lower-income households have less complicated returns and easier to process. I'm sure IRS runs a non-effective but management-pleasing metric like \"how many returns were corrected\" opposed to how much money was recouped.", ">\n\nWe know. They don't have the resources to do anything. That was the point of increasing the staffing at the IRS so they had even the slightest hope of going after the big offenders with their armies or lawyers.", ">\n\nThere's less millionaires and billionaires than there are us. I'm not sure that answer fits the accuracy on hiring more workers but I'll go ahead and amuse that", ">\n\nIt's not a game of tax guy vs rich guy. The rich literally have armies of lawyers. You need the staff to overcome all the paper and challenges they'll throw at you. \nIf you throw one person to audit a millionaire, their lawyers can make it so it'll take a year to review a week of operations. Investigations will never finish unless there's sufficient staff to overcome their obstruction.", ">\n\nTo this day I do not understand why the IRS can demand our documents every year without a warrant. The 16th amendment does not alter the 4th, and the 4th does not apply only to criminal actions (as the 5th explicitly does). Yet no one seems to care about this annual violations.", ">\n\nReminder, Fox News is not news. It's entertainment, and should be regarded as such.", ">\n\nNo shit, poor ppl tend to file their own taxes and screw up where as millionaires hire expensive accountants to exploit all the legal loopholes without getting their clients in trouble.\nI don't think it's an intentional targeting as the article may be implying.", ">\n\nOne might imagine the resources of agents would be better put to use by focusing on returns that might produce more revenue, however it may be just a lot easier to collect a few bucks from easier targets.", ">\n\nThey are short staffed and accountants make it so difficult to find wrongdoing, if there is even wrongdoing to be found, that it would take a decent chunk of their workforce just to tackle it. It's like trying to find needle in a haystack but you don't know if there's a needle or not.", ">\n\nSo true....", ">\n\nShocked pikachu face.", ">\n\nYeah I’d believe this if it weren’t Fox News. They could give a fuck about the poor and middle class.", ">\n\nI would literally rather the IRS spend its time auditing 5 extraordinarily rich people or a single business than anyone who makes less than 100k per year\nETA: I’m aware that this article represents part of the Republican agenda to just gut the IRS and welfare spending generally. And I understand the difficulties in auditing the rich/businesses v lower income people claiming tax credits, etc", ">\n\nAlmost all of the little people \"audits\" are just a computer issuing a correspondence \"audit\" because the person misreported something from their W2, didn't report as much 1099 income as was reported to the IRS by others, or separated parents both trying to claim kids for tax credits or something. \n-\nThey don't really pull from the same resources. The rich people audits require human beings. Little people \"audits\" aren't really audits and a computer can do it. So if we want to audit more rich people, they need actual budget for human beings. The little people are going to be caught anyways because a computer can do it.", ">\n\nI interned at the IRS during the summer of 2012 when Lois Lerner made batshit crazy commrnts that they were targetting conservative groups", ">\n\nI say this every time it gets brought up. This is by design. I used to work in auditing and also used to do tax stuff. It’s super easy to find tax fraud on someone who only has a simple W-2 and no other income. You could find those people through a basic algorithm. Meanwhile, auditing a multi millionaire is expensive, time consuming, and often fruitless. If I was in charge of an underfunded, understaffed IRS I would tell my staff to go for the easy wins too.", ">\n\nUnpopular opinion - More funding won't resolve this. \nThe IRS will keep doing this. Unless rules & regulations forbid or disincentivize this practice, the IRS will keep this stupid practice", ">\n\nI make $40,000 a year and the IRS froze my bank accounts until I paid them $1000 in taxes I owed them because of an error I made filling my taxes. They froze my bank accounts for $1000. I was fucked for a month. I had to borrow cash from people just for food and gas money to get to work to get paid money that I couldn’t access. It was a scary time for me. Meanwhile millionaires are purposely avoiding taxes worth more than what I make in a year and nothing happens to them.", ">\n\nThe IRS sends no less than a dozen letters to a taxpayer prior to leaving a bank account. Why didn't you just put it into a repayment plan? Takes about ten minutes online.", ">\n\nDon't you just hate autocorrect?", ">\n\nIf true, its a holdover from jrbush who slashed IRS staff and budget and told them to spend more time auditing tip jars and busboys than millionaires because the millionaires had better lawyers than the IRS and service workers were unlikely to have any lawyers at all.", ">\n\nFox News solution: remove the IRS", ">\n\nAbsolutely. They’ll NEVER target the rich, adding more agents just made them a lot more capable to target all the lower class.", ">\n\nWhat people don't realize..Those 87K \"Agents\" aren't that. It's 87K employees over 25 years. Clerks etc. People are so fucking stupid when they just believe these clowns.", ">\n\nThose numbers also count it as an \"audit\" when a person misreports a number from a W2, 1099s, etc and the irs number matching software sends an automatically generated correspondence letter that basically says \"we actually show this number, this is what your tax return would have been if you reported that number correctly\". \nThe IRS isn't wasting time doing random \"audits\" as people think of them for low to middle income people. It would be a complete waste of their time. The computer just catches obvious verifiable mistakes and it counts as an audit in those numbers.", ">\n\n“those in the lowest income bracket hit 12.7 per 1,000….. The odds of a millionaire facing an audit were around 1.1%.”\nSo they’re saying 1.27% vs 1.1%!!! And acting like that’s a scandal 🙄", ">\n\nWhich means millionaires REALLY don't want more IRS auditors which means when our new resident house fascist fires five thousand auditors, said fascist (McCarthy) is making sure those millionaires aren't going to get audited. \nCha CHING !!! Go the \"donations\" into house rat republican's pockets. \nThe grift will be in full swing shortly.\nAnd with putin whispering in their ears and telling them EXACTLY how break the law - how can they lose?", ">\n\n💯 Exactly why theres a Fox link here pushing for that same reason.", ">\n\nTwo things. First of all, this is from a far right-wing propaganda outlet which should immediately raise red flags. They're trying to scare you into allowing a republican-initiated movement to entirely remove all remaining power from the IRS by making it seem like they're coming after you.\nSecond, the reason the IRS is already already virtually powerless against the rich is because the republicans have already eviscerated them in the past several decades, largely through defunding them leading to not only staffing cuts, but the inability to pursue the wealthiest people who have the resources for endless litigation. So as a result, the FBI can only really afford to go after people who cannot financially defend themselves.", ">\n\nThird, you might as well throw in that the aiming low guidance was under a Trump appointee who is no longer in that position.", ">\n\nThe GOP intentionally defunded the IRS so that it could not audit the wealthy. It takes a great deal more money upfront to audit them but the payback is far greater.", ">\n\nI'm not sure why dems voted against an amendment that would have mandated the giant infusion of cash into the IRS couldn't be used to audit folks making >$400k.", ">\n\nHrm this is pretty fucked I'd like to hear about why the Dems voted nay.", ">\n\nBecause they work for the same people as Republicans. \nThey are different but only when their owners allow them to be. \nI don't know how many times we are going to have to learn this lesson before it sticks.", ">\n\nDemocrats are responsible for this", ">\n\nThe rich returns are just too hard, enough lower class errors you can leave the rich alone. Love to see it… sigh", ">\n\nIt takes money to police the wealthy. Can't have that can we?!", ">\n\nr/noshitsherlock", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised?\nI’m not even American and this seemed obvious to me. All you have to do is look at how the poor live and compare that to the news about someone like Elon musk or Donald trump.", ">\n\nThis is why the IRS needs to go.", ">\n\nFox News helped make that happen.", ">\n\nThey'll never change,all the time when the guys in charge benefit from doing the same shit.", ">\n\nAnd yet the republicans dont submit or pass legislations to change the rules to favor targeting rich people. Curious.", ">\n\nThen 78,000 new, armed tax collectors should be able to extract even more money from the poor, middle-class and small business owners.", ">\n\nWhy did they focus on the Poorest? The thought of 87,000 more of them will actually do what? If the existing can’t focus on the wealthy! Then what makes anybody think more can?", ">\n\nMillionaires and billionaires make the government more money by creating lobbying loopholes and exploiting the economy to bilk the 99%. It's really cheap to go after the poorest who are struggling to pay day to day obligations and don't have loopholes or government sanctioned exploitation to take advantage of.", ">\n\nI could have told you this would happen. You think millionaires get $600 Venmo transactions?", ">\n\nThat's a move democrats should not make. That's one month of rent for me. What of folks worse-off?", ">\n\nHonestly it’s like squeezing blood from the stone over here anyway.", ">\n\nDuh lmfao theyve already stated it costs too much to tax weathy people previously and its most cost effective to audit the poor due to many factors...", ">\n\nI mean 99% of us are poor compared to the other 1%", ">\n\nColor me surprised", ">\n\nWe need some laws for equitable auditing.", ">\n\nYou are an Army commander about to attack the enemy. Do you prefer to attack where they have experienced career solders backed up by artillery, tanks, and airplanes, or do you attack where there are poorly armed and equipped untrained conscripts?", ">\n\nThey must be upset someone replaced their sign with a card from Cards Against Humanity", ">\n\nMay it ever be so…. Don’t reproduce if you only consume and can’t accumulate or help a Dow Jones winter water witch. Like snow, weathermen.", ">\n\nIt’s weirdly fitting how much their building sign in the photo looks like a cards against humanity card.", ">\n\nTypical", ">\n\nWow? How unusual.", ">\n\nI’d support double the number of IRS agents", ">\n\nI was low income and won about 3,000 gambling, the irs went after me", ">\n\nThe IRS came after me hard for 8$", ">\n\nAudit frequency should correlate to income, someone with a million in income should be audited 10x those with 100k income", ">\n\nSomeone should explain Pareto charts to the IRS.", ">\n\nI've been audited three times. First when I was 27, did some consulting and didn't do the 1099 prepayments. Ended up owing $17k. Second audit was after moving across country for a job. The tax preparer we hired made a mistake with the move expense deductions, owed a few thousand. Third audit was another tax preparer mistake, but this time we overpaid and were owed money we credited to the next year. \nIf you assume for discussion that the average audit on an ordinary tax payer returns $10,000, it would take 100,000,000 audits to make $1 trillion. By just doing the easy work, the IRS is leaving the real money on the table.", ">\n\nRepublicans are famous for giving rich breaks while middle class etc close the gaps", ">\n\nThe last line, \"The Inflation Reduction Act provides the IRS with $80 billion in future funding to ramp up its audits and potentially target the wealthiest taxpayers.\"", ">\n\nThe cure is not the root cause, but the middle class and the poor will eventually bear the burden after the capital operation", ">\n\nIt’s like they timed the “research” and the drop of the article with the speech. Sad man.", ">\n\nWatch Madoff. The wealthy skate and steal billions. The poor are in prison over thousands.", ">\n\nWhy does their sign look like a Card Against Humanity", ">\n\nFucking Trump, still at it.", ">\n\nOh you mean the thing people said would happen once they got massive funding actually happened? Checks out", ">\n\nOf course they did, because millionaires will lawyer up.", ">\n\nBecause the poor can't afford to fight back.", ">\n\nIt's so unfair the poor and the middle class taxpayers suffer so much while the millionaries got away with not paying the taxes It's really hurting the poor. The middle class is fading", ">\n\nAll of this can be fixed if we just use no-exemption graduated income", ">\n\nYeah we know", ">\n\nShow of hands for all surprised.\ncrickets\nHmm. Seems like Reddit suffers from a plague of double amputees...", ">\n\nWhat the actual fuck", ">\n\nAnd 2021, 2020, 2019, …", ">\n\nSounds about right.", ">\n\nOf course. Poor people can’t afford attorneys.", ">\n\nI made a mistake on my forms while I was overseas and ticked “self-employed” instead of “employed”. I was on a student visa and had two children and was making less than 10k a year. They hounded me for years. By the time I figured out what had happened I could not amend the forms and had paid thousands in penalties and interest.\nMeanwhile I knew lots of people who were there fully employed not reporting their income.\nFuck them.", ">\n\nYep! During the pandemic, even while I wasn't working didn't come after me the entire time that I was working but the minute that I wasn't nobody was cuz we were in lockdown they started popping up", ">\n\nI just now realized that the Cards Against Humanity box looks like the IRS sign", ">\n\nWhy is the sign a Cards Against Humanity question?", ">\n\nI am shocked and appalled. clutches pearls", ">\n\nRich should be taxed more than the average not right at all. Or at least there is a tier system based on pay only makes sense. Come on now", ">\n\nSounds about right, make the rich richer again.", ">\n\nWho are we going to vote for in the future ,all of them are decayed , corrupted and useless , the “most rich country in the world , governed by the most ignorant an corrupted. What a contrast .", ">\n\nGod bless America", ">\n\nno way. wait until you see those people responds. Those people are chipping away.", ">\n\nSounds about right", ">\n\nWe know.", ">\n\nI find it rather comical that Fox news is reporting on this since they are all about pushing the Republican agenda and that is all about pushing everyone else down that isn't rich and keeping them there. Not to mention they had no problem with Trump not paying taxes for years.", ">\n\nCan fucking confirm.", ">\n\nYeah, they (millionaires) have accountants who generally do things right and due to their millions being in investments it's not like it's taxable all the time. \nThen there's the ability to sell any stocks when they're down to build up losses on paper can reinvest them at a loss that can carry over across multiple years.", ">\n\nsounds about right. i don’t have a pot to piss in but they’re all over me for someone stealing my identity and filing a double tax return one year.", ">\n\nDuh", ">\n\nThere’s a reason why FOX is posting this article. The less people at the IRS, the more likely they come after folks who can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nIn order to pursue wealthy tax cheats, the IRS needs more resources and personnel. Otherwise it’s business as usual, picking on the low hanging fruit that earns under 6 figures.", ">\n\nSo wrong ....people need to be fired", ">\n\nIt’s because they can’t afford to take them to court", ">\n\nOf course it is about protecting the rich like Trump who lies ,lies , and about his tax returns . No wonder he did not want them released .", ">\n\nEasy prey bc most ppl can not lawyer up. Pretty heart breaking system we have at times.", ">\n\nWhy does the irs sign look like it's from cards against humanity?", ">\n\nCurrently getting audited over \\~$1500, which they owe me, when the rich get away with murder. Fucking unbelievably and unnecessarily stressful for me.", ">\n\nHas t this been know for a while?", ">\n\nyep and they are the same people getting tax cuts while everyone else does it tough ....\nAny one with too much money is your enemy .... not a hero of democracy", ">\n\nGet rid of taxes and the gov’t should just do stuff for free, or what ever.", ">\n\nYou have to be careful when you get one of those CP2000 notices from the IRS. The way they are written is a trap.\nIf you dispute it you are supposed to indicate that you disagree and send it back with documents supporting your dispute.\nYou are only supposed to sign it if you agree with them and when you sign it you are signing away your rights to dispute the back taxes and penalties they are demanding.\nMere worker bees like us can expect to be getting a lot of those from this years tax returns considering how the threshold for 1099k forms has been dropped to $600.\nGuys like Trump? The IRS doesn't even know where to begin.", ">\n\nThanks Biden", ">\n\nI presume those lower-income bracket filers might be more likely to reach out to 1-800-infomercial [quickie settlement/long-term penalties most favorable to gov/proprietor] than retain proper legal counsel?\nRegardless it’s got to be a lot less work for IRS agent to go after under-represented citizen(s), rather than someone who can afford to appeal, properly negotiate on their own terms?", ">\n\nLmfao Dems tax and spend. But I have to admit there Republicans that tax and spend to. Where do these Politicians get off taxing me or business and give to people who don't work what do you cause d the inflation. You can not print money \nI am Conservative not a Republican. To much money is wasted and put in pockets of people ot don't belong.\nBut all dems know how to tax tax tax. \nIts all great and good until you run out if other peoples money. \nMillionaire just like Berny he hated Millionaires until he became one now he hates Trillionaires. Funny how the gold post changes. And good old Nancy her I side stock trading. So I think you need to rethink.", ">\n\nThe IRS is only doing as directed by whomever controls the White House.", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised by this? Really?", ">\n\nThe sign in the thumbnail looks like a Cards Against Humanity card.", ">\n\nWhile this is mostly true, don’t believe everything you read. I’m no more an accountant than I am a ladies man, but someone (said they’re an accountant) posted a few days ago about this. They explained that the most likely people getting audited are trying to, fraudulently or mistakenly, claim the EITC. \nYES, it’s super easy to “bust” these people for an easy “mistake”. This is who the IRS is cracking down on. \nDo I think it’s better to bust poor people for claiming a few thousand in tax credits vs billionaires who avoid taxes altogether? Of course not, but don’t think they’re actively targeting people who fudge their mileage deductions or miss a decimal point in their calculations as small business owners. It’s simply not happening. \nAnd the reported “87,000 new IRS agents” are replacing the 10’s of 1,000’s of employees set to retire or quit over the next 10 years which doesn’t even begin to fill the gaps we’ve been growing for decades by not hiring and training more willing workers. Not to mention they’re not even close to all employees who will actively audit tax payers. They’re people who answer phones, file papers, assist others, etc… They’re mostly just average people with average jobs so of course the GOP wants to end this. They hate upward mobility and job creation unless that means tax breaks for their billionaire friends.", ">\n\nI wish everyone wasn’t a sheep and would understand this.", ">\n\nI can see the Media doing their best to turn the public against the IRS.", ">\n\nPicking on the week and helpless. That’s what we humans do. We suck. I’m waiting for that big meteor reset button.", ">\n\nAnd Fox news loves this.", ">\n\nLove it, Faux 'News' taking the piss, for 4 years under Dear Leader they campaigned for tax breaks for the rich, now they're pretending to care about the poor !", ">\n\nEvery millionaire should be audited yearly. Period.", ">\n\nAND now the gqp cult promises to rescind the money Biden set aside to aid the IRS to recover taxes from mega millionaire tax cheats like benedict donald, who paid less taxes than most working Americans.", ">\n\nRepublicans want to stop the IRS and Congress from taxing rich people, making the burden of maintaining civilization fall more heavily on poorer people. This is why Republicans vote for tax cuts for the rich and against funding for the IRS.\nAnd since Republican beliefs are based on wishful thinking, Republicans can screw over poor, rural Republicans while simultaneously taking credit for doing it to make Republicans happy about it and blaming it on Democrats to make those same Republicans resentful against Democrats for it. And what else would we expect from a Republican Party that blames Democrats for tricking them into attacking the Capitol to make Trump look bad and justifies and approves of assaulting Capitol police while brandishing their \"thin blue line\" flags.", ">\n\nThe IRS is like any other law enforcement agency, they prefer pursuing the poor because they don't have the resources to protect themselves.", ">\n\nThe IRS building sign looks like its from cards against humanity.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nNot a reliable news source.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nThat picture looks like the worst cards against humanity card too get.", ">\n\nScrew the Murdoch media empire and their failed trickle down ideologies.", ">\n\nOf course, the poorest haven’t paid over 400+ billion for decades. Not sure about the rich, we haven’t checked.", ">\n\nThis is not a surprise. With the recent inflation reduction act, the IRS an additional $80B over 10 years or $8B per year. The IRS budget for 2021 was $13.7B. The additional $8B over the year would be an increase of 58% to their budget. They will be looking to get a lot more money from taxpayers, due to this very large increase in their budget.", ">\n\nFox reported this? I'm in shock", ">\n\nAll propagandists publish clickbaity stuff that makes them sound like maybe they've let up on the evil. Unfortunately it works, since people just upvote headlines.", ">\n\nIt’s only going to get worse in 2023. Those 87k new IRS agents will not be going after the wealthy.", ">\n\nWhy?\nThat’s literally why they were being added. The IRS goes after the poorer taxpayers because they are low-hanging fruit and don’t have the lawyers and accountants to protect them. \nThe additional IRS employees were to give the personnel staffing sufficient to go after the wealthy.", ">\n\nIt doesn’t matter how many IRS agents there are. It will always be easier and more profitable for the IRS to nickel and dime the average taxpayer rather than go after the wealthy, who have the resources to lawyer up with the best lawyers and challenge the IRS in court.", ">\n\nEasier? Yes. More profitable? Doubtful.", ">\n\nIf Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today." ]
> If they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?	[ "If Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nAnd when Barry was president they targeted conservative groups. I think phone calls can be made to tell them to back off of the little guy.", ">\n\n\nthey targeted conservative groups.\n\nNo. They went after specifically anti-tax tea party groups. The groups who openly flaunted tax laws", ">\n\nThey also went after progressive, left leaning groups - how do you explain that ? it was political", ">\n\nWait, did they target conservatives or progressives? Lol", ">\n\nBoth- it was quite clear they were involving themselves in politics - that’s what the IG found", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.", ">\n\nYep!\nAlso this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious.\nThe real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade.", ">\n\nThanks for the informative reply.\nYou make great points which I don't doubt. But there are times when I think it's important to consider both the letter and spirit of law at times.\nEven though it is perfectly by the letter of the law that people should be checked, it also seems against the intended spirit of said law that only a certain group of people are checked.\nI am not familiar with US law, but I think most of us can feel some degree of injustice with how things currently are.", ">\n\nThe point is to automate more checking of income common to wealthier people, and devote more resources to auditing those people. The Fox News article is disingenuous in how it describes the automated checking that goes on. It’s not great that rich people aren’t really audited, but there’s no reason to stop the automated checking of income where it’s already being done and essentially free to continue.\nIf you feel differently, explain yourself.", ">\n\nNo, we are in alignment concerning this.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nFUCK FOX NEWS\nFox is pretending to care about us poors. \nDon't reward these fascist fucks with upvotes for a disingenuous clickbait headline. They still hate us for not voting gop.", ">\n\nThey want people to hate the IRS and help defund it so they don’t go after the rich, which was the purpose of the additional funding", ">\n\nThey want people to link this to “87000” new agents, which is obviously happening on social media posts, but it’s not even a thing.", ">\n\nArticle is trash. The author is including correspondence audits (which means the IRS asked for some documentation by mail) for low income filers but not for millionaires when comparing their audit rates. Here are actual numbers according to their own source:\nAudit rates including correspondence audits\nlow income 1.27%\nmillionaires 2.38% \nAudit rates excluding correspondence audits\nlow income 0.0376%\nmillionaires 1.24%\n.\nFor low income filers, nearly all their audits were correspondence audits.", ">\n\nIt's hilarious when Fox News and the GOP pretend they care about poor people.\nNo amount of hypocrisy is too much to try to make democrats look bad.", ">\n\nIts unfortunately far easier to prove married couples who live together filed HoH for extra earned income credit than it is to prove complicated returns were incorrect.", ">\n\nIt's also trivially easy to prove the same child was claimed by two parents which is a lot of correspondence audits.", ">\n\nSo can my back taxes please just get forgiven already. 20% income being taxed is not livable", ">\n\nRepublican love flat rate taxes, you should talk to them.", ">\n\nThey’re required to audit the president and vice president, and that didn’t happen either.", ">\n\nThis isn't new, it's been been having for the last 5 - 6 years.", ">\n\nHopefully some wake up and realize its all just preparing us for the inevitable destruction of our economy. I imagine its almost too late to realize this. If we all realized this wed sell our 401Ks and not lean on money and use it to help our neighbors.", ">\n\nK bro.", ">\n\nMy wife and I are on social security. She works part time to keep us afloat. All in, we earned $50K in 2022. iRS wants $4500 from us. Really? 5X what Trump paid? Don't know if anyone is paying attention but $50k ain't rich. Oh, and out of that comes almost $4k in Medicare premiums. A program we paid into for 40+ years.\nEveryone of these arrogant, unqualified,, spoon fed assholes in Congress should be made to live on SSI or welfare, with no medical coverage, for a year. Then tell me I am acting entitled.\nSelf serving bastards.", ">\n\nDon't upvote this crap.\nDo you really think Fox cares about the working class??\nThis is just right wing propaganda, timed to coincide with McCarthy's promise to get rid of the new IRS agents who make it possible to audit the rich.\nDon't be used.", ">\n\nWhatever happened to \"dont shoot the messenger?\"", ">\n\nIRS understaffing would naturally trend to go after low-lying fruit. Easy pickings. Too many man hours to go after super complex cases. These moneyed fuckers and their bullshit. It's outrageous.", ">\n\nThe vast majority of these audits are automatically generated correspondence audits that have to be issued. We can't just turn off the program that raises a red flag when two people claim the same child as a dependent because we don't have enough forensic accountants. If you mistype your W2 you'll get an \"audit\" showing the correct info from the copy your boss sent them and telling you they'll correct it unless you tell them otherwise and you don't have to do anything if the info they have is correct.", ">\n\nYeah, all the nonsense about the IRS \"going after\" low income people is so stupid. Low income people make money in a way that their reporting is easily verifiable by a computer. They're also most likely to mess up and claim child tax credits incorrectly, etc - all of which is verifiable and issued a letter by a computer. \n-\nOther than actually being able to get someone on the phone when you call the IRS, and increased budget isn't going to impact the average person in any way.", ">\n\nMy thing is even assuming the 87k don't successfully get more money out of the rich, that's still 87k jobs. That's a net positive. I just don't understand the conservative logic here. Do they think these 87k new jobs are specifically for being insidiously predatory toward the poor? Where's the logic here? (I know I'll get hyperbolic answers, but I genuinely would like to know)", ">\n\nIt's 87,000 jobs over 10 years, the majority of which are replacement during that period. It's just a budget supplemental to stop hemorrhaging agents as they retire or cycle out into other jobs.", ">\n\nso.. this is on fox, which I assume support republican efforts to ensure that this is the permanent state of affairs. I don't really get anything anymore.", ">\n\nAnd that is the way the GOP wants it.", ">\n\n💯 Exactly what this Fox article is trying to do.", ">\n\nIt's who can afford a lawyer", ">\n\nAs the article hints at, the IRS does not do a lot of actual auditing. What it does is computer matching, which automatically generates material for a correspondence audit. Most correspondence audits occur because som poor working Joe didn't know he/her was supposed to include or exclude something, and the IRS caught it in its matching. Of course, the problem is that we have a complex code and little help in actually helping people through the various forms, rules, and so on. But millionaires don't have these issues, so they can escape most of the traps that lead to a correspondence audit. If a lot of these 87,000 were in taxpayer service (which I expect) it would lead to fewer audits at the low end, more robust audits for large corporations, wealthy individuals, and those who actively use tax avoidance strategies. But of course that is not the dialogue that gets promoted when the 87,000 agents are discussed.", ">\n\nThis is exactly why Fox News needs to be dismantled and thrown in the garbage. Ugh, \"look poors! They're coming for yoU!!!\". Scare tactics. And guess what? It sadly works. Every time.\nThey're lower than scum.", ">\n\nExactly. It's when someone misreports a number from their W2, didn't report 1099s they received, both separated parents claim a tax credit for the same kid, etc. All stuff that's easily checked by a computer. The IRS isn't \"auditing\" random low to middle income people. That would be a complete waste of their time.", ">\n\nlooks at Trump You don't say.", ">\n\nThe poor can't defend themselves, it's easier to take a little bit of money from people that won't fight back than a lot of money from people that will.", ">\n\nThe mega rich seem like they’re on a mission to destroy America, as we know it.", ">\n\nHiring 87,000 new IRS agents makes it possible to audit billionaires. So they pay their share. Those audits require an actual person or team that knows what they are doing. But Kevin McCarthy's first item of business was to announce legislation to overturn the hiring of 87,000 IRS agents. Meaning only the little guy (who can be audited by computer software) pays taxes.\nSSDD", ">\n\nThe \"87,000\" agents budget is over a ten year period. It's not for 87,000 new positions.", ">\n\nThe title is so misleading. Im surprised fox even put the juicy bit in the article about how (this stat is due to there not being enough IRS workers because) these \"audits\" on low earners are just automated letters asking for more info.\nYet again, this is just millionairs paid by billionairs to mislead the masses into blaming the poor for crimes committed by said billionairs.", ">\n\nWhich is why the IRS needs more manpower and budget, so they can go after the big fish.\nFuck Fox News and their Republican propaganda pieces. This article coincides with McCarthy saying they’ll cut the IRS budget and that the IRS is coming for you.\nFuck off Republican propaganda rag!\nStop upvoting any Fox News story. Fox should not be on the white list.", ">\n\nThis is a terrible article. It seems to include questions about tax returns as audits. If a low income filer makes a mistake it should be corrected. Is that an audit? If anyone makes a mistake and is contacted, is that an audit? Also there is no reason to go after low income as they rarely pay tax or are required to. The money requested would also pay for people to answer a phone. Those against increasing funding lie when they say all of it goes to audits. If you tell the truth, who cares if you are audited? Are y’all aware you can track your personal return online? However a business cannot. Businesses have to rely on humans that can’t be reached. I’ve waited a year for a refund. Didn’t know if IRS received the return. Didn’t know if there was an issue. Didn’t know if it was mailed or lost. I’m getting tired of Republicans pushing their crap on people.", ">\n\nwho keeps upvoting this right wing propaganda", ">\n\nWhy would the GOP want to give the agency the power to go after their donors.", ">\n\nAnd it was trumps guy that mandated it while Biden replaced him", ">\n\nApparently the mere use of an accounting firm somehow protected corps and the rich from the IRS who still (mistakenly) believe the accounting firms are trustworthy. How naive.", ">\n\nThe \"audits\" talked about are mostly form letters requesting more info about specific items.", ">\n\nThe poor can't pay for top flight attorneys.", ">\n\nYep keep the IRS underfunded so they can only go after the poors at the same time telling all the poors that the IRS is bad cause it goes after them but leave out the fact that they do that cause the poors are low hanging fruit.\nRepublicans are evil.", ">\n\nWell the GOP wants to cut funding to the IRS for new agents, so I’m sure the poor folk will continue to get screwed. I say toss the 50,000+ page tax code out and replace with a percentage based on total revenue/income made. Took a loss? No write-offs. Oh well, better luck next year. It’ll never happen because the wealthy don’t want it to.", ">\n\nWhere did you get this info? I know GOPers have been slashing IRS budgets and staffing for years but can't find reliable sources for what this has done to the actual audits - like who gets audited.", ">\n\nTheir link is Fox. This is a bad faith post.", ">\n\nThis says a lot coming from fox “news”", ">\n\nTo paraphrase Gilbert K. Chesterton, \"The Poor have sometimes objected to being taxed too heavily; The Rich have always objected to being taxed at all.\"", ">\n\ndon't post Fox news here....", ">\n\nCorporations and millionaires have the means to hire accountants and attorneys. Our tax code is gray in several areas. It’s easy to go after the poor that do not have the resources and will have no choice but to pay anything the IRS says. The additional agents will continue to target the poor and middle class because they are easy, It’s happened before, it will continue to happen.", ">\n\nI think it's funny/sad that a poor person can win the lottery and they get taxed at a higher rate than any billionaire has ever been taxed at. The system is built to keep the rich - rich and the poor - poor.", ">\n\nThe poorest can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nThe current system cannot be sustained. We are hurtling towards disaster.", ">\n\nThe only reason the bastards have the majority is because the corrupt SCOTUS allowed illegal gerrymanders to stand while they were fought in the courts.", ">\n\nThe I.R.S. goes after the poorer people because it's easier. They can't afford lawyers and accountants. So the poor can do nothing but roll over and take it up the rump. The Inflation Reduction Act that Biden signed into law in August is supposed to give $80 Billion to the I.R.S. so they can go after the millionaires. But we know that won't happen. More poor people are going to get screwed.", ">\n\nI'm confused. For decades, Faux news and the conservatives have been saying that millionaires deserve to keep more of their money than we do. That was a huge part of the 2017 tax scam that Trump signed. Now Faux is saying it's a problem? And they are rightly detailing that Republicans are the cause, along with Biden trying to fix the same issue that Fox has helped create?", ">\n\nFox News", ">\n\nHey IRS, don't forget to crawl up my ass this year because I sold some old stuff on eBay for a loss but make sure you put a few man hours into figuring out if it is legit or not.", ">\n\nlol, and the people opposed to IRS funding will say they are anti-establishment.", ">\n\nImagine how much they could squeeze the middle class with 87,000 more agents! But really, it’ll be good to see if the increase in officers actually increases tax revenue without changing the underlying laws.", ">\n\nSo, this is the newest Republican boogeyman, the IRS.\nWell, better than Drag Queens I guess.", ">\n\nOh hey just like last year, and the year before that, I think there might be a pattern", ">\n\nThank you republicans, always sticking up in the back on the small guys…", ">\n\nFox News saying this like it’s not something Rupert Murdoch’s network supports is pretty funny.", ">\n\nFox News. Ignore it.", ">\n\nFox News is still allowed in here?", ">\n\nFake news. This is Republican propaganda coming from Fox News.", ">\n\nFox News is NOT news", ">\n\nHmm sounds like it was underfunded then. Good thing now we helped ease that problem. Thanks Biden", ">\n\nIt's simply laziness by the IRS. Lower-income households have less complicated returns and easier to process. I'm sure IRS runs a non-effective but management-pleasing metric like \"how many returns were corrected\" opposed to how much money was recouped.", ">\n\nWe know. They don't have the resources to do anything. That was the point of increasing the staffing at the IRS so they had even the slightest hope of going after the big offenders with their armies or lawyers.", ">\n\nThere's less millionaires and billionaires than there are us. I'm not sure that answer fits the accuracy on hiring more workers but I'll go ahead and amuse that", ">\n\nIt's not a game of tax guy vs rich guy. The rich literally have armies of lawyers. You need the staff to overcome all the paper and challenges they'll throw at you. \nIf you throw one person to audit a millionaire, their lawyers can make it so it'll take a year to review a week of operations. Investigations will never finish unless there's sufficient staff to overcome their obstruction.", ">\n\nTo this day I do not understand why the IRS can demand our documents every year without a warrant. The 16th amendment does not alter the 4th, and the 4th does not apply only to criminal actions (as the 5th explicitly does). Yet no one seems to care about this annual violations.", ">\n\nReminder, Fox News is not news. It's entertainment, and should be regarded as such.", ">\n\nNo shit, poor ppl tend to file their own taxes and screw up where as millionaires hire expensive accountants to exploit all the legal loopholes without getting their clients in trouble.\nI don't think it's an intentional targeting as the article may be implying.", ">\n\nOne might imagine the resources of agents would be better put to use by focusing on returns that might produce more revenue, however it may be just a lot easier to collect a few bucks from easier targets.", ">\n\nThey are short staffed and accountants make it so difficult to find wrongdoing, if there is even wrongdoing to be found, that it would take a decent chunk of their workforce just to tackle it. It's like trying to find needle in a haystack but you don't know if there's a needle or not.", ">\n\nSo true....", ">\n\nShocked pikachu face.", ">\n\nYeah I’d believe this if it weren’t Fox News. They could give a fuck about the poor and middle class.", ">\n\nI would literally rather the IRS spend its time auditing 5 extraordinarily rich people or a single business than anyone who makes less than 100k per year\nETA: I’m aware that this article represents part of the Republican agenda to just gut the IRS and welfare spending generally. And I understand the difficulties in auditing the rich/businesses v lower income people claiming tax credits, etc", ">\n\nAlmost all of the little people \"audits\" are just a computer issuing a correspondence \"audit\" because the person misreported something from their W2, didn't report as much 1099 income as was reported to the IRS by others, or separated parents both trying to claim kids for tax credits or something. \n-\nThey don't really pull from the same resources. The rich people audits require human beings. Little people \"audits\" aren't really audits and a computer can do it. So if we want to audit more rich people, they need actual budget for human beings. The little people are going to be caught anyways because a computer can do it.", ">\n\nI interned at the IRS during the summer of 2012 when Lois Lerner made batshit crazy commrnts that they were targetting conservative groups", ">\n\nI say this every time it gets brought up. This is by design. I used to work in auditing and also used to do tax stuff. It’s super easy to find tax fraud on someone who only has a simple W-2 and no other income. You could find those people through a basic algorithm. Meanwhile, auditing a multi millionaire is expensive, time consuming, and often fruitless. If I was in charge of an underfunded, understaffed IRS I would tell my staff to go for the easy wins too.", ">\n\nUnpopular opinion - More funding won't resolve this. \nThe IRS will keep doing this. Unless rules & regulations forbid or disincentivize this practice, the IRS will keep this stupid practice", ">\n\nI make $40,000 a year and the IRS froze my bank accounts until I paid them $1000 in taxes I owed them because of an error I made filling my taxes. They froze my bank accounts for $1000. I was fucked for a month. I had to borrow cash from people just for food and gas money to get to work to get paid money that I couldn’t access. It was a scary time for me. Meanwhile millionaires are purposely avoiding taxes worth more than what I make in a year and nothing happens to them.", ">\n\nThe IRS sends no less than a dozen letters to a taxpayer prior to leaving a bank account. Why didn't you just put it into a repayment plan? Takes about ten minutes online.", ">\n\nDon't you just hate autocorrect?", ">\n\nIf true, its a holdover from jrbush who slashed IRS staff and budget and told them to spend more time auditing tip jars and busboys than millionaires because the millionaires had better lawyers than the IRS and service workers were unlikely to have any lawyers at all.", ">\n\nFox News solution: remove the IRS", ">\n\nAbsolutely. They’ll NEVER target the rich, adding more agents just made them a lot more capable to target all the lower class.", ">\n\nWhat people don't realize..Those 87K \"Agents\" aren't that. It's 87K employees over 25 years. Clerks etc. People are so fucking stupid when they just believe these clowns.", ">\n\nThose numbers also count it as an \"audit\" when a person misreports a number from a W2, 1099s, etc and the irs number matching software sends an automatically generated correspondence letter that basically says \"we actually show this number, this is what your tax return would have been if you reported that number correctly\". \nThe IRS isn't wasting time doing random \"audits\" as people think of them for low to middle income people. It would be a complete waste of their time. The computer just catches obvious verifiable mistakes and it counts as an audit in those numbers.", ">\n\n“those in the lowest income bracket hit 12.7 per 1,000….. The odds of a millionaire facing an audit were around 1.1%.”\nSo they’re saying 1.27% vs 1.1%!!! And acting like that’s a scandal 🙄", ">\n\nWhich means millionaires REALLY don't want more IRS auditors which means when our new resident house fascist fires five thousand auditors, said fascist (McCarthy) is making sure those millionaires aren't going to get audited. \nCha CHING !!! Go the \"donations\" into house rat republican's pockets. \nThe grift will be in full swing shortly.\nAnd with putin whispering in their ears and telling them EXACTLY how break the law - how can they lose?", ">\n\n💯 Exactly why theres a Fox link here pushing for that same reason.", ">\n\nTwo things. First of all, this is from a far right-wing propaganda outlet which should immediately raise red flags. They're trying to scare you into allowing a republican-initiated movement to entirely remove all remaining power from the IRS by making it seem like they're coming after you.\nSecond, the reason the IRS is already already virtually powerless against the rich is because the republicans have already eviscerated them in the past several decades, largely through defunding them leading to not only staffing cuts, but the inability to pursue the wealthiest people who have the resources for endless litigation. So as a result, the FBI can only really afford to go after people who cannot financially defend themselves.", ">\n\nThird, you might as well throw in that the aiming low guidance was under a Trump appointee who is no longer in that position.", ">\n\nThe GOP intentionally defunded the IRS so that it could not audit the wealthy. It takes a great deal more money upfront to audit them but the payback is far greater.", ">\n\nI'm not sure why dems voted against an amendment that would have mandated the giant infusion of cash into the IRS couldn't be used to audit folks making >$400k.", ">\n\nHrm this is pretty fucked I'd like to hear about why the Dems voted nay.", ">\n\nBecause they work for the same people as Republicans. \nThey are different but only when their owners allow them to be. \nI don't know how many times we are going to have to learn this lesson before it sticks.", ">\n\nDemocrats are responsible for this", ">\n\nThe rich returns are just too hard, enough lower class errors you can leave the rich alone. Love to see it… sigh", ">\n\nIt takes money to police the wealthy. Can't have that can we?!", ">\n\nr/noshitsherlock", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised?\nI’m not even American and this seemed obvious to me. All you have to do is look at how the poor live and compare that to the news about someone like Elon musk or Donald trump.", ">\n\nThis is why the IRS needs to go.", ">\n\nFox News helped make that happen.", ">\n\nThey'll never change,all the time when the guys in charge benefit from doing the same shit.", ">\n\nAnd yet the republicans dont submit or pass legislations to change the rules to favor targeting rich people. Curious.", ">\n\nThen 78,000 new, armed tax collectors should be able to extract even more money from the poor, middle-class and small business owners.", ">\n\nWhy did they focus on the Poorest? The thought of 87,000 more of them will actually do what? If the existing can’t focus on the wealthy! Then what makes anybody think more can?", ">\n\nMillionaires and billionaires make the government more money by creating lobbying loopholes and exploiting the economy to bilk the 99%. It's really cheap to go after the poorest who are struggling to pay day to day obligations and don't have loopholes or government sanctioned exploitation to take advantage of.", ">\n\nI could have told you this would happen. You think millionaires get $600 Venmo transactions?", ">\n\nThat's a move democrats should not make. That's one month of rent for me. What of folks worse-off?", ">\n\nHonestly it’s like squeezing blood from the stone over here anyway.", ">\n\nDuh lmfao theyve already stated it costs too much to tax weathy people previously and its most cost effective to audit the poor due to many factors...", ">\n\nI mean 99% of us are poor compared to the other 1%", ">\n\nColor me surprised", ">\n\nWe need some laws for equitable auditing.", ">\n\nYou are an Army commander about to attack the enemy. Do you prefer to attack where they have experienced career solders backed up by artillery, tanks, and airplanes, or do you attack where there are poorly armed and equipped untrained conscripts?", ">\n\nThey must be upset someone replaced their sign with a card from Cards Against Humanity", ">\n\nMay it ever be so…. Don’t reproduce if you only consume and can’t accumulate or help a Dow Jones winter water witch. Like snow, weathermen.", ">\n\nIt’s weirdly fitting how much their building sign in the photo looks like a cards against humanity card.", ">\n\nTypical", ">\n\nWow? How unusual.", ">\n\nI’d support double the number of IRS agents", ">\n\nI was low income and won about 3,000 gambling, the irs went after me", ">\n\nThe IRS came after me hard for 8$", ">\n\nAudit frequency should correlate to income, someone with a million in income should be audited 10x those with 100k income", ">\n\nSomeone should explain Pareto charts to the IRS.", ">\n\nI've been audited three times. First when I was 27, did some consulting and didn't do the 1099 prepayments. Ended up owing $17k. Second audit was after moving across country for a job. The tax preparer we hired made a mistake with the move expense deductions, owed a few thousand. Third audit was another tax preparer mistake, but this time we overpaid and were owed money we credited to the next year. \nIf you assume for discussion that the average audit on an ordinary tax payer returns $10,000, it would take 100,000,000 audits to make $1 trillion. By just doing the easy work, the IRS is leaving the real money on the table.", ">\n\nRepublicans are famous for giving rich breaks while middle class etc close the gaps", ">\n\nThe last line, \"The Inflation Reduction Act provides the IRS with $80 billion in future funding to ramp up its audits and potentially target the wealthiest taxpayers.\"", ">\n\nThe cure is not the root cause, but the middle class and the poor will eventually bear the burden after the capital operation", ">\n\nIt’s like they timed the “research” and the drop of the article with the speech. Sad man.", ">\n\nWatch Madoff. The wealthy skate and steal billions. The poor are in prison over thousands.", ">\n\nWhy does their sign look like a Card Against Humanity", ">\n\nFucking Trump, still at it.", ">\n\nOh you mean the thing people said would happen once they got massive funding actually happened? Checks out", ">\n\nOf course they did, because millionaires will lawyer up.", ">\n\nBecause the poor can't afford to fight back.", ">\n\nIt's so unfair the poor and the middle class taxpayers suffer so much while the millionaries got away with not paying the taxes It's really hurting the poor. The middle class is fading", ">\n\nAll of this can be fixed if we just use no-exemption graduated income", ">\n\nYeah we know", ">\n\nShow of hands for all surprised.\ncrickets\nHmm. Seems like Reddit suffers from a plague of double amputees...", ">\n\nWhat the actual fuck", ">\n\nAnd 2021, 2020, 2019, …", ">\n\nSounds about right.", ">\n\nOf course. Poor people can’t afford attorneys.", ">\n\nI made a mistake on my forms while I was overseas and ticked “self-employed” instead of “employed”. I was on a student visa and had two children and was making less than 10k a year. They hounded me for years. By the time I figured out what had happened I could not amend the forms and had paid thousands in penalties and interest.\nMeanwhile I knew lots of people who were there fully employed not reporting their income.\nFuck them.", ">\n\nYep! During the pandemic, even while I wasn't working didn't come after me the entire time that I was working but the minute that I wasn't nobody was cuz we were in lockdown they started popping up", ">\n\nI just now realized that the Cards Against Humanity box looks like the IRS sign", ">\n\nWhy is the sign a Cards Against Humanity question?", ">\n\nI am shocked and appalled. clutches pearls", ">\n\nRich should be taxed more than the average not right at all. Or at least there is a tier system based on pay only makes sense. Come on now", ">\n\nSounds about right, make the rich richer again.", ">\n\nWho are we going to vote for in the future ,all of them are decayed , corrupted and useless , the “most rich country in the world , governed by the most ignorant an corrupted. What a contrast .", ">\n\nGod bless America", ">\n\nno way. wait until you see those people responds. Those people are chipping away.", ">\n\nSounds about right", ">\n\nWe know.", ">\n\nI find it rather comical that Fox news is reporting on this since they are all about pushing the Republican agenda and that is all about pushing everyone else down that isn't rich and keeping them there. Not to mention they had no problem with Trump not paying taxes for years.", ">\n\nCan fucking confirm.", ">\n\nYeah, they (millionaires) have accountants who generally do things right and due to their millions being in investments it's not like it's taxable all the time. \nThen there's the ability to sell any stocks when they're down to build up losses on paper can reinvest them at a loss that can carry over across multiple years.", ">\n\nsounds about right. i don’t have a pot to piss in but they’re all over me for someone stealing my identity and filing a double tax return one year.", ">\n\nDuh", ">\n\nThere’s a reason why FOX is posting this article. The less people at the IRS, the more likely they come after folks who can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nIn order to pursue wealthy tax cheats, the IRS needs more resources and personnel. Otherwise it’s business as usual, picking on the low hanging fruit that earns under 6 figures.", ">\n\nSo wrong ....people need to be fired", ">\n\nIt’s because they can’t afford to take them to court", ">\n\nOf course it is about protecting the rich like Trump who lies ,lies , and about his tax returns . No wonder he did not want them released .", ">\n\nEasy prey bc most ppl can not lawyer up. Pretty heart breaking system we have at times.", ">\n\nWhy does the irs sign look like it's from cards against humanity?", ">\n\nCurrently getting audited over \\~$1500, which they owe me, when the rich get away with murder. Fucking unbelievably and unnecessarily stressful for me.", ">\n\nHas t this been know for a while?", ">\n\nyep and they are the same people getting tax cuts while everyone else does it tough ....\nAny one with too much money is your enemy .... not a hero of democracy", ">\n\nGet rid of taxes and the gov’t should just do stuff for free, or what ever.", ">\n\nYou have to be careful when you get one of those CP2000 notices from the IRS. The way they are written is a trap.\nIf you dispute it you are supposed to indicate that you disagree and send it back with documents supporting your dispute.\nYou are only supposed to sign it if you agree with them and when you sign it you are signing away your rights to dispute the back taxes and penalties they are demanding.\nMere worker bees like us can expect to be getting a lot of those from this years tax returns considering how the threshold for 1099k forms has been dropped to $600.\nGuys like Trump? The IRS doesn't even know where to begin.", ">\n\nThanks Biden", ">\n\nI presume those lower-income bracket filers might be more likely to reach out to 1-800-infomercial [quickie settlement/long-term penalties most favorable to gov/proprietor] than retain proper legal counsel?\nRegardless it’s got to be a lot less work for IRS agent to go after under-represented citizen(s), rather than someone who can afford to appeal, properly negotiate on their own terms?", ">\n\nLmfao Dems tax and spend. But I have to admit there Republicans that tax and spend to. Where do these Politicians get off taxing me or business and give to people who don't work what do you cause d the inflation. You can not print money \nI am Conservative not a Republican. To much money is wasted and put in pockets of people ot don't belong.\nBut all dems know how to tax tax tax. \nIts all great and good until you run out if other peoples money. \nMillionaire just like Berny he hated Millionaires until he became one now he hates Trillionaires. Funny how the gold post changes. And good old Nancy her I side stock trading. So I think you need to rethink.", ">\n\nThe IRS is only doing as directed by whomever controls the White House.", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised by this? Really?", ">\n\nThe sign in the thumbnail looks like a Cards Against Humanity card.", ">\n\nWhile this is mostly true, don’t believe everything you read. I’m no more an accountant than I am a ladies man, but someone (said they’re an accountant) posted a few days ago about this. They explained that the most likely people getting audited are trying to, fraudulently or mistakenly, claim the EITC. \nYES, it’s super easy to “bust” these people for an easy “mistake”. This is who the IRS is cracking down on. \nDo I think it’s better to bust poor people for claiming a few thousand in tax credits vs billionaires who avoid taxes altogether? Of course not, but don’t think they’re actively targeting people who fudge their mileage deductions or miss a decimal point in their calculations as small business owners. It’s simply not happening. \nAnd the reported “87,000 new IRS agents” are replacing the 10’s of 1,000’s of employees set to retire or quit over the next 10 years which doesn’t even begin to fill the gaps we’ve been growing for decades by not hiring and training more willing workers. Not to mention they’re not even close to all employees who will actively audit tax payers. They’re people who answer phones, file papers, assist others, etc… They’re mostly just average people with average jobs so of course the GOP wants to end this. They hate upward mobility and job creation unless that means tax breaks for their billionaire friends.", ">\n\nI wish everyone wasn’t a sheep and would understand this.", ">\n\nI can see the Media doing their best to turn the public against the IRS.", ">\n\nPicking on the week and helpless. That’s what we humans do. We suck. I’m waiting for that big meteor reset button.", ">\n\nAnd Fox news loves this.", ">\n\nLove it, Faux 'News' taking the piss, for 4 years under Dear Leader they campaigned for tax breaks for the rich, now they're pretending to care about the poor !", ">\n\nEvery millionaire should be audited yearly. Period.", ">\n\nAND now the gqp cult promises to rescind the money Biden set aside to aid the IRS to recover taxes from mega millionaire tax cheats like benedict donald, who paid less taxes than most working Americans.", ">\n\nRepublicans want to stop the IRS and Congress from taxing rich people, making the burden of maintaining civilization fall more heavily on poorer people. This is why Republicans vote for tax cuts for the rich and against funding for the IRS.\nAnd since Republican beliefs are based on wishful thinking, Republicans can screw over poor, rural Republicans while simultaneously taking credit for doing it to make Republicans happy about it and blaming it on Democrats to make those same Republicans resentful against Democrats for it. And what else would we expect from a Republican Party that blames Democrats for tricking them into attacking the Capitol to make Trump look bad and justifies and approves of assaulting Capitol police while brandishing their \"thin blue line\" flags.", ">\n\nThe IRS is like any other law enforcement agency, they prefer pursuing the poor because they don't have the resources to protect themselves.", ">\n\nThe IRS building sign looks like its from cards against humanity.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nNot a reliable news source.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nThat picture looks like the worst cards against humanity card too get.", ">\n\nScrew the Murdoch media empire and their failed trickle down ideologies.", ">\n\nOf course, the poorest haven’t paid over 400+ billion for decades. Not sure about the rich, we haven’t checked.", ">\n\nThis is not a surprise. With the recent inflation reduction act, the IRS an additional $80B over 10 years or $8B per year. The IRS budget for 2021 was $13.7B. The additional $8B over the year would be an increase of 58% to their budget. They will be looking to get a lot more money from taxpayers, due to this very large increase in their budget.", ">\n\nFox reported this? I'm in shock", ">\n\nAll propagandists publish clickbaity stuff that makes them sound like maybe they've let up on the evil. Unfortunately it works, since people just upvote headlines.", ">\n\nIt’s only going to get worse in 2023. Those 87k new IRS agents will not be going after the wealthy.", ">\n\nWhy?\nThat’s literally why they were being added. The IRS goes after the poorer taxpayers because they are low-hanging fruit and don’t have the lawyers and accountants to protect them. \nThe additional IRS employees were to give the personnel staffing sufficient to go after the wealthy.", ">\n\nIt doesn’t matter how many IRS agents there are. It will always be easier and more profitable for the IRS to nickel and dime the average taxpayer rather than go after the wealthy, who have the resources to lawyer up with the best lawyers and challenge the IRS in court.", ">\n\nEasier? Yes. More profitable? Doubtful.", ">\n\nIf Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'." ]
> The IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.	[ "If Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nAnd when Barry was president they targeted conservative groups. I think phone calls can be made to tell them to back off of the little guy.", ">\n\n\nthey targeted conservative groups.\n\nNo. They went after specifically anti-tax tea party groups. The groups who openly flaunted tax laws", ">\n\nThey also went after progressive, left leaning groups - how do you explain that ? it was political", ">\n\nWait, did they target conservatives or progressives? Lol", ">\n\nBoth- it was quite clear they were involving themselves in politics - that’s what the IG found", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.", ">\n\nYep!\nAlso this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious.\nThe real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade.", ">\n\nThanks for the informative reply.\nYou make great points which I don't doubt. But there are times when I think it's important to consider both the letter and spirit of law at times.\nEven though it is perfectly by the letter of the law that people should be checked, it also seems against the intended spirit of said law that only a certain group of people are checked.\nI am not familiar with US law, but I think most of us can feel some degree of injustice with how things currently are.", ">\n\nThe point is to automate more checking of income common to wealthier people, and devote more resources to auditing those people. The Fox News article is disingenuous in how it describes the automated checking that goes on. It’s not great that rich people aren’t really audited, but there’s no reason to stop the automated checking of income where it’s already being done and essentially free to continue.\nIf you feel differently, explain yourself.", ">\n\nNo, we are in alignment concerning this.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nFUCK FOX NEWS\nFox is pretending to care about us poors. \nDon't reward these fascist fucks with upvotes for a disingenuous clickbait headline. They still hate us for not voting gop.", ">\n\nThey want people to hate the IRS and help defund it so they don’t go after the rich, which was the purpose of the additional funding", ">\n\nThey want people to link this to “87000” new agents, which is obviously happening on social media posts, but it’s not even a thing.", ">\n\nArticle is trash. The author is including correspondence audits (which means the IRS asked for some documentation by mail) for low income filers but not for millionaires when comparing their audit rates. Here are actual numbers according to their own source:\nAudit rates including correspondence audits\nlow income 1.27%\nmillionaires 2.38% \nAudit rates excluding correspondence audits\nlow income 0.0376%\nmillionaires 1.24%\n.\nFor low income filers, nearly all their audits were correspondence audits.", ">\n\nIt's hilarious when Fox News and the GOP pretend they care about poor people.\nNo amount of hypocrisy is too much to try to make democrats look bad.", ">\n\nIts unfortunately far easier to prove married couples who live together filed HoH for extra earned income credit than it is to prove complicated returns were incorrect.", ">\n\nIt's also trivially easy to prove the same child was claimed by two parents which is a lot of correspondence audits.", ">\n\nSo can my back taxes please just get forgiven already. 20% income being taxed is not livable", ">\n\nRepublican love flat rate taxes, you should talk to them.", ">\n\nThey’re required to audit the president and vice president, and that didn’t happen either.", ">\n\nThis isn't new, it's been been having for the last 5 - 6 years.", ">\n\nHopefully some wake up and realize its all just preparing us for the inevitable destruction of our economy. I imagine its almost too late to realize this. If we all realized this wed sell our 401Ks and not lean on money and use it to help our neighbors.", ">\n\nK bro.", ">\n\nMy wife and I are on social security. She works part time to keep us afloat. All in, we earned $50K in 2022. iRS wants $4500 from us. Really? 5X what Trump paid? Don't know if anyone is paying attention but $50k ain't rich. Oh, and out of that comes almost $4k in Medicare premiums. A program we paid into for 40+ years.\nEveryone of these arrogant, unqualified,, spoon fed assholes in Congress should be made to live on SSI or welfare, with no medical coverage, for a year. Then tell me I am acting entitled.\nSelf serving bastards.", ">\n\nDon't upvote this crap.\nDo you really think Fox cares about the working class??\nThis is just right wing propaganda, timed to coincide with McCarthy's promise to get rid of the new IRS agents who make it possible to audit the rich.\nDon't be used.", ">\n\nWhatever happened to \"dont shoot the messenger?\"", ">\n\nIRS understaffing would naturally trend to go after low-lying fruit. Easy pickings. Too many man hours to go after super complex cases. These moneyed fuckers and their bullshit. It's outrageous.", ">\n\nThe vast majority of these audits are automatically generated correspondence audits that have to be issued. We can't just turn off the program that raises a red flag when two people claim the same child as a dependent because we don't have enough forensic accountants. If you mistype your W2 you'll get an \"audit\" showing the correct info from the copy your boss sent them and telling you they'll correct it unless you tell them otherwise and you don't have to do anything if the info they have is correct.", ">\n\nYeah, all the nonsense about the IRS \"going after\" low income people is so stupid. Low income people make money in a way that their reporting is easily verifiable by a computer. They're also most likely to mess up and claim child tax credits incorrectly, etc - all of which is verifiable and issued a letter by a computer. \n-\nOther than actually being able to get someone on the phone when you call the IRS, and increased budget isn't going to impact the average person in any way.", ">\n\nMy thing is even assuming the 87k don't successfully get more money out of the rich, that's still 87k jobs. That's a net positive. I just don't understand the conservative logic here. Do they think these 87k new jobs are specifically for being insidiously predatory toward the poor? Where's the logic here? (I know I'll get hyperbolic answers, but I genuinely would like to know)", ">\n\nIt's 87,000 jobs over 10 years, the majority of which are replacement during that period. It's just a budget supplemental to stop hemorrhaging agents as they retire or cycle out into other jobs.", ">\n\nso.. this is on fox, which I assume support republican efforts to ensure that this is the permanent state of affairs. I don't really get anything anymore.", ">\n\nAnd that is the way the GOP wants it.", ">\n\n💯 Exactly what this Fox article is trying to do.", ">\n\nIt's who can afford a lawyer", ">\n\nAs the article hints at, the IRS does not do a lot of actual auditing. What it does is computer matching, which automatically generates material for a correspondence audit. Most correspondence audits occur because som poor working Joe didn't know he/her was supposed to include or exclude something, and the IRS caught it in its matching. Of course, the problem is that we have a complex code and little help in actually helping people through the various forms, rules, and so on. But millionaires don't have these issues, so they can escape most of the traps that lead to a correspondence audit. If a lot of these 87,000 were in taxpayer service (which I expect) it would lead to fewer audits at the low end, more robust audits for large corporations, wealthy individuals, and those who actively use tax avoidance strategies. But of course that is not the dialogue that gets promoted when the 87,000 agents are discussed.", ">\n\nThis is exactly why Fox News needs to be dismantled and thrown in the garbage. Ugh, \"look poors! They're coming for yoU!!!\". Scare tactics. And guess what? It sadly works. Every time.\nThey're lower than scum.", ">\n\nExactly. It's when someone misreports a number from their W2, didn't report 1099s they received, both separated parents claim a tax credit for the same kid, etc. All stuff that's easily checked by a computer. The IRS isn't \"auditing\" random low to middle income people. That would be a complete waste of their time.", ">\n\nlooks at Trump You don't say.", ">\n\nThe poor can't defend themselves, it's easier to take a little bit of money from people that won't fight back than a lot of money from people that will.", ">\n\nThe mega rich seem like they’re on a mission to destroy America, as we know it.", ">\n\nHiring 87,000 new IRS agents makes it possible to audit billionaires. So they pay their share. Those audits require an actual person or team that knows what they are doing. But Kevin McCarthy's first item of business was to announce legislation to overturn the hiring of 87,000 IRS agents. Meaning only the little guy (who can be audited by computer software) pays taxes.\nSSDD", ">\n\nThe \"87,000\" agents budget is over a ten year period. It's not for 87,000 new positions.", ">\n\nThe title is so misleading. Im surprised fox even put the juicy bit in the article about how (this stat is due to there not being enough IRS workers because) these \"audits\" on low earners are just automated letters asking for more info.\nYet again, this is just millionairs paid by billionairs to mislead the masses into blaming the poor for crimes committed by said billionairs.", ">\n\nWhich is why the IRS needs more manpower and budget, so they can go after the big fish.\nFuck Fox News and their Republican propaganda pieces. This article coincides with McCarthy saying they’ll cut the IRS budget and that the IRS is coming for you.\nFuck off Republican propaganda rag!\nStop upvoting any Fox News story. Fox should not be on the white list.", ">\n\nThis is a terrible article. It seems to include questions about tax returns as audits. If a low income filer makes a mistake it should be corrected. Is that an audit? If anyone makes a mistake and is contacted, is that an audit? Also there is no reason to go after low income as they rarely pay tax or are required to. The money requested would also pay for people to answer a phone. Those against increasing funding lie when they say all of it goes to audits. If you tell the truth, who cares if you are audited? Are y’all aware you can track your personal return online? However a business cannot. Businesses have to rely on humans that can’t be reached. I’ve waited a year for a refund. Didn’t know if IRS received the return. Didn’t know if there was an issue. Didn’t know if it was mailed or lost. I’m getting tired of Republicans pushing their crap on people.", ">\n\nwho keeps upvoting this right wing propaganda", ">\n\nWhy would the GOP want to give the agency the power to go after their donors.", ">\n\nAnd it was trumps guy that mandated it while Biden replaced him", ">\n\nApparently the mere use of an accounting firm somehow protected corps and the rich from the IRS who still (mistakenly) believe the accounting firms are trustworthy. How naive.", ">\n\nThe \"audits\" talked about are mostly form letters requesting more info about specific items.", ">\n\nThe poor can't pay for top flight attorneys.", ">\n\nYep keep the IRS underfunded so they can only go after the poors at the same time telling all the poors that the IRS is bad cause it goes after them but leave out the fact that they do that cause the poors are low hanging fruit.\nRepublicans are evil.", ">\n\nWell the GOP wants to cut funding to the IRS for new agents, so I’m sure the poor folk will continue to get screwed. I say toss the 50,000+ page tax code out and replace with a percentage based on total revenue/income made. Took a loss? No write-offs. Oh well, better luck next year. It’ll never happen because the wealthy don’t want it to.", ">\n\nWhere did you get this info? I know GOPers have been slashing IRS budgets and staffing for years but can't find reliable sources for what this has done to the actual audits - like who gets audited.", ">\n\nTheir link is Fox. This is a bad faith post.", ">\n\nThis says a lot coming from fox “news”", ">\n\nTo paraphrase Gilbert K. Chesterton, \"The Poor have sometimes objected to being taxed too heavily; The Rich have always objected to being taxed at all.\"", ">\n\ndon't post Fox news here....", ">\n\nCorporations and millionaires have the means to hire accountants and attorneys. Our tax code is gray in several areas. It’s easy to go after the poor that do not have the resources and will have no choice but to pay anything the IRS says. The additional agents will continue to target the poor and middle class because they are easy, It’s happened before, it will continue to happen.", ">\n\nI think it's funny/sad that a poor person can win the lottery and they get taxed at a higher rate than any billionaire has ever been taxed at. The system is built to keep the rich - rich and the poor - poor.", ">\n\nThe poorest can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nThe current system cannot be sustained. We are hurtling towards disaster.", ">\n\nThe only reason the bastards have the majority is because the corrupt SCOTUS allowed illegal gerrymanders to stand while they were fought in the courts.", ">\n\nThe I.R.S. goes after the poorer people because it's easier. They can't afford lawyers and accountants. So the poor can do nothing but roll over and take it up the rump. The Inflation Reduction Act that Biden signed into law in August is supposed to give $80 Billion to the I.R.S. so they can go after the millionaires. But we know that won't happen. More poor people are going to get screwed.", ">\n\nI'm confused. For decades, Faux news and the conservatives have been saying that millionaires deserve to keep more of their money than we do. That was a huge part of the 2017 tax scam that Trump signed. Now Faux is saying it's a problem? And they are rightly detailing that Republicans are the cause, along with Biden trying to fix the same issue that Fox has helped create?", ">\n\nFox News", ">\n\nHey IRS, don't forget to crawl up my ass this year because I sold some old stuff on eBay for a loss but make sure you put a few man hours into figuring out if it is legit or not.", ">\n\nlol, and the people opposed to IRS funding will say they are anti-establishment.", ">\n\nImagine how much they could squeeze the middle class with 87,000 more agents! But really, it’ll be good to see if the increase in officers actually increases tax revenue without changing the underlying laws.", ">\n\nSo, this is the newest Republican boogeyman, the IRS.\nWell, better than Drag Queens I guess.", ">\n\nOh hey just like last year, and the year before that, I think there might be a pattern", ">\n\nThank you republicans, always sticking up in the back on the small guys…", ">\n\nFox News saying this like it’s not something Rupert Murdoch’s network supports is pretty funny.", ">\n\nFox News. Ignore it.", ">\n\nFox News is still allowed in here?", ">\n\nFake news. This is Republican propaganda coming from Fox News.", ">\n\nFox News is NOT news", ">\n\nHmm sounds like it was underfunded then. Good thing now we helped ease that problem. Thanks Biden", ">\n\nIt's simply laziness by the IRS. Lower-income households have less complicated returns and easier to process. I'm sure IRS runs a non-effective but management-pleasing metric like \"how many returns were corrected\" opposed to how much money was recouped.", ">\n\nWe know. They don't have the resources to do anything. That was the point of increasing the staffing at the IRS so they had even the slightest hope of going after the big offenders with their armies or lawyers.", ">\n\nThere's less millionaires and billionaires than there are us. I'm not sure that answer fits the accuracy on hiring more workers but I'll go ahead and amuse that", ">\n\nIt's not a game of tax guy vs rich guy. The rich literally have armies of lawyers. You need the staff to overcome all the paper and challenges they'll throw at you. \nIf you throw one person to audit a millionaire, their lawyers can make it so it'll take a year to review a week of operations. Investigations will never finish unless there's sufficient staff to overcome their obstruction.", ">\n\nTo this day I do not understand why the IRS can demand our documents every year without a warrant. The 16th amendment does not alter the 4th, and the 4th does not apply only to criminal actions (as the 5th explicitly does). Yet no one seems to care about this annual violations.", ">\n\nReminder, Fox News is not news. It's entertainment, and should be regarded as such.", ">\n\nNo shit, poor ppl tend to file their own taxes and screw up where as millionaires hire expensive accountants to exploit all the legal loopholes without getting their clients in trouble.\nI don't think it's an intentional targeting as the article may be implying.", ">\n\nOne might imagine the resources of agents would be better put to use by focusing on returns that might produce more revenue, however it may be just a lot easier to collect a few bucks from easier targets.", ">\n\nThey are short staffed and accountants make it so difficult to find wrongdoing, if there is even wrongdoing to be found, that it would take a decent chunk of their workforce just to tackle it. It's like trying to find needle in a haystack but you don't know if there's a needle or not.", ">\n\nSo true....", ">\n\nShocked pikachu face.", ">\n\nYeah I’d believe this if it weren’t Fox News. They could give a fuck about the poor and middle class.", ">\n\nI would literally rather the IRS spend its time auditing 5 extraordinarily rich people or a single business than anyone who makes less than 100k per year\nETA: I’m aware that this article represents part of the Republican agenda to just gut the IRS and welfare spending generally. And I understand the difficulties in auditing the rich/businesses v lower income people claiming tax credits, etc", ">\n\nAlmost all of the little people \"audits\" are just a computer issuing a correspondence \"audit\" because the person misreported something from their W2, didn't report as much 1099 income as was reported to the IRS by others, or separated parents both trying to claim kids for tax credits or something. \n-\nThey don't really pull from the same resources. The rich people audits require human beings. Little people \"audits\" aren't really audits and a computer can do it. So if we want to audit more rich people, they need actual budget for human beings. The little people are going to be caught anyways because a computer can do it.", ">\n\nI interned at the IRS during the summer of 2012 when Lois Lerner made batshit crazy commrnts that they were targetting conservative groups", ">\n\nI say this every time it gets brought up. This is by design. I used to work in auditing and also used to do tax stuff. It’s super easy to find tax fraud on someone who only has a simple W-2 and no other income. You could find those people through a basic algorithm. Meanwhile, auditing a multi millionaire is expensive, time consuming, and often fruitless. If I was in charge of an underfunded, understaffed IRS I would tell my staff to go for the easy wins too.", ">\n\nUnpopular opinion - More funding won't resolve this. \nThe IRS will keep doing this. Unless rules & regulations forbid or disincentivize this practice, the IRS will keep this stupid practice", ">\n\nI make $40,000 a year and the IRS froze my bank accounts until I paid them $1000 in taxes I owed them because of an error I made filling my taxes. They froze my bank accounts for $1000. I was fucked for a month. I had to borrow cash from people just for food and gas money to get to work to get paid money that I couldn’t access. It was a scary time for me. Meanwhile millionaires are purposely avoiding taxes worth more than what I make in a year and nothing happens to them.", ">\n\nThe IRS sends no less than a dozen letters to a taxpayer prior to leaving a bank account. Why didn't you just put it into a repayment plan? Takes about ten minutes online.", ">\n\nDon't you just hate autocorrect?", ">\n\nIf true, its a holdover from jrbush who slashed IRS staff and budget and told them to spend more time auditing tip jars and busboys than millionaires because the millionaires had better lawyers than the IRS and service workers were unlikely to have any lawyers at all.", ">\n\nFox News solution: remove the IRS", ">\n\nAbsolutely. They’ll NEVER target the rich, adding more agents just made them a lot more capable to target all the lower class.", ">\n\nWhat people don't realize..Those 87K \"Agents\" aren't that. It's 87K employees over 25 years. Clerks etc. People are so fucking stupid when they just believe these clowns.", ">\n\nThose numbers also count it as an \"audit\" when a person misreports a number from a W2, 1099s, etc and the irs number matching software sends an automatically generated correspondence letter that basically says \"we actually show this number, this is what your tax return would have been if you reported that number correctly\". \nThe IRS isn't wasting time doing random \"audits\" as people think of them for low to middle income people. It would be a complete waste of their time. The computer just catches obvious verifiable mistakes and it counts as an audit in those numbers.", ">\n\n“those in the lowest income bracket hit 12.7 per 1,000….. The odds of a millionaire facing an audit were around 1.1%.”\nSo they’re saying 1.27% vs 1.1%!!! And acting like that’s a scandal 🙄", ">\n\nWhich means millionaires REALLY don't want more IRS auditors which means when our new resident house fascist fires five thousand auditors, said fascist (McCarthy) is making sure those millionaires aren't going to get audited. \nCha CHING !!! Go the \"donations\" into house rat republican's pockets. \nThe grift will be in full swing shortly.\nAnd with putin whispering in their ears and telling them EXACTLY how break the law - how can they lose?", ">\n\n💯 Exactly why theres a Fox link here pushing for that same reason.", ">\n\nTwo things. First of all, this is from a far right-wing propaganda outlet which should immediately raise red flags. They're trying to scare you into allowing a republican-initiated movement to entirely remove all remaining power from the IRS by making it seem like they're coming after you.\nSecond, the reason the IRS is already already virtually powerless against the rich is because the republicans have already eviscerated them in the past several decades, largely through defunding them leading to not only staffing cuts, but the inability to pursue the wealthiest people who have the resources for endless litigation. So as a result, the FBI can only really afford to go after people who cannot financially defend themselves.", ">\n\nThird, you might as well throw in that the aiming low guidance was under a Trump appointee who is no longer in that position.", ">\n\nThe GOP intentionally defunded the IRS so that it could not audit the wealthy. It takes a great deal more money upfront to audit them but the payback is far greater.", ">\n\nI'm not sure why dems voted against an amendment that would have mandated the giant infusion of cash into the IRS couldn't be used to audit folks making >$400k.", ">\n\nHrm this is pretty fucked I'd like to hear about why the Dems voted nay.", ">\n\nBecause they work for the same people as Republicans. \nThey are different but only when their owners allow them to be. \nI don't know how many times we are going to have to learn this lesson before it sticks.", ">\n\nDemocrats are responsible for this", ">\n\nThe rich returns are just too hard, enough lower class errors you can leave the rich alone. Love to see it… sigh", ">\n\nIt takes money to police the wealthy. Can't have that can we?!", ">\n\nr/noshitsherlock", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised?\nI’m not even American and this seemed obvious to me. All you have to do is look at how the poor live and compare that to the news about someone like Elon musk or Donald trump.", ">\n\nThis is why the IRS needs to go.", ">\n\nFox News helped make that happen.", ">\n\nThey'll never change,all the time when the guys in charge benefit from doing the same shit.", ">\n\nAnd yet the republicans dont submit or pass legislations to change the rules to favor targeting rich people. Curious.", ">\n\nThen 78,000 new, armed tax collectors should be able to extract even more money from the poor, middle-class and small business owners.", ">\n\nWhy did they focus on the Poorest? The thought of 87,000 more of them will actually do what? If the existing can’t focus on the wealthy! Then what makes anybody think more can?", ">\n\nMillionaires and billionaires make the government more money by creating lobbying loopholes and exploiting the economy to bilk the 99%. It's really cheap to go after the poorest who are struggling to pay day to day obligations and don't have loopholes or government sanctioned exploitation to take advantage of.", ">\n\nI could have told you this would happen. You think millionaires get $600 Venmo transactions?", ">\n\nThat's a move democrats should not make. That's one month of rent for me. What of folks worse-off?", ">\n\nHonestly it’s like squeezing blood from the stone over here anyway.", ">\n\nDuh lmfao theyve already stated it costs too much to tax weathy people previously and its most cost effective to audit the poor due to many factors...", ">\n\nI mean 99% of us are poor compared to the other 1%", ">\n\nColor me surprised", ">\n\nWe need some laws for equitable auditing.", ">\n\nYou are an Army commander about to attack the enemy. Do you prefer to attack where they have experienced career solders backed up by artillery, tanks, and airplanes, or do you attack where there are poorly armed and equipped untrained conscripts?", ">\n\nThey must be upset someone replaced their sign with a card from Cards Against Humanity", ">\n\nMay it ever be so…. Don’t reproduce if you only consume and can’t accumulate or help a Dow Jones winter water witch. Like snow, weathermen.", ">\n\nIt’s weirdly fitting how much their building sign in the photo looks like a cards against humanity card.", ">\n\nTypical", ">\n\nWow? How unusual.", ">\n\nI’d support double the number of IRS agents", ">\n\nI was low income and won about 3,000 gambling, the irs went after me", ">\n\nThe IRS came after me hard for 8$", ">\n\nAudit frequency should correlate to income, someone with a million in income should be audited 10x those with 100k income", ">\n\nSomeone should explain Pareto charts to the IRS.", ">\n\nI've been audited three times. First when I was 27, did some consulting and didn't do the 1099 prepayments. Ended up owing $17k. Second audit was after moving across country for a job. The tax preparer we hired made a mistake with the move expense deductions, owed a few thousand. Third audit was another tax preparer mistake, but this time we overpaid and were owed money we credited to the next year. \nIf you assume for discussion that the average audit on an ordinary tax payer returns $10,000, it would take 100,000,000 audits to make $1 trillion. By just doing the easy work, the IRS is leaving the real money on the table.", ">\n\nRepublicans are famous for giving rich breaks while middle class etc close the gaps", ">\n\nThe last line, \"The Inflation Reduction Act provides the IRS with $80 billion in future funding to ramp up its audits and potentially target the wealthiest taxpayers.\"", ">\n\nThe cure is not the root cause, but the middle class and the poor will eventually bear the burden after the capital operation", ">\n\nIt’s like they timed the “research” and the drop of the article with the speech. Sad man.", ">\n\nWatch Madoff. The wealthy skate and steal billions. The poor are in prison over thousands.", ">\n\nWhy does their sign look like a Card Against Humanity", ">\n\nFucking Trump, still at it.", ">\n\nOh you mean the thing people said would happen once they got massive funding actually happened? Checks out", ">\n\nOf course they did, because millionaires will lawyer up.", ">\n\nBecause the poor can't afford to fight back.", ">\n\nIt's so unfair the poor and the middle class taxpayers suffer so much while the millionaries got away with not paying the taxes It's really hurting the poor. The middle class is fading", ">\n\nAll of this can be fixed if we just use no-exemption graduated income", ">\n\nYeah we know", ">\n\nShow of hands for all surprised.\ncrickets\nHmm. Seems like Reddit suffers from a plague of double amputees...", ">\n\nWhat the actual fuck", ">\n\nAnd 2021, 2020, 2019, …", ">\n\nSounds about right.", ">\n\nOf course. Poor people can’t afford attorneys.", ">\n\nI made a mistake on my forms while I was overseas and ticked “self-employed” instead of “employed”. I was on a student visa and had two children and was making less than 10k a year. They hounded me for years. By the time I figured out what had happened I could not amend the forms and had paid thousands in penalties and interest.\nMeanwhile I knew lots of people who were there fully employed not reporting their income.\nFuck them.", ">\n\nYep! During the pandemic, even while I wasn't working didn't come after me the entire time that I was working but the minute that I wasn't nobody was cuz we were in lockdown they started popping up", ">\n\nI just now realized that the Cards Against Humanity box looks like the IRS sign", ">\n\nWhy is the sign a Cards Against Humanity question?", ">\n\nI am shocked and appalled. clutches pearls", ">\n\nRich should be taxed more than the average not right at all. Or at least there is a tier system based on pay only makes sense. Come on now", ">\n\nSounds about right, make the rich richer again.", ">\n\nWho are we going to vote for in the future ,all of them are decayed , corrupted and useless , the “most rich country in the world , governed by the most ignorant an corrupted. What a contrast .", ">\n\nGod bless America", ">\n\nno way. wait until you see those people responds. Those people are chipping away.", ">\n\nSounds about right", ">\n\nWe know.", ">\n\nI find it rather comical that Fox news is reporting on this since they are all about pushing the Republican agenda and that is all about pushing everyone else down that isn't rich and keeping them there. Not to mention they had no problem with Trump not paying taxes for years.", ">\n\nCan fucking confirm.", ">\n\nYeah, they (millionaires) have accountants who generally do things right and due to their millions being in investments it's not like it's taxable all the time. \nThen there's the ability to sell any stocks when they're down to build up losses on paper can reinvest them at a loss that can carry over across multiple years.", ">\n\nsounds about right. i don’t have a pot to piss in but they’re all over me for someone stealing my identity and filing a double tax return one year.", ">\n\nDuh", ">\n\nThere’s a reason why FOX is posting this article. The less people at the IRS, the more likely they come after folks who can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nIn order to pursue wealthy tax cheats, the IRS needs more resources and personnel. Otherwise it’s business as usual, picking on the low hanging fruit that earns under 6 figures.", ">\n\nSo wrong ....people need to be fired", ">\n\nIt’s because they can’t afford to take them to court", ">\n\nOf course it is about protecting the rich like Trump who lies ,lies , and about his tax returns . No wonder he did not want them released .", ">\n\nEasy prey bc most ppl can not lawyer up. Pretty heart breaking system we have at times.", ">\n\nWhy does the irs sign look like it's from cards against humanity?", ">\n\nCurrently getting audited over \\~$1500, which they owe me, when the rich get away with murder. Fucking unbelievably and unnecessarily stressful for me.", ">\n\nHas t this been know for a while?", ">\n\nyep and they are the same people getting tax cuts while everyone else does it tough ....\nAny one with too much money is your enemy .... not a hero of democracy", ">\n\nGet rid of taxes and the gov’t should just do stuff for free, or what ever.", ">\n\nYou have to be careful when you get one of those CP2000 notices from the IRS. The way they are written is a trap.\nIf you dispute it you are supposed to indicate that you disagree and send it back with documents supporting your dispute.\nYou are only supposed to sign it if you agree with them and when you sign it you are signing away your rights to dispute the back taxes and penalties they are demanding.\nMere worker bees like us can expect to be getting a lot of those from this years tax returns considering how the threshold for 1099k forms has been dropped to $600.\nGuys like Trump? The IRS doesn't even know where to begin.", ">\n\nThanks Biden", ">\n\nI presume those lower-income bracket filers might be more likely to reach out to 1-800-infomercial [quickie settlement/long-term penalties most favorable to gov/proprietor] than retain proper legal counsel?\nRegardless it’s got to be a lot less work for IRS agent to go after under-represented citizen(s), rather than someone who can afford to appeal, properly negotiate on their own terms?", ">\n\nLmfao Dems tax and spend. But I have to admit there Republicans that tax and spend to. Where do these Politicians get off taxing me or business and give to people who don't work what do you cause d the inflation. You can not print money \nI am Conservative not a Republican. To much money is wasted and put in pockets of people ot don't belong.\nBut all dems know how to tax tax tax. \nIts all great and good until you run out if other peoples money. \nMillionaire just like Berny he hated Millionaires until he became one now he hates Trillionaires. Funny how the gold post changes. And good old Nancy her I side stock trading. So I think you need to rethink.", ">\n\nThe IRS is only doing as directed by whomever controls the White House.", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised by this? Really?", ">\n\nThe sign in the thumbnail looks like a Cards Against Humanity card.", ">\n\nWhile this is mostly true, don’t believe everything you read. I’m no more an accountant than I am a ladies man, but someone (said they’re an accountant) posted a few days ago about this. They explained that the most likely people getting audited are trying to, fraudulently or mistakenly, claim the EITC. \nYES, it’s super easy to “bust” these people for an easy “mistake”. This is who the IRS is cracking down on. \nDo I think it’s better to bust poor people for claiming a few thousand in tax credits vs billionaires who avoid taxes altogether? Of course not, but don’t think they’re actively targeting people who fudge their mileage deductions or miss a decimal point in their calculations as small business owners. It’s simply not happening. \nAnd the reported “87,000 new IRS agents” are replacing the 10’s of 1,000’s of employees set to retire or quit over the next 10 years which doesn’t even begin to fill the gaps we’ve been growing for decades by not hiring and training more willing workers. Not to mention they’re not even close to all employees who will actively audit tax payers. They’re people who answer phones, file papers, assist others, etc… They’re mostly just average people with average jobs so of course the GOP wants to end this. They hate upward mobility and job creation unless that means tax breaks for their billionaire friends.", ">\n\nI wish everyone wasn’t a sheep and would understand this.", ">\n\nI can see the Media doing their best to turn the public against the IRS.", ">\n\nPicking on the week and helpless. That’s what we humans do. We suck. I’m waiting for that big meteor reset button.", ">\n\nAnd Fox news loves this.", ">\n\nLove it, Faux 'News' taking the piss, for 4 years under Dear Leader they campaigned for tax breaks for the rich, now they're pretending to care about the poor !", ">\n\nEvery millionaire should be audited yearly. Period.", ">\n\nAND now the gqp cult promises to rescind the money Biden set aside to aid the IRS to recover taxes from mega millionaire tax cheats like benedict donald, who paid less taxes than most working Americans.", ">\n\nRepublicans want to stop the IRS and Congress from taxing rich people, making the burden of maintaining civilization fall more heavily on poorer people. This is why Republicans vote for tax cuts for the rich and against funding for the IRS.\nAnd since Republican beliefs are based on wishful thinking, Republicans can screw over poor, rural Republicans while simultaneously taking credit for doing it to make Republicans happy about it and blaming it on Democrats to make those same Republicans resentful against Democrats for it. And what else would we expect from a Republican Party that blames Democrats for tricking them into attacking the Capitol to make Trump look bad and justifies and approves of assaulting Capitol police while brandishing their \"thin blue line\" flags.", ">\n\nThe IRS is like any other law enforcement agency, they prefer pursuing the poor because they don't have the resources to protect themselves.", ">\n\nThe IRS building sign looks like its from cards against humanity.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nNot a reliable news source.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nThat picture looks like the worst cards against humanity card too get.", ">\n\nScrew the Murdoch media empire and their failed trickle down ideologies.", ">\n\nOf course, the poorest haven’t paid over 400+ billion for decades. Not sure about the rich, we haven’t checked.", ">\n\nThis is not a surprise. With the recent inflation reduction act, the IRS an additional $80B over 10 years or $8B per year. The IRS budget for 2021 was $13.7B. The additional $8B over the year would be an increase of 58% to their budget. They will be looking to get a lot more money from taxpayers, due to this very large increase in their budget.", ">\n\nFox reported this? I'm in shock", ">\n\nAll propagandists publish clickbaity stuff that makes them sound like maybe they've let up on the evil. Unfortunately it works, since people just upvote headlines.", ">\n\nIt’s only going to get worse in 2023. Those 87k new IRS agents will not be going after the wealthy.", ">\n\nWhy?\nThat’s literally why they were being added. The IRS goes after the poorer taxpayers because they are low-hanging fruit and don’t have the lawyers and accountants to protect them. \nThe additional IRS employees were to give the personnel staffing sufficient to go after the wealthy.", ">\n\nIt doesn’t matter how many IRS agents there are. It will always be easier and more profitable for the IRS to nickel and dime the average taxpayer rather than go after the wealthy, who have the resources to lawyer up with the best lawyers and challenge the IRS in court.", ">\n\nEasier? Yes. More profitable? Doubtful.", ">\n\nIf Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?" ]
> Going after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?	[ "If Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nAnd when Barry was president they targeted conservative groups. I think phone calls can be made to tell them to back off of the little guy.", ">\n\n\nthey targeted conservative groups.\n\nNo. They went after specifically anti-tax tea party groups. The groups who openly flaunted tax laws", ">\n\nThey also went after progressive, left leaning groups - how do you explain that ? it was political", ">\n\nWait, did they target conservatives or progressives? Lol", ">\n\nBoth- it was quite clear they were involving themselves in politics - that’s what the IG found", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.", ">\n\nYep!\nAlso this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious.\nThe real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade.", ">\n\nThanks for the informative reply.\nYou make great points which I don't doubt. But there are times when I think it's important to consider both the letter and spirit of law at times.\nEven though it is perfectly by the letter of the law that people should be checked, it also seems against the intended spirit of said law that only a certain group of people are checked.\nI am not familiar with US law, but I think most of us can feel some degree of injustice with how things currently are.", ">\n\nThe point is to automate more checking of income common to wealthier people, and devote more resources to auditing those people. The Fox News article is disingenuous in how it describes the automated checking that goes on. It’s not great that rich people aren’t really audited, but there’s no reason to stop the automated checking of income where it’s already being done and essentially free to continue.\nIf you feel differently, explain yourself.", ">\n\nNo, we are in alignment concerning this.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nFUCK FOX NEWS\nFox is pretending to care about us poors. \nDon't reward these fascist fucks with upvotes for a disingenuous clickbait headline. They still hate us for not voting gop.", ">\n\nThey want people to hate the IRS and help defund it so they don’t go after the rich, which was the purpose of the additional funding", ">\n\nThey want people to link this to “87000” new agents, which is obviously happening on social media posts, but it’s not even a thing.", ">\n\nArticle is trash. The author is including correspondence audits (which means the IRS asked for some documentation by mail) for low income filers but not for millionaires when comparing their audit rates. Here are actual numbers according to their own source:\nAudit rates including correspondence audits\nlow income 1.27%\nmillionaires 2.38% \nAudit rates excluding correspondence audits\nlow income 0.0376%\nmillionaires 1.24%\n.\nFor low income filers, nearly all their audits were correspondence audits.", ">\n\nIt's hilarious when Fox News and the GOP pretend they care about poor people.\nNo amount of hypocrisy is too much to try to make democrats look bad.", ">\n\nIts unfortunately far easier to prove married couples who live together filed HoH for extra earned income credit than it is to prove complicated returns were incorrect.", ">\n\nIt's also trivially easy to prove the same child was claimed by two parents which is a lot of correspondence audits.", ">\n\nSo can my back taxes please just get forgiven already. 20% income being taxed is not livable", ">\n\nRepublican love flat rate taxes, you should talk to them.", ">\n\nThey’re required to audit the president and vice president, and that didn’t happen either.", ">\n\nThis isn't new, it's been been having for the last 5 - 6 years.", ">\n\nHopefully some wake up and realize its all just preparing us for the inevitable destruction of our economy. I imagine its almost too late to realize this. If we all realized this wed sell our 401Ks and not lean on money and use it to help our neighbors.", ">\n\nK bro.", ">\n\nMy wife and I are on social security. She works part time to keep us afloat. All in, we earned $50K in 2022. iRS wants $4500 from us. Really? 5X what Trump paid? Don't know if anyone is paying attention but $50k ain't rich. Oh, and out of that comes almost $4k in Medicare premiums. A program we paid into for 40+ years.\nEveryone of these arrogant, unqualified,, spoon fed assholes in Congress should be made to live on SSI or welfare, with no medical coverage, for a year. Then tell me I am acting entitled.\nSelf serving bastards.", ">\n\nDon't upvote this crap.\nDo you really think Fox cares about the working class??\nThis is just right wing propaganda, timed to coincide with McCarthy's promise to get rid of the new IRS agents who make it possible to audit the rich.\nDon't be used.", ">\n\nWhatever happened to \"dont shoot the messenger?\"", ">\n\nIRS understaffing would naturally trend to go after low-lying fruit. Easy pickings. Too many man hours to go after super complex cases. These moneyed fuckers and their bullshit. It's outrageous.", ">\n\nThe vast majority of these audits are automatically generated correspondence audits that have to be issued. We can't just turn off the program that raises a red flag when two people claim the same child as a dependent because we don't have enough forensic accountants. If you mistype your W2 you'll get an \"audit\" showing the correct info from the copy your boss sent them and telling you they'll correct it unless you tell them otherwise and you don't have to do anything if the info they have is correct.", ">\n\nYeah, all the nonsense about the IRS \"going after\" low income people is so stupid. Low income people make money in a way that their reporting is easily verifiable by a computer. They're also most likely to mess up and claim child tax credits incorrectly, etc - all of which is verifiable and issued a letter by a computer. \n-\nOther than actually being able to get someone on the phone when you call the IRS, and increased budget isn't going to impact the average person in any way.", ">\n\nMy thing is even assuming the 87k don't successfully get more money out of the rich, that's still 87k jobs. That's a net positive. I just don't understand the conservative logic here. Do they think these 87k new jobs are specifically for being insidiously predatory toward the poor? Where's the logic here? (I know I'll get hyperbolic answers, but I genuinely would like to know)", ">\n\nIt's 87,000 jobs over 10 years, the majority of which are replacement during that period. It's just a budget supplemental to stop hemorrhaging agents as they retire or cycle out into other jobs.", ">\n\nso.. this is on fox, which I assume support republican efforts to ensure that this is the permanent state of affairs. I don't really get anything anymore.", ">\n\nAnd that is the way the GOP wants it.", ">\n\n💯 Exactly what this Fox article is trying to do.", ">\n\nIt's who can afford a lawyer", ">\n\nAs the article hints at, the IRS does not do a lot of actual auditing. What it does is computer matching, which automatically generates material for a correspondence audit. Most correspondence audits occur because som poor working Joe didn't know he/her was supposed to include or exclude something, and the IRS caught it in its matching. Of course, the problem is that we have a complex code and little help in actually helping people through the various forms, rules, and so on. But millionaires don't have these issues, so they can escape most of the traps that lead to a correspondence audit. If a lot of these 87,000 were in taxpayer service (which I expect) it would lead to fewer audits at the low end, more robust audits for large corporations, wealthy individuals, and those who actively use tax avoidance strategies. But of course that is not the dialogue that gets promoted when the 87,000 agents are discussed.", ">\n\nThis is exactly why Fox News needs to be dismantled and thrown in the garbage. Ugh, \"look poors! They're coming for yoU!!!\". Scare tactics. And guess what? It sadly works. Every time.\nThey're lower than scum.", ">\n\nExactly. It's when someone misreports a number from their W2, didn't report 1099s they received, both separated parents claim a tax credit for the same kid, etc. All stuff that's easily checked by a computer. The IRS isn't \"auditing\" random low to middle income people. That would be a complete waste of their time.", ">\n\nlooks at Trump You don't say.", ">\n\nThe poor can't defend themselves, it's easier to take a little bit of money from people that won't fight back than a lot of money from people that will.", ">\n\nThe mega rich seem like they’re on a mission to destroy America, as we know it.", ">\n\nHiring 87,000 new IRS agents makes it possible to audit billionaires. So they pay their share. Those audits require an actual person or team that knows what they are doing. But Kevin McCarthy's first item of business was to announce legislation to overturn the hiring of 87,000 IRS agents. Meaning only the little guy (who can be audited by computer software) pays taxes.\nSSDD", ">\n\nThe \"87,000\" agents budget is over a ten year period. It's not for 87,000 new positions.", ">\n\nThe title is so misleading. Im surprised fox even put the juicy bit in the article about how (this stat is due to there not being enough IRS workers because) these \"audits\" on low earners are just automated letters asking for more info.\nYet again, this is just millionairs paid by billionairs to mislead the masses into blaming the poor for crimes committed by said billionairs.", ">\n\nWhich is why the IRS needs more manpower and budget, so they can go after the big fish.\nFuck Fox News and their Republican propaganda pieces. This article coincides with McCarthy saying they’ll cut the IRS budget and that the IRS is coming for you.\nFuck off Republican propaganda rag!\nStop upvoting any Fox News story. Fox should not be on the white list.", ">\n\nThis is a terrible article. It seems to include questions about tax returns as audits. If a low income filer makes a mistake it should be corrected. Is that an audit? If anyone makes a mistake and is contacted, is that an audit? Also there is no reason to go after low income as they rarely pay tax or are required to. The money requested would also pay for people to answer a phone. Those against increasing funding lie when they say all of it goes to audits. If you tell the truth, who cares if you are audited? Are y’all aware you can track your personal return online? However a business cannot. Businesses have to rely on humans that can’t be reached. I’ve waited a year for a refund. Didn’t know if IRS received the return. Didn’t know if there was an issue. Didn’t know if it was mailed or lost. I’m getting tired of Republicans pushing their crap on people.", ">\n\nwho keeps upvoting this right wing propaganda", ">\n\nWhy would the GOP want to give the agency the power to go after their donors.", ">\n\nAnd it was trumps guy that mandated it while Biden replaced him", ">\n\nApparently the mere use of an accounting firm somehow protected corps and the rich from the IRS who still (mistakenly) believe the accounting firms are trustworthy. How naive.", ">\n\nThe \"audits\" talked about are mostly form letters requesting more info about specific items.", ">\n\nThe poor can't pay for top flight attorneys.", ">\n\nYep keep the IRS underfunded so they can only go after the poors at the same time telling all the poors that the IRS is bad cause it goes after them but leave out the fact that they do that cause the poors are low hanging fruit.\nRepublicans are evil.", ">\n\nWell the GOP wants to cut funding to the IRS for new agents, so I’m sure the poor folk will continue to get screwed. I say toss the 50,000+ page tax code out and replace with a percentage based on total revenue/income made. Took a loss? No write-offs. Oh well, better luck next year. It’ll never happen because the wealthy don’t want it to.", ">\n\nWhere did you get this info? I know GOPers have been slashing IRS budgets and staffing for years but can't find reliable sources for what this has done to the actual audits - like who gets audited.", ">\n\nTheir link is Fox. This is a bad faith post.", ">\n\nThis says a lot coming from fox “news”", ">\n\nTo paraphrase Gilbert K. Chesterton, \"The Poor have sometimes objected to being taxed too heavily; The Rich have always objected to being taxed at all.\"", ">\n\ndon't post Fox news here....", ">\n\nCorporations and millionaires have the means to hire accountants and attorneys. Our tax code is gray in several areas. It’s easy to go after the poor that do not have the resources and will have no choice but to pay anything the IRS says. The additional agents will continue to target the poor and middle class because they are easy, It’s happened before, it will continue to happen.", ">\n\nI think it's funny/sad that a poor person can win the lottery and they get taxed at a higher rate than any billionaire has ever been taxed at. The system is built to keep the rich - rich and the poor - poor.", ">\n\nThe poorest can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nThe current system cannot be sustained. We are hurtling towards disaster.", ">\n\nThe only reason the bastards have the majority is because the corrupt SCOTUS allowed illegal gerrymanders to stand while they were fought in the courts.", ">\n\nThe I.R.S. goes after the poorer people because it's easier. They can't afford lawyers and accountants. So the poor can do nothing but roll over and take it up the rump. The Inflation Reduction Act that Biden signed into law in August is supposed to give $80 Billion to the I.R.S. so they can go after the millionaires. But we know that won't happen. More poor people are going to get screwed.", ">\n\nI'm confused. For decades, Faux news and the conservatives have been saying that millionaires deserve to keep more of their money than we do. That was a huge part of the 2017 tax scam that Trump signed. Now Faux is saying it's a problem? And they are rightly detailing that Republicans are the cause, along with Biden trying to fix the same issue that Fox has helped create?", ">\n\nFox News", ">\n\nHey IRS, don't forget to crawl up my ass this year because I sold some old stuff on eBay for a loss but make sure you put a few man hours into figuring out if it is legit or not.", ">\n\nlol, and the people opposed to IRS funding will say they are anti-establishment.", ">\n\nImagine how much they could squeeze the middle class with 87,000 more agents! But really, it’ll be good to see if the increase in officers actually increases tax revenue without changing the underlying laws.", ">\n\nSo, this is the newest Republican boogeyman, the IRS.\nWell, better than Drag Queens I guess.", ">\n\nOh hey just like last year, and the year before that, I think there might be a pattern", ">\n\nThank you republicans, always sticking up in the back on the small guys…", ">\n\nFox News saying this like it’s not something Rupert Murdoch’s network supports is pretty funny.", ">\n\nFox News. Ignore it.", ">\n\nFox News is still allowed in here?", ">\n\nFake news. This is Republican propaganda coming from Fox News.", ">\n\nFox News is NOT news", ">\n\nHmm sounds like it was underfunded then. Good thing now we helped ease that problem. Thanks Biden", ">\n\nIt's simply laziness by the IRS. Lower-income households have less complicated returns and easier to process. I'm sure IRS runs a non-effective but management-pleasing metric like \"how many returns were corrected\" opposed to how much money was recouped.", ">\n\nWe know. They don't have the resources to do anything. That was the point of increasing the staffing at the IRS so they had even the slightest hope of going after the big offenders with their armies or lawyers.", ">\n\nThere's less millionaires and billionaires than there are us. I'm not sure that answer fits the accuracy on hiring more workers but I'll go ahead and amuse that", ">\n\nIt's not a game of tax guy vs rich guy. The rich literally have armies of lawyers. You need the staff to overcome all the paper and challenges they'll throw at you. \nIf you throw one person to audit a millionaire, their lawyers can make it so it'll take a year to review a week of operations. Investigations will never finish unless there's sufficient staff to overcome their obstruction.", ">\n\nTo this day I do not understand why the IRS can demand our documents every year without a warrant. The 16th amendment does not alter the 4th, and the 4th does not apply only to criminal actions (as the 5th explicitly does). Yet no one seems to care about this annual violations.", ">\n\nReminder, Fox News is not news. It's entertainment, and should be regarded as such.", ">\n\nNo shit, poor ppl tend to file their own taxes and screw up where as millionaires hire expensive accountants to exploit all the legal loopholes without getting their clients in trouble.\nI don't think it's an intentional targeting as the article may be implying.", ">\n\nOne might imagine the resources of agents would be better put to use by focusing on returns that might produce more revenue, however it may be just a lot easier to collect a few bucks from easier targets.", ">\n\nThey are short staffed and accountants make it so difficult to find wrongdoing, if there is even wrongdoing to be found, that it would take a decent chunk of their workforce just to tackle it. It's like trying to find needle in a haystack but you don't know if there's a needle or not.", ">\n\nSo true....", ">\n\nShocked pikachu face.", ">\n\nYeah I’d believe this if it weren’t Fox News. They could give a fuck about the poor and middle class.", ">\n\nI would literally rather the IRS spend its time auditing 5 extraordinarily rich people or a single business than anyone who makes less than 100k per year\nETA: I’m aware that this article represents part of the Republican agenda to just gut the IRS and welfare spending generally. And I understand the difficulties in auditing the rich/businesses v lower income people claiming tax credits, etc", ">\n\nAlmost all of the little people \"audits\" are just a computer issuing a correspondence \"audit\" because the person misreported something from their W2, didn't report as much 1099 income as was reported to the IRS by others, or separated parents both trying to claim kids for tax credits or something. \n-\nThey don't really pull from the same resources. The rich people audits require human beings. Little people \"audits\" aren't really audits and a computer can do it. So if we want to audit more rich people, they need actual budget for human beings. The little people are going to be caught anyways because a computer can do it.", ">\n\nI interned at the IRS during the summer of 2012 when Lois Lerner made batshit crazy commrnts that they were targetting conservative groups", ">\n\nI say this every time it gets brought up. This is by design. I used to work in auditing and also used to do tax stuff. It’s super easy to find tax fraud on someone who only has a simple W-2 and no other income. You could find those people through a basic algorithm. Meanwhile, auditing a multi millionaire is expensive, time consuming, and often fruitless. If I was in charge of an underfunded, understaffed IRS I would tell my staff to go for the easy wins too.", ">\n\nUnpopular opinion - More funding won't resolve this. \nThe IRS will keep doing this. Unless rules & regulations forbid or disincentivize this practice, the IRS will keep this stupid practice", ">\n\nI make $40,000 a year and the IRS froze my bank accounts until I paid them $1000 in taxes I owed them because of an error I made filling my taxes. They froze my bank accounts for $1000. I was fucked for a month. I had to borrow cash from people just for food and gas money to get to work to get paid money that I couldn’t access. It was a scary time for me. Meanwhile millionaires are purposely avoiding taxes worth more than what I make in a year and nothing happens to them.", ">\n\nThe IRS sends no less than a dozen letters to a taxpayer prior to leaving a bank account. Why didn't you just put it into a repayment plan? Takes about ten minutes online.", ">\n\nDon't you just hate autocorrect?", ">\n\nIf true, its a holdover from jrbush who slashed IRS staff and budget and told them to spend more time auditing tip jars and busboys than millionaires because the millionaires had better lawyers than the IRS and service workers were unlikely to have any lawyers at all.", ">\n\nFox News solution: remove the IRS", ">\n\nAbsolutely. They’ll NEVER target the rich, adding more agents just made them a lot more capable to target all the lower class.", ">\n\nWhat people don't realize..Those 87K \"Agents\" aren't that. It's 87K employees over 25 years. Clerks etc. People are so fucking stupid when they just believe these clowns.", ">\n\nThose numbers also count it as an \"audit\" when a person misreports a number from a W2, 1099s, etc and the irs number matching software sends an automatically generated correspondence letter that basically says \"we actually show this number, this is what your tax return would have been if you reported that number correctly\". \nThe IRS isn't wasting time doing random \"audits\" as people think of them for low to middle income people. It would be a complete waste of their time. The computer just catches obvious verifiable mistakes and it counts as an audit in those numbers.", ">\n\n“those in the lowest income bracket hit 12.7 per 1,000….. The odds of a millionaire facing an audit were around 1.1%.”\nSo they’re saying 1.27% vs 1.1%!!! And acting like that’s a scandal 🙄", ">\n\nWhich means millionaires REALLY don't want more IRS auditors which means when our new resident house fascist fires five thousand auditors, said fascist (McCarthy) is making sure those millionaires aren't going to get audited. \nCha CHING !!! Go the \"donations\" into house rat republican's pockets. \nThe grift will be in full swing shortly.\nAnd with putin whispering in their ears and telling them EXACTLY how break the law - how can they lose?", ">\n\n💯 Exactly why theres a Fox link here pushing for that same reason.", ">\n\nTwo things. First of all, this is from a far right-wing propaganda outlet which should immediately raise red flags. They're trying to scare you into allowing a republican-initiated movement to entirely remove all remaining power from the IRS by making it seem like they're coming after you.\nSecond, the reason the IRS is already already virtually powerless against the rich is because the republicans have already eviscerated them in the past several decades, largely through defunding them leading to not only staffing cuts, but the inability to pursue the wealthiest people who have the resources for endless litigation. So as a result, the FBI can only really afford to go after people who cannot financially defend themselves.", ">\n\nThird, you might as well throw in that the aiming low guidance was under a Trump appointee who is no longer in that position.", ">\n\nThe GOP intentionally defunded the IRS so that it could not audit the wealthy. It takes a great deal more money upfront to audit them but the payback is far greater.", ">\n\nI'm not sure why dems voted against an amendment that would have mandated the giant infusion of cash into the IRS couldn't be used to audit folks making >$400k.", ">\n\nHrm this is pretty fucked I'd like to hear about why the Dems voted nay.", ">\n\nBecause they work for the same people as Republicans. \nThey are different but only when their owners allow them to be. \nI don't know how many times we are going to have to learn this lesson before it sticks.", ">\n\nDemocrats are responsible for this", ">\n\nThe rich returns are just too hard, enough lower class errors you can leave the rich alone. Love to see it… sigh", ">\n\nIt takes money to police the wealthy. Can't have that can we?!", ">\n\nr/noshitsherlock", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised?\nI’m not even American and this seemed obvious to me. All you have to do is look at how the poor live and compare that to the news about someone like Elon musk or Donald trump.", ">\n\nThis is why the IRS needs to go.", ">\n\nFox News helped make that happen.", ">\n\nThey'll never change,all the time when the guys in charge benefit from doing the same shit.", ">\n\nAnd yet the republicans dont submit or pass legislations to change the rules to favor targeting rich people. Curious.", ">\n\nThen 78,000 new, armed tax collectors should be able to extract even more money from the poor, middle-class and small business owners.", ">\n\nWhy did they focus on the Poorest? The thought of 87,000 more of them will actually do what? If the existing can’t focus on the wealthy! Then what makes anybody think more can?", ">\n\nMillionaires and billionaires make the government more money by creating lobbying loopholes and exploiting the economy to bilk the 99%. It's really cheap to go after the poorest who are struggling to pay day to day obligations and don't have loopholes or government sanctioned exploitation to take advantage of.", ">\n\nI could have told you this would happen. You think millionaires get $600 Venmo transactions?", ">\n\nThat's a move democrats should not make. That's one month of rent for me. What of folks worse-off?", ">\n\nHonestly it’s like squeezing blood from the stone over here anyway.", ">\n\nDuh lmfao theyve already stated it costs too much to tax weathy people previously and its most cost effective to audit the poor due to many factors...", ">\n\nI mean 99% of us are poor compared to the other 1%", ">\n\nColor me surprised", ">\n\nWe need some laws for equitable auditing.", ">\n\nYou are an Army commander about to attack the enemy. Do you prefer to attack where they have experienced career solders backed up by artillery, tanks, and airplanes, or do you attack where there are poorly armed and equipped untrained conscripts?", ">\n\nThey must be upset someone replaced their sign with a card from Cards Against Humanity", ">\n\nMay it ever be so…. Don’t reproduce if you only consume and can’t accumulate or help a Dow Jones winter water witch. Like snow, weathermen.", ">\n\nIt’s weirdly fitting how much their building sign in the photo looks like a cards against humanity card.", ">\n\nTypical", ">\n\nWow? How unusual.", ">\n\nI’d support double the number of IRS agents", ">\n\nI was low income and won about 3,000 gambling, the irs went after me", ">\n\nThe IRS came after me hard for 8$", ">\n\nAudit frequency should correlate to income, someone with a million in income should be audited 10x those with 100k income", ">\n\nSomeone should explain Pareto charts to the IRS.", ">\n\nI've been audited three times. First when I was 27, did some consulting and didn't do the 1099 prepayments. Ended up owing $17k. Second audit was after moving across country for a job. The tax preparer we hired made a mistake with the move expense deductions, owed a few thousand. Third audit was another tax preparer mistake, but this time we overpaid and were owed money we credited to the next year. \nIf you assume for discussion that the average audit on an ordinary tax payer returns $10,000, it would take 100,000,000 audits to make $1 trillion. By just doing the easy work, the IRS is leaving the real money on the table.", ">\n\nRepublicans are famous for giving rich breaks while middle class etc close the gaps", ">\n\nThe last line, \"The Inflation Reduction Act provides the IRS with $80 billion in future funding to ramp up its audits and potentially target the wealthiest taxpayers.\"", ">\n\nThe cure is not the root cause, but the middle class and the poor will eventually bear the burden after the capital operation", ">\n\nIt’s like they timed the “research” and the drop of the article with the speech. Sad man.", ">\n\nWatch Madoff. The wealthy skate and steal billions. The poor are in prison over thousands.", ">\n\nWhy does their sign look like a Card Against Humanity", ">\n\nFucking Trump, still at it.", ">\n\nOh you mean the thing people said would happen once they got massive funding actually happened? Checks out", ">\n\nOf course they did, because millionaires will lawyer up.", ">\n\nBecause the poor can't afford to fight back.", ">\n\nIt's so unfair the poor and the middle class taxpayers suffer so much while the millionaries got away with not paying the taxes It's really hurting the poor. The middle class is fading", ">\n\nAll of this can be fixed if we just use no-exemption graduated income", ">\n\nYeah we know", ">\n\nShow of hands for all surprised.\ncrickets\nHmm. Seems like Reddit suffers from a plague of double amputees...", ">\n\nWhat the actual fuck", ">\n\nAnd 2021, 2020, 2019, …", ">\n\nSounds about right.", ">\n\nOf course. Poor people can’t afford attorneys.", ">\n\nI made a mistake on my forms while I was overseas and ticked “self-employed” instead of “employed”. I was on a student visa and had two children and was making less than 10k a year. They hounded me for years. By the time I figured out what had happened I could not amend the forms and had paid thousands in penalties and interest.\nMeanwhile I knew lots of people who were there fully employed not reporting their income.\nFuck them.", ">\n\nYep! During the pandemic, even while I wasn't working didn't come after me the entire time that I was working but the minute that I wasn't nobody was cuz we were in lockdown they started popping up", ">\n\nI just now realized that the Cards Against Humanity box looks like the IRS sign", ">\n\nWhy is the sign a Cards Against Humanity question?", ">\n\nI am shocked and appalled. clutches pearls", ">\n\nRich should be taxed more than the average not right at all. Or at least there is a tier system based on pay only makes sense. Come on now", ">\n\nSounds about right, make the rich richer again.", ">\n\nWho are we going to vote for in the future ,all of them are decayed , corrupted and useless , the “most rich country in the world , governed by the most ignorant an corrupted. What a contrast .", ">\n\nGod bless America", ">\n\nno way. wait until you see those people responds. Those people are chipping away.", ">\n\nSounds about right", ">\n\nWe know.", ">\n\nI find it rather comical that Fox news is reporting on this since they are all about pushing the Republican agenda and that is all about pushing everyone else down that isn't rich and keeping them there. Not to mention they had no problem with Trump not paying taxes for years.", ">\n\nCan fucking confirm.", ">\n\nYeah, they (millionaires) have accountants who generally do things right and due to their millions being in investments it's not like it's taxable all the time. \nThen there's the ability to sell any stocks when they're down to build up losses on paper can reinvest them at a loss that can carry over across multiple years.", ">\n\nsounds about right. i don’t have a pot to piss in but they’re all over me for someone stealing my identity and filing a double tax return one year.", ">\n\nDuh", ">\n\nThere’s a reason why FOX is posting this article. The less people at the IRS, the more likely they come after folks who can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nIn order to pursue wealthy tax cheats, the IRS needs more resources and personnel. Otherwise it’s business as usual, picking on the low hanging fruit that earns under 6 figures.", ">\n\nSo wrong ....people need to be fired", ">\n\nIt’s because they can’t afford to take them to court", ">\n\nOf course it is about protecting the rich like Trump who lies ,lies , and about his tax returns . No wonder he did not want them released .", ">\n\nEasy prey bc most ppl can not lawyer up. Pretty heart breaking system we have at times.", ">\n\nWhy does the irs sign look like it's from cards against humanity?", ">\n\nCurrently getting audited over \\~$1500, which they owe me, when the rich get away with murder. Fucking unbelievably and unnecessarily stressful for me.", ">\n\nHas t this been know for a while?", ">\n\nyep and they are the same people getting tax cuts while everyone else does it tough ....\nAny one with too much money is your enemy .... not a hero of democracy", ">\n\nGet rid of taxes and the gov’t should just do stuff for free, or what ever.", ">\n\nYou have to be careful when you get one of those CP2000 notices from the IRS. The way they are written is a trap.\nIf you dispute it you are supposed to indicate that you disagree and send it back with documents supporting your dispute.\nYou are only supposed to sign it if you agree with them and when you sign it you are signing away your rights to dispute the back taxes and penalties they are demanding.\nMere worker bees like us can expect to be getting a lot of those from this years tax returns considering how the threshold for 1099k forms has been dropped to $600.\nGuys like Trump? The IRS doesn't even know where to begin.", ">\n\nThanks Biden", ">\n\nI presume those lower-income bracket filers might be more likely to reach out to 1-800-infomercial [quickie settlement/long-term penalties most favorable to gov/proprietor] than retain proper legal counsel?\nRegardless it’s got to be a lot less work for IRS agent to go after under-represented citizen(s), rather than someone who can afford to appeal, properly negotiate on their own terms?", ">\n\nLmfao Dems tax and spend. But I have to admit there Republicans that tax and spend to. Where do these Politicians get off taxing me or business and give to people who don't work what do you cause d the inflation. You can not print money \nI am Conservative not a Republican. To much money is wasted and put in pockets of people ot don't belong.\nBut all dems know how to tax tax tax. \nIts all great and good until you run out if other peoples money. \nMillionaire just like Berny he hated Millionaires until he became one now he hates Trillionaires. Funny how the gold post changes. And good old Nancy her I side stock trading. So I think you need to rethink.", ">\n\nThe IRS is only doing as directed by whomever controls the White House.", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised by this? Really?", ">\n\nThe sign in the thumbnail looks like a Cards Against Humanity card.", ">\n\nWhile this is mostly true, don’t believe everything you read. I’m no more an accountant than I am a ladies man, but someone (said they’re an accountant) posted a few days ago about this. They explained that the most likely people getting audited are trying to, fraudulently or mistakenly, claim the EITC. \nYES, it’s super easy to “bust” these people for an easy “mistake”. This is who the IRS is cracking down on. \nDo I think it’s better to bust poor people for claiming a few thousand in tax credits vs billionaires who avoid taxes altogether? Of course not, but don’t think they’re actively targeting people who fudge their mileage deductions or miss a decimal point in their calculations as small business owners. It’s simply not happening. \nAnd the reported “87,000 new IRS agents” are replacing the 10’s of 1,000’s of employees set to retire or quit over the next 10 years which doesn’t even begin to fill the gaps we’ve been growing for decades by not hiring and training more willing workers. Not to mention they’re not even close to all employees who will actively audit tax payers. They’re people who answer phones, file papers, assist others, etc… They’re mostly just average people with average jobs so of course the GOP wants to end this. They hate upward mobility and job creation unless that means tax breaks for their billionaire friends.", ">\n\nI wish everyone wasn’t a sheep and would understand this.", ">\n\nI can see the Media doing their best to turn the public against the IRS.", ">\n\nPicking on the week and helpless. That’s what we humans do. We suck. I’m waiting for that big meteor reset button.", ">\n\nAnd Fox news loves this.", ">\n\nLove it, Faux 'News' taking the piss, for 4 years under Dear Leader they campaigned for tax breaks for the rich, now they're pretending to care about the poor !", ">\n\nEvery millionaire should be audited yearly. Period.", ">\n\nAND now the gqp cult promises to rescind the money Biden set aside to aid the IRS to recover taxes from mega millionaire tax cheats like benedict donald, who paid less taxes than most working Americans.", ">\n\nRepublicans want to stop the IRS and Congress from taxing rich people, making the burden of maintaining civilization fall more heavily on poorer people. This is why Republicans vote for tax cuts for the rich and against funding for the IRS.\nAnd since Republican beliefs are based on wishful thinking, Republicans can screw over poor, rural Republicans while simultaneously taking credit for doing it to make Republicans happy about it and blaming it on Democrats to make those same Republicans resentful against Democrats for it. And what else would we expect from a Republican Party that blames Democrats for tricking them into attacking the Capitol to make Trump look bad and justifies and approves of assaulting Capitol police while brandishing their \"thin blue line\" flags.", ">\n\nThe IRS is like any other law enforcement agency, they prefer pursuing the poor because they don't have the resources to protect themselves.", ">\n\nThe IRS building sign looks like its from cards against humanity.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nNot a reliable news source.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nThat picture looks like the worst cards against humanity card too get.", ">\n\nScrew the Murdoch media empire and their failed trickle down ideologies.", ">\n\nOf course, the poorest haven’t paid over 400+ billion for decades. Not sure about the rich, we haven’t checked.", ">\n\nThis is not a surprise. With the recent inflation reduction act, the IRS an additional $80B over 10 years or $8B per year. The IRS budget for 2021 was $13.7B. The additional $8B over the year would be an increase of 58% to their budget. They will be looking to get a lot more money from taxpayers, due to this very large increase in their budget.", ">\n\nFox reported this? I'm in shock", ">\n\nAll propagandists publish clickbaity stuff that makes them sound like maybe they've let up on the evil. Unfortunately it works, since people just upvote headlines.", ">\n\nIt’s only going to get worse in 2023. Those 87k new IRS agents will not be going after the wealthy.", ">\n\nWhy?\nThat’s literally why they were being added. The IRS goes after the poorer taxpayers because they are low-hanging fruit and don’t have the lawyers and accountants to protect them. \nThe additional IRS employees were to give the personnel staffing sufficient to go after the wealthy.", ">\n\nIt doesn’t matter how many IRS agents there are. It will always be easier and more profitable for the IRS to nickel and dime the average taxpayer rather than go after the wealthy, who have the resources to lawyer up with the best lawyers and challenge the IRS in court.", ">\n\nEasier? Yes. More profitable? Doubtful.", ">\n\nIf Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks." ]
> Not if Republicans have anything to say about it.	[ "If Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nAnd when Barry was president they targeted conservative groups. I think phone calls can be made to tell them to back off of the little guy.", ">\n\n\nthey targeted conservative groups.\n\nNo. They went after specifically anti-tax tea party groups. The groups who openly flaunted tax laws", ">\n\nThey also went after progressive, left leaning groups - how do you explain that ? it was political", ">\n\nWait, did they target conservatives or progressives? Lol", ">\n\nBoth- it was quite clear they were involving themselves in politics - that’s what the IG found", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.", ">\n\nYep!\nAlso this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious.\nThe real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade.", ">\n\nThanks for the informative reply.\nYou make great points which I don't doubt. But there are times when I think it's important to consider both the letter and spirit of law at times.\nEven though it is perfectly by the letter of the law that people should be checked, it also seems against the intended spirit of said law that only a certain group of people are checked.\nI am not familiar with US law, but I think most of us can feel some degree of injustice with how things currently are.", ">\n\nThe point is to automate more checking of income common to wealthier people, and devote more resources to auditing those people. The Fox News article is disingenuous in how it describes the automated checking that goes on. It’s not great that rich people aren’t really audited, but there’s no reason to stop the automated checking of income where it’s already being done and essentially free to continue.\nIf you feel differently, explain yourself.", ">\n\nNo, we are in alignment concerning this.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nFUCK FOX NEWS\nFox is pretending to care about us poors. \nDon't reward these fascist fucks with upvotes for a disingenuous clickbait headline. They still hate us for not voting gop.", ">\n\nThey want people to hate the IRS and help defund it so they don’t go after the rich, which was the purpose of the additional funding", ">\n\nThey want people to link this to “87000” new agents, which is obviously happening on social media posts, but it’s not even a thing.", ">\n\nArticle is trash. The author is including correspondence audits (which means the IRS asked for some documentation by mail) for low income filers but not for millionaires when comparing their audit rates. Here are actual numbers according to their own source:\nAudit rates including correspondence audits\nlow income 1.27%\nmillionaires 2.38% \nAudit rates excluding correspondence audits\nlow income 0.0376%\nmillionaires 1.24%\n.\nFor low income filers, nearly all their audits were correspondence audits.", ">\n\nIt's hilarious when Fox News and the GOP pretend they care about poor people.\nNo amount of hypocrisy is too much to try to make democrats look bad.", ">\n\nIts unfortunately far easier to prove married couples who live together filed HoH for extra earned income credit than it is to prove complicated returns were incorrect.", ">\n\nIt's also trivially easy to prove the same child was claimed by two parents which is a lot of correspondence audits.", ">\n\nSo can my back taxes please just get forgiven already. 20% income being taxed is not livable", ">\n\nRepublican love flat rate taxes, you should talk to them.", ">\n\nThey’re required to audit the president and vice president, and that didn’t happen either.", ">\n\nThis isn't new, it's been been having for the last 5 - 6 years.", ">\n\nHopefully some wake up and realize its all just preparing us for the inevitable destruction of our economy. I imagine its almost too late to realize this. If we all realized this wed sell our 401Ks and not lean on money and use it to help our neighbors.", ">\n\nK bro.", ">\n\nMy wife and I are on social security. She works part time to keep us afloat. All in, we earned $50K in 2022. iRS wants $4500 from us. Really? 5X what Trump paid? Don't know if anyone is paying attention but $50k ain't rich. Oh, and out of that comes almost $4k in Medicare premiums. A program we paid into for 40+ years.\nEveryone of these arrogant, unqualified,, spoon fed assholes in Congress should be made to live on SSI or welfare, with no medical coverage, for a year. Then tell me I am acting entitled.\nSelf serving bastards.", ">\n\nDon't upvote this crap.\nDo you really think Fox cares about the working class??\nThis is just right wing propaganda, timed to coincide with McCarthy's promise to get rid of the new IRS agents who make it possible to audit the rich.\nDon't be used.", ">\n\nWhatever happened to \"dont shoot the messenger?\"", ">\n\nIRS understaffing would naturally trend to go after low-lying fruit. Easy pickings. Too many man hours to go after super complex cases. These moneyed fuckers and their bullshit. It's outrageous.", ">\n\nThe vast majority of these audits are automatically generated correspondence audits that have to be issued. We can't just turn off the program that raises a red flag when two people claim the same child as a dependent because we don't have enough forensic accountants. If you mistype your W2 you'll get an \"audit\" showing the correct info from the copy your boss sent them and telling you they'll correct it unless you tell them otherwise and you don't have to do anything if the info they have is correct.", ">\n\nYeah, all the nonsense about the IRS \"going after\" low income people is so stupid. Low income people make money in a way that their reporting is easily verifiable by a computer. They're also most likely to mess up and claim child tax credits incorrectly, etc - all of which is verifiable and issued a letter by a computer. \n-\nOther than actually being able to get someone on the phone when you call the IRS, and increased budget isn't going to impact the average person in any way.", ">\n\nMy thing is even assuming the 87k don't successfully get more money out of the rich, that's still 87k jobs. That's a net positive. I just don't understand the conservative logic here. Do they think these 87k new jobs are specifically for being insidiously predatory toward the poor? Where's the logic here? (I know I'll get hyperbolic answers, but I genuinely would like to know)", ">\n\nIt's 87,000 jobs over 10 years, the majority of which are replacement during that period. It's just a budget supplemental to stop hemorrhaging agents as they retire or cycle out into other jobs.", ">\n\nso.. this is on fox, which I assume support republican efforts to ensure that this is the permanent state of affairs. I don't really get anything anymore.", ">\n\nAnd that is the way the GOP wants it.", ">\n\n💯 Exactly what this Fox article is trying to do.", ">\n\nIt's who can afford a lawyer", ">\n\nAs the article hints at, the IRS does not do a lot of actual auditing. What it does is computer matching, which automatically generates material for a correspondence audit. Most correspondence audits occur because som poor working Joe didn't know he/her was supposed to include or exclude something, and the IRS caught it in its matching. Of course, the problem is that we have a complex code and little help in actually helping people through the various forms, rules, and so on. But millionaires don't have these issues, so they can escape most of the traps that lead to a correspondence audit. If a lot of these 87,000 were in taxpayer service (which I expect) it would lead to fewer audits at the low end, more robust audits for large corporations, wealthy individuals, and those who actively use tax avoidance strategies. But of course that is not the dialogue that gets promoted when the 87,000 agents are discussed.", ">\n\nThis is exactly why Fox News needs to be dismantled and thrown in the garbage. Ugh, \"look poors! They're coming for yoU!!!\". Scare tactics. And guess what? It sadly works. Every time.\nThey're lower than scum.", ">\n\nExactly. It's when someone misreports a number from their W2, didn't report 1099s they received, both separated parents claim a tax credit for the same kid, etc. All stuff that's easily checked by a computer. The IRS isn't \"auditing\" random low to middle income people. That would be a complete waste of their time.", ">\n\nlooks at Trump You don't say.", ">\n\nThe poor can't defend themselves, it's easier to take a little bit of money from people that won't fight back than a lot of money from people that will.", ">\n\nThe mega rich seem like they’re on a mission to destroy America, as we know it.", ">\n\nHiring 87,000 new IRS agents makes it possible to audit billionaires. So they pay their share. Those audits require an actual person or team that knows what they are doing. But Kevin McCarthy's first item of business was to announce legislation to overturn the hiring of 87,000 IRS agents. Meaning only the little guy (who can be audited by computer software) pays taxes.\nSSDD", ">\n\nThe \"87,000\" agents budget is over a ten year period. It's not for 87,000 new positions.", ">\n\nThe title is so misleading. Im surprised fox even put the juicy bit in the article about how (this stat is due to there not being enough IRS workers because) these \"audits\" on low earners are just automated letters asking for more info.\nYet again, this is just millionairs paid by billionairs to mislead the masses into blaming the poor for crimes committed by said billionairs.", ">\n\nWhich is why the IRS needs more manpower and budget, so they can go after the big fish.\nFuck Fox News and their Republican propaganda pieces. This article coincides with McCarthy saying they’ll cut the IRS budget and that the IRS is coming for you.\nFuck off Republican propaganda rag!\nStop upvoting any Fox News story. Fox should not be on the white list.", ">\n\nThis is a terrible article. It seems to include questions about tax returns as audits. If a low income filer makes a mistake it should be corrected. Is that an audit? If anyone makes a mistake and is contacted, is that an audit? Also there is no reason to go after low income as they rarely pay tax or are required to. The money requested would also pay for people to answer a phone. Those against increasing funding lie when they say all of it goes to audits. If you tell the truth, who cares if you are audited? Are y’all aware you can track your personal return online? However a business cannot. Businesses have to rely on humans that can’t be reached. I’ve waited a year for a refund. Didn’t know if IRS received the return. Didn’t know if there was an issue. Didn’t know if it was mailed or lost. I’m getting tired of Republicans pushing their crap on people.", ">\n\nwho keeps upvoting this right wing propaganda", ">\n\nWhy would the GOP want to give the agency the power to go after their donors.", ">\n\nAnd it was trumps guy that mandated it while Biden replaced him", ">\n\nApparently the mere use of an accounting firm somehow protected corps and the rich from the IRS who still (mistakenly) believe the accounting firms are trustworthy. How naive.", ">\n\nThe \"audits\" talked about are mostly form letters requesting more info about specific items.", ">\n\nThe poor can't pay for top flight attorneys.", ">\n\nYep keep the IRS underfunded so they can only go after the poors at the same time telling all the poors that the IRS is bad cause it goes after them but leave out the fact that they do that cause the poors are low hanging fruit.\nRepublicans are evil.", ">\n\nWell the GOP wants to cut funding to the IRS for new agents, so I’m sure the poor folk will continue to get screwed. I say toss the 50,000+ page tax code out and replace with a percentage based on total revenue/income made. Took a loss? No write-offs. Oh well, better luck next year. It’ll never happen because the wealthy don’t want it to.", ">\n\nWhere did you get this info? I know GOPers have been slashing IRS budgets and staffing for years but can't find reliable sources for what this has done to the actual audits - like who gets audited.", ">\n\nTheir link is Fox. This is a bad faith post.", ">\n\nThis says a lot coming from fox “news”", ">\n\nTo paraphrase Gilbert K. Chesterton, \"The Poor have sometimes objected to being taxed too heavily; The Rich have always objected to being taxed at all.\"", ">\n\ndon't post Fox news here....", ">\n\nCorporations and millionaires have the means to hire accountants and attorneys. Our tax code is gray in several areas. It’s easy to go after the poor that do not have the resources and will have no choice but to pay anything the IRS says. The additional agents will continue to target the poor and middle class because they are easy, It’s happened before, it will continue to happen.", ">\n\nI think it's funny/sad that a poor person can win the lottery and they get taxed at a higher rate than any billionaire has ever been taxed at. The system is built to keep the rich - rich and the poor - poor.", ">\n\nThe poorest can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nThe current system cannot be sustained. We are hurtling towards disaster.", ">\n\nThe only reason the bastards have the majority is because the corrupt SCOTUS allowed illegal gerrymanders to stand while they were fought in the courts.", ">\n\nThe I.R.S. goes after the poorer people because it's easier. They can't afford lawyers and accountants. So the poor can do nothing but roll over and take it up the rump. The Inflation Reduction Act that Biden signed into law in August is supposed to give $80 Billion to the I.R.S. so they can go after the millionaires. But we know that won't happen. More poor people are going to get screwed.", ">\n\nI'm confused. For decades, Faux news and the conservatives have been saying that millionaires deserve to keep more of their money than we do. That was a huge part of the 2017 tax scam that Trump signed. Now Faux is saying it's a problem? And they are rightly detailing that Republicans are the cause, along with Biden trying to fix the same issue that Fox has helped create?", ">\n\nFox News", ">\n\nHey IRS, don't forget to crawl up my ass this year because I sold some old stuff on eBay for a loss but make sure you put a few man hours into figuring out if it is legit or not.", ">\n\nlol, and the people opposed to IRS funding will say they are anti-establishment.", ">\n\nImagine how much they could squeeze the middle class with 87,000 more agents! But really, it’ll be good to see if the increase in officers actually increases tax revenue without changing the underlying laws.", ">\n\nSo, this is the newest Republican boogeyman, the IRS.\nWell, better than Drag Queens I guess.", ">\n\nOh hey just like last year, and the year before that, I think there might be a pattern", ">\n\nThank you republicans, always sticking up in the back on the small guys…", ">\n\nFox News saying this like it’s not something Rupert Murdoch’s network supports is pretty funny.", ">\n\nFox News. Ignore it.", ">\n\nFox News is still allowed in here?", ">\n\nFake news. This is Republican propaganda coming from Fox News.", ">\n\nFox News is NOT news", ">\n\nHmm sounds like it was underfunded then. Good thing now we helped ease that problem. Thanks Biden", ">\n\nIt's simply laziness by the IRS. Lower-income households have less complicated returns and easier to process. I'm sure IRS runs a non-effective but management-pleasing metric like \"how many returns were corrected\" opposed to how much money was recouped.", ">\n\nWe know. They don't have the resources to do anything. That was the point of increasing the staffing at the IRS so they had even the slightest hope of going after the big offenders with their armies or lawyers.", ">\n\nThere's less millionaires and billionaires than there are us. I'm not sure that answer fits the accuracy on hiring more workers but I'll go ahead and amuse that", ">\n\nIt's not a game of tax guy vs rich guy. The rich literally have armies of lawyers. You need the staff to overcome all the paper and challenges they'll throw at you. \nIf you throw one person to audit a millionaire, their lawyers can make it so it'll take a year to review a week of operations. Investigations will never finish unless there's sufficient staff to overcome their obstruction.", ">\n\nTo this day I do not understand why the IRS can demand our documents every year without a warrant. The 16th amendment does not alter the 4th, and the 4th does not apply only to criminal actions (as the 5th explicitly does). Yet no one seems to care about this annual violations.", ">\n\nReminder, Fox News is not news. It's entertainment, and should be regarded as such.", ">\n\nNo shit, poor ppl tend to file their own taxes and screw up where as millionaires hire expensive accountants to exploit all the legal loopholes without getting their clients in trouble.\nI don't think it's an intentional targeting as the article may be implying.", ">\n\nOne might imagine the resources of agents would be better put to use by focusing on returns that might produce more revenue, however it may be just a lot easier to collect a few bucks from easier targets.", ">\n\nThey are short staffed and accountants make it so difficult to find wrongdoing, if there is even wrongdoing to be found, that it would take a decent chunk of their workforce just to tackle it. It's like trying to find needle in a haystack but you don't know if there's a needle or not.", ">\n\nSo true....", ">\n\nShocked pikachu face.", ">\n\nYeah I’d believe this if it weren’t Fox News. They could give a fuck about the poor and middle class.", ">\n\nI would literally rather the IRS spend its time auditing 5 extraordinarily rich people or a single business than anyone who makes less than 100k per year\nETA: I’m aware that this article represents part of the Republican agenda to just gut the IRS and welfare spending generally. And I understand the difficulties in auditing the rich/businesses v lower income people claiming tax credits, etc", ">\n\nAlmost all of the little people \"audits\" are just a computer issuing a correspondence \"audit\" because the person misreported something from their W2, didn't report as much 1099 income as was reported to the IRS by others, or separated parents both trying to claim kids for tax credits or something. \n-\nThey don't really pull from the same resources. The rich people audits require human beings. Little people \"audits\" aren't really audits and a computer can do it. So if we want to audit more rich people, they need actual budget for human beings. The little people are going to be caught anyways because a computer can do it.", ">\n\nI interned at the IRS during the summer of 2012 when Lois Lerner made batshit crazy commrnts that they were targetting conservative groups", ">\n\nI say this every time it gets brought up. This is by design. I used to work in auditing and also used to do tax stuff. It’s super easy to find tax fraud on someone who only has a simple W-2 and no other income. You could find those people through a basic algorithm. Meanwhile, auditing a multi millionaire is expensive, time consuming, and often fruitless. If I was in charge of an underfunded, understaffed IRS I would tell my staff to go for the easy wins too.", ">\n\nUnpopular opinion - More funding won't resolve this. \nThe IRS will keep doing this. Unless rules & regulations forbid or disincentivize this practice, the IRS will keep this stupid practice", ">\n\nI make $40,000 a year and the IRS froze my bank accounts until I paid them $1000 in taxes I owed them because of an error I made filling my taxes. They froze my bank accounts for $1000. I was fucked for a month. I had to borrow cash from people just for food and gas money to get to work to get paid money that I couldn’t access. It was a scary time for me. Meanwhile millionaires are purposely avoiding taxes worth more than what I make in a year and nothing happens to them.", ">\n\nThe IRS sends no less than a dozen letters to a taxpayer prior to leaving a bank account. Why didn't you just put it into a repayment plan? Takes about ten minutes online.", ">\n\nDon't you just hate autocorrect?", ">\n\nIf true, its a holdover from jrbush who slashed IRS staff and budget and told them to spend more time auditing tip jars and busboys than millionaires because the millionaires had better lawyers than the IRS and service workers were unlikely to have any lawyers at all.", ">\n\nFox News solution: remove the IRS", ">\n\nAbsolutely. They’ll NEVER target the rich, adding more agents just made them a lot more capable to target all the lower class.", ">\n\nWhat people don't realize..Those 87K \"Agents\" aren't that. It's 87K employees over 25 years. Clerks etc. People are so fucking stupid when they just believe these clowns.", ">\n\nThose numbers also count it as an \"audit\" when a person misreports a number from a W2, 1099s, etc and the irs number matching software sends an automatically generated correspondence letter that basically says \"we actually show this number, this is what your tax return would have been if you reported that number correctly\". \nThe IRS isn't wasting time doing random \"audits\" as people think of them for low to middle income people. It would be a complete waste of their time. The computer just catches obvious verifiable mistakes and it counts as an audit in those numbers.", ">\n\n“those in the lowest income bracket hit 12.7 per 1,000….. The odds of a millionaire facing an audit were around 1.1%.”\nSo they’re saying 1.27% vs 1.1%!!! And acting like that’s a scandal 🙄", ">\n\nWhich means millionaires REALLY don't want more IRS auditors which means when our new resident house fascist fires five thousand auditors, said fascist (McCarthy) is making sure those millionaires aren't going to get audited. \nCha CHING !!! Go the \"donations\" into house rat republican's pockets. \nThe grift will be in full swing shortly.\nAnd with putin whispering in their ears and telling them EXACTLY how break the law - how can they lose?", ">\n\n💯 Exactly why theres a Fox link here pushing for that same reason.", ">\n\nTwo things. First of all, this is from a far right-wing propaganda outlet which should immediately raise red flags. They're trying to scare you into allowing a republican-initiated movement to entirely remove all remaining power from the IRS by making it seem like they're coming after you.\nSecond, the reason the IRS is already already virtually powerless against the rich is because the republicans have already eviscerated them in the past several decades, largely through defunding them leading to not only staffing cuts, but the inability to pursue the wealthiest people who have the resources for endless litigation. So as a result, the FBI can only really afford to go after people who cannot financially defend themselves.", ">\n\nThird, you might as well throw in that the aiming low guidance was under a Trump appointee who is no longer in that position.", ">\n\nThe GOP intentionally defunded the IRS so that it could not audit the wealthy. It takes a great deal more money upfront to audit them but the payback is far greater.", ">\n\nI'm not sure why dems voted against an amendment that would have mandated the giant infusion of cash into the IRS couldn't be used to audit folks making >$400k.", ">\n\nHrm this is pretty fucked I'd like to hear about why the Dems voted nay.", ">\n\nBecause they work for the same people as Republicans. \nThey are different but only when their owners allow them to be. \nI don't know how many times we are going to have to learn this lesson before it sticks.", ">\n\nDemocrats are responsible for this", ">\n\nThe rich returns are just too hard, enough lower class errors you can leave the rich alone. Love to see it… sigh", ">\n\nIt takes money to police the wealthy. Can't have that can we?!", ">\n\nr/noshitsherlock", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised?\nI’m not even American and this seemed obvious to me. All you have to do is look at how the poor live and compare that to the news about someone like Elon musk or Donald trump.", ">\n\nThis is why the IRS needs to go.", ">\n\nFox News helped make that happen.", ">\n\nThey'll never change,all the time when the guys in charge benefit from doing the same shit.", ">\n\nAnd yet the republicans dont submit or pass legislations to change the rules to favor targeting rich people. Curious.", ">\n\nThen 78,000 new, armed tax collectors should be able to extract even more money from the poor, middle-class and small business owners.", ">\n\nWhy did they focus on the Poorest? The thought of 87,000 more of them will actually do what? If the existing can’t focus on the wealthy! Then what makes anybody think more can?", ">\n\nMillionaires and billionaires make the government more money by creating lobbying loopholes and exploiting the economy to bilk the 99%. It's really cheap to go after the poorest who are struggling to pay day to day obligations and don't have loopholes or government sanctioned exploitation to take advantage of.", ">\n\nI could have told you this would happen. You think millionaires get $600 Venmo transactions?", ">\n\nThat's a move democrats should not make. That's one month of rent for me. What of folks worse-off?", ">\n\nHonestly it’s like squeezing blood from the stone over here anyway.", ">\n\nDuh lmfao theyve already stated it costs too much to tax weathy people previously and its most cost effective to audit the poor due to many factors...", ">\n\nI mean 99% of us are poor compared to the other 1%", ">\n\nColor me surprised", ">\n\nWe need some laws for equitable auditing.", ">\n\nYou are an Army commander about to attack the enemy. Do you prefer to attack where they have experienced career solders backed up by artillery, tanks, and airplanes, or do you attack where there are poorly armed and equipped untrained conscripts?", ">\n\nThey must be upset someone replaced their sign with a card from Cards Against Humanity", ">\n\nMay it ever be so…. Don’t reproduce if you only consume and can’t accumulate or help a Dow Jones winter water witch. Like snow, weathermen.", ">\n\nIt’s weirdly fitting how much their building sign in the photo looks like a cards against humanity card.", ">\n\nTypical", ">\n\nWow? How unusual.", ">\n\nI’d support double the number of IRS agents", ">\n\nI was low income and won about 3,000 gambling, the irs went after me", ">\n\nThe IRS came after me hard for 8$", ">\n\nAudit frequency should correlate to income, someone with a million in income should be audited 10x those with 100k income", ">\n\nSomeone should explain Pareto charts to the IRS.", ">\n\nI've been audited three times. First when I was 27, did some consulting and didn't do the 1099 prepayments. Ended up owing $17k. Second audit was after moving across country for a job. The tax preparer we hired made a mistake with the move expense deductions, owed a few thousand. Third audit was another tax preparer mistake, but this time we overpaid and were owed money we credited to the next year. \nIf you assume for discussion that the average audit on an ordinary tax payer returns $10,000, it would take 100,000,000 audits to make $1 trillion. By just doing the easy work, the IRS is leaving the real money on the table.", ">\n\nRepublicans are famous for giving rich breaks while middle class etc close the gaps", ">\n\nThe last line, \"The Inflation Reduction Act provides the IRS with $80 billion in future funding to ramp up its audits and potentially target the wealthiest taxpayers.\"", ">\n\nThe cure is not the root cause, but the middle class and the poor will eventually bear the burden after the capital operation", ">\n\nIt’s like they timed the “research” and the drop of the article with the speech. Sad man.", ">\n\nWatch Madoff. The wealthy skate and steal billions. The poor are in prison over thousands.", ">\n\nWhy does their sign look like a Card Against Humanity", ">\n\nFucking Trump, still at it.", ">\n\nOh you mean the thing people said would happen once they got massive funding actually happened? Checks out", ">\n\nOf course they did, because millionaires will lawyer up.", ">\n\nBecause the poor can't afford to fight back.", ">\n\nIt's so unfair the poor and the middle class taxpayers suffer so much while the millionaries got away with not paying the taxes It's really hurting the poor. The middle class is fading", ">\n\nAll of this can be fixed if we just use no-exemption graduated income", ">\n\nYeah we know", ">\n\nShow of hands for all surprised.\ncrickets\nHmm. Seems like Reddit suffers from a plague of double amputees...", ">\n\nWhat the actual fuck", ">\n\nAnd 2021, 2020, 2019, …", ">\n\nSounds about right.", ">\n\nOf course. Poor people can’t afford attorneys.", ">\n\nI made a mistake on my forms while I was overseas and ticked “self-employed” instead of “employed”. I was on a student visa and had two children and was making less than 10k a year. They hounded me for years. By the time I figured out what had happened I could not amend the forms and had paid thousands in penalties and interest.\nMeanwhile I knew lots of people who were there fully employed not reporting their income.\nFuck them.", ">\n\nYep! During the pandemic, even while I wasn't working didn't come after me the entire time that I was working but the minute that I wasn't nobody was cuz we were in lockdown they started popping up", ">\n\nI just now realized that the Cards Against Humanity box looks like the IRS sign", ">\n\nWhy is the sign a Cards Against Humanity question?", ">\n\nI am shocked and appalled. clutches pearls", ">\n\nRich should be taxed more than the average not right at all. Or at least there is a tier system based on pay only makes sense. Come on now", ">\n\nSounds about right, make the rich richer again.", ">\n\nWho are we going to vote for in the future ,all of them are decayed , corrupted and useless , the “most rich country in the world , governed by the most ignorant an corrupted. What a contrast .", ">\n\nGod bless America", ">\n\nno way. wait until you see those people responds. Those people are chipping away.", ">\n\nSounds about right", ">\n\nWe know.", ">\n\nI find it rather comical that Fox news is reporting on this since they are all about pushing the Republican agenda and that is all about pushing everyone else down that isn't rich and keeping them there. Not to mention they had no problem with Trump not paying taxes for years.", ">\n\nCan fucking confirm.", ">\n\nYeah, they (millionaires) have accountants who generally do things right and due to their millions being in investments it's not like it's taxable all the time. \nThen there's the ability to sell any stocks when they're down to build up losses on paper can reinvest them at a loss that can carry over across multiple years.", ">\n\nsounds about right. i don’t have a pot to piss in but they’re all over me for someone stealing my identity and filing a double tax return one year.", ">\n\nDuh", ">\n\nThere’s a reason why FOX is posting this article. The less people at the IRS, the more likely they come after folks who can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nIn order to pursue wealthy tax cheats, the IRS needs more resources and personnel. Otherwise it’s business as usual, picking on the low hanging fruit that earns under 6 figures.", ">\n\nSo wrong ....people need to be fired", ">\n\nIt’s because they can’t afford to take them to court", ">\n\nOf course it is about protecting the rich like Trump who lies ,lies , and about his tax returns . No wonder he did not want them released .", ">\n\nEasy prey bc most ppl can not lawyer up. Pretty heart breaking system we have at times.", ">\n\nWhy does the irs sign look like it's from cards against humanity?", ">\n\nCurrently getting audited over \\~$1500, which they owe me, when the rich get away with murder. Fucking unbelievably and unnecessarily stressful for me.", ">\n\nHas t this been know for a while?", ">\n\nyep and they are the same people getting tax cuts while everyone else does it tough ....\nAny one with too much money is your enemy .... not a hero of democracy", ">\n\nGet rid of taxes and the gov’t should just do stuff for free, or what ever.", ">\n\nYou have to be careful when you get one of those CP2000 notices from the IRS. The way they are written is a trap.\nIf you dispute it you are supposed to indicate that you disagree and send it back with documents supporting your dispute.\nYou are only supposed to sign it if you agree with them and when you sign it you are signing away your rights to dispute the back taxes and penalties they are demanding.\nMere worker bees like us can expect to be getting a lot of those from this years tax returns considering how the threshold for 1099k forms has been dropped to $600.\nGuys like Trump? The IRS doesn't even know where to begin.", ">\n\nThanks Biden", ">\n\nI presume those lower-income bracket filers might be more likely to reach out to 1-800-infomercial [quickie settlement/long-term penalties most favorable to gov/proprietor] than retain proper legal counsel?\nRegardless it’s got to be a lot less work for IRS agent to go after under-represented citizen(s), rather than someone who can afford to appeal, properly negotiate on their own terms?", ">\n\nLmfao Dems tax and spend. But I have to admit there Republicans that tax and spend to. Where do these Politicians get off taxing me or business and give to people who don't work what do you cause d the inflation. You can not print money \nI am Conservative not a Republican. To much money is wasted and put in pockets of people ot don't belong.\nBut all dems know how to tax tax tax. \nIts all great and good until you run out if other peoples money. \nMillionaire just like Berny he hated Millionaires until he became one now he hates Trillionaires. Funny how the gold post changes. And good old Nancy her I side stock trading. So I think you need to rethink.", ">\n\nThe IRS is only doing as directed by whomever controls the White House.", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised by this? Really?", ">\n\nThe sign in the thumbnail looks like a Cards Against Humanity card.", ">\n\nWhile this is mostly true, don’t believe everything you read. I’m no more an accountant than I am a ladies man, but someone (said they’re an accountant) posted a few days ago about this. They explained that the most likely people getting audited are trying to, fraudulently or mistakenly, claim the EITC. \nYES, it’s super easy to “bust” these people for an easy “mistake”. This is who the IRS is cracking down on. \nDo I think it’s better to bust poor people for claiming a few thousand in tax credits vs billionaires who avoid taxes altogether? Of course not, but don’t think they’re actively targeting people who fudge their mileage deductions or miss a decimal point in their calculations as small business owners. It’s simply not happening. \nAnd the reported “87,000 new IRS agents” are replacing the 10’s of 1,000’s of employees set to retire or quit over the next 10 years which doesn’t even begin to fill the gaps we’ve been growing for decades by not hiring and training more willing workers. Not to mention they’re not even close to all employees who will actively audit tax payers. They’re people who answer phones, file papers, assist others, etc… They’re mostly just average people with average jobs so of course the GOP wants to end this. They hate upward mobility and job creation unless that means tax breaks for their billionaire friends.", ">\n\nI wish everyone wasn’t a sheep and would understand this.", ">\n\nI can see the Media doing their best to turn the public against the IRS.", ">\n\nPicking on the week and helpless. That’s what we humans do. We suck. I’m waiting for that big meteor reset button.", ">\n\nAnd Fox news loves this.", ">\n\nLove it, Faux 'News' taking the piss, for 4 years under Dear Leader they campaigned for tax breaks for the rich, now they're pretending to care about the poor !", ">\n\nEvery millionaire should be audited yearly. Period.", ">\n\nAND now the gqp cult promises to rescind the money Biden set aside to aid the IRS to recover taxes from mega millionaire tax cheats like benedict donald, who paid less taxes than most working Americans.", ">\n\nRepublicans want to stop the IRS and Congress from taxing rich people, making the burden of maintaining civilization fall more heavily on poorer people. This is why Republicans vote for tax cuts for the rich and against funding for the IRS.\nAnd since Republican beliefs are based on wishful thinking, Republicans can screw over poor, rural Republicans while simultaneously taking credit for doing it to make Republicans happy about it and blaming it on Democrats to make those same Republicans resentful against Democrats for it. And what else would we expect from a Republican Party that blames Democrats for tricking them into attacking the Capitol to make Trump look bad and justifies and approves of assaulting Capitol police while brandishing their \"thin blue line\" flags.", ">\n\nThe IRS is like any other law enforcement agency, they prefer pursuing the poor because they don't have the resources to protect themselves.", ">\n\nThe IRS building sign looks like its from cards against humanity.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nNot a reliable news source.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nThat picture looks like the worst cards against humanity card too get.", ">\n\nScrew the Murdoch media empire and their failed trickle down ideologies.", ">\n\nOf course, the poorest haven’t paid over 400+ billion for decades. Not sure about the rich, we haven’t checked.", ">\n\nThis is not a surprise. With the recent inflation reduction act, the IRS an additional $80B over 10 years or $8B per year. The IRS budget for 2021 was $13.7B. The additional $8B over the year would be an increase of 58% to their budget. They will be looking to get a lot more money from taxpayers, due to this very large increase in their budget.", ">\n\nFox reported this? I'm in shock", ">\n\nAll propagandists publish clickbaity stuff that makes them sound like maybe they've let up on the evil. Unfortunately it works, since people just upvote headlines.", ">\n\nIt’s only going to get worse in 2023. Those 87k new IRS agents will not be going after the wealthy.", ">\n\nWhy?\nThat’s literally why they were being added. The IRS goes after the poorer taxpayers because they are low-hanging fruit and don’t have the lawyers and accountants to protect them. \nThe additional IRS employees were to give the personnel staffing sufficient to go after the wealthy.", ">\n\nIt doesn’t matter how many IRS agents there are. It will always be easier and more profitable for the IRS to nickel and dime the average taxpayer rather than go after the wealthy, who have the resources to lawyer up with the best lawyers and challenge the IRS in court.", ">\n\nEasier? Yes. More profitable? Doubtful.", ">\n\nIf Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?" ]
> But in 2022 ( when Biden was president and the House belonged to the Dems) they didn’t did they.	[ "If Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nAnd when Barry was president they targeted conservative groups. I think phone calls can be made to tell them to back off of the little guy.", ">\n\n\nthey targeted conservative groups.\n\nNo. They went after specifically anti-tax tea party groups. The groups who openly flaunted tax laws", ">\n\nThey also went after progressive, left leaning groups - how do you explain that ? it was political", ">\n\nWait, did they target conservatives or progressives? Lol", ">\n\nBoth- it was quite clear they were involving themselves in politics - that’s what the IG found", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.", ">\n\nYep!\nAlso this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious.\nThe real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade.", ">\n\nThanks for the informative reply.\nYou make great points which I don't doubt. But there are times when I think it's important to consider both the letter and spirit of law at times.\nEven though it is perfectly by the letter of the law that people should be checked, it also seems against the intended spirit of said law that only a certain group of people are checked.\nI am not familiar with US law, but I think most of us can feel some degree of injustice with how things currently are.", ">\n\nThe point is to automate more checking of income common to wealthier people, and devote more resources to auditing those people. The Fox News article is disingenuous in how it describes the automated checking that goes on. It’s not great that rich people aren’t really audited, but there’s no reason to stop the automated checking of income where it’s already being done and essentially free to continue.\nIf you feel differently, explain yourself.", ">\n\nNo, we are in alignment concerning this.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nFUCK FOX NEWS\nFox is pretending to care about us poors. \nDon't reward these fascist fucks with upvotes for a disingenuous clickbait headline. They still hate us for not voting gop.", ">\n\nThey want people to hate the IRS and help defund it so they don’t go after the rich, which was the purpose of the additional funding", ">\n\nThey want people to link this to “87000” new agents, which is obviously happening on social media posts, but it’s not even a thing.", ">\n\nArticle is trash. The author is including correspondence audits (which means the IRS asked for some documentation by mail) for low income filers but not for millionaires when comparing their audit rates. Here are actual numbers according to their own source:\nAudit rates including correspondence audits\nlow income 1.27%\nmillionaires 2.38% \nAudit rates excluding correspondence audits\nlow income 0.0376%\nmillionaires 1.24%\n.\nFor low income filers, nearly all their audits were correspondence audits.", ">\n\nIt's hilarious when Fox News and the GOP pretend they care about poor people.\nNo amount of hypocrisy is too much to try to make democrats look bad.", ">\n\nIts unfortunately far easier to prove married couples who live together filed HoH for extra earned income credit than it is to prove complicated returns were incorrect.", ">\n\nIt's also trivially easy to prove the same child was claimed by two parents which is a lot of correspondence audits.", ">\n\nSo can my back taxes please just get forgiven already. 20% income being taxed is not livable", ">\n\nRepublican love flat rate taxes, you should talk to them.", ">\n\nThey’re required to audit the president and vice president, and that didn’t happen either.", ">\n\nThis isn't new, it's been been having for the last 5 - 6 years.", ">\n\nHopefully some wake up and realize its all just preparing us for the inevitable destruction of our economy. I imagine its almost too late to realize this. If we all realized this wed sell our 401Ks and not lean on money and use it to help our neighbors.", ">\n\nK bro.", ">\n\nMy wife and I are on social security. She works part time to keep us afloat. All in, we earned $50K in 2022. iRS wants $4500 from us. Really? 5X what Trump paid? Don't know if anyone is paying attention but $50k ain't rich. Oh, and out of that comes almost $4k in Medicare premiums. A program we paid into for 40+ years.\nEveryone of these arrogant, unqualified,, spoon fed assholes in Congress should be made to live on SSI or welfare, with no medical coverage, for a year. Then tell me I am acting entitled.\nSelf serving bastards.", ">\n\nDon't upvote this crap.\nDo you really think Fox cares about the working class??\nThis is just right wing propaganda, timed to coincide with McCarthy's promise to get rid of the new IRS agents who make it possible to audit the rich.\nDon't be used.", ">\n\nWhatever happened to \"dont shoot the messenger?\"", ">\n\nIRS understaffing would naturally trend to go after low-lying fruit. Easy pickings. Too many man hours to go after super complex cases. These moneyed fuckers and their bullshit. It's outrageous.", ">\n\nThe vast majority of these audits are automatically generated correspondence audits that have to be issued. We can't just turn off the program that raises a red flag when two people claim the same child as a dependent because we don't have enough forensic accountants. If you mistype your W2 you'll get an \"audit\" showing the correct info from the copy your boss sent them and telling you they'll correct it unless you tell them otherwise and you don't have to do anything if the info they have is correct.", ">\n\nYeah, all the nonsense about the IRS \"going after\" low income people is so stupid. Low income people make money in a way that their reporting is easily verifiable by a computer. They're also most likely to mess up and claim child tax credits incorrectly, etc - all of which is verifiable and issued a letter by a computer. \n-\nOther than actually being able to get someone on the phone when you call the IRS, and increased budget isn't going to impact the average person in any way.", ">\n\nMy thing is even assuming the 87k don't successfully get more money out of the rich, that's still 87k jobs. That's a net positive. I just don't understand the conservative logic here. Do they think these 87k new jobs are specifically for being insidiously predatory toward the poor? Where's the logic here? (I know I'll get hyperbolic answers, but I genuinely would like to know)", ">\n\nIt's 87,000 jobs over 10 years, the majority of which are replacement during that period. It's just a budget supplemental to stop hemorrhaging agents as they retire or cycle out into other jobs.", ">\n\nso.. this is on fox, which I assume support republican efforts to ensure that this is the permanent state of affairs. I don't really get anything anymore.", ">\n\nAnd that is the way the GOP wants it.", ">\n\n💯 Exactly what this Fox article is trying to do.", ">\n\nIt's who can afford a lawyer", ">\n\nAs the article hints at, the IRS does not do a lot of actual auditing. What it does is computer matching, which automatically generates material for a correspondence audit. Most correspondence audits occur because som poor working Joe didn't know he/her was supposed to include or exclude something, and the IRS caught it in its matching. Of course, the problem is that we have a complex code and little help in actually helping people through the various forms, rules, and so on. But millionaires don't have these issues, so they can escape most of the traps that lead to a correspondence audit. If a lot of these 87,000 were in taxpayer service (which I expect) it would lead to fewer audits at the low end, more robust audits for large corporations, wealthy individuals, and those who actively use tax avoidance strategies. But of course that is not the dialogue that gets promoted when the 87,000 agents are discussed.", ">\n\nThis is exactly why Fox News needs to be dismantled and thrown in the garbage. Ugh, \"look poors! They're coming for yoU!!!\". Scare tactics. And guess what? It sadly works. Every time.\nThey're lower than scum.", ">\n\nExactly. It's when someone misreports a number from their W2, didn't report 1099s they received, both separated parents claim a tax credit for the same kid, etc. All stuff that's easily checked by a computer. The IRS isn't \"auditing\" random low to middle income people. That would be a complete waste of their time.", ">\n\nlooks at Trump You don't say.", ">\n\nThe poor can't defend themselves, it's easier to take a little bit of money from people that won't fight back than a lot of money from people that will.", ">\n\nThe mega rich seem like they’re on a mission to destroy America, as we know it.", ">\n\nHiring 87,000 new IRS agents makes it possible to audit billionaires. So they pay their share. Those audits require an actual person or team that knows what they are doing. But Kevin McCarthy's first item of business was to announce legislation to overturn the hiring of 87,000 IRS agents. Meaning only the little guy (who can be audited by computer software) pays taxes.\nSSDD", ">\n\nThe \"87,000\" agents budget is over a ten year period. It's not for 87,000 new positions.", ">\n\nThe title is so misleading. Im surprised fox even put the juicy bit in the article about how (this stat is due to there not being enough IRS workers because) these \"audits\" on low earners are just automated letters asking for more info.\nYet again, this is just millionairs paid by billionairs to mislead the masses into blaming the poor for crimes committed by said billionairs.", ">\n\nWhich is why the IRS needs more manpower and budget, so they can go after the big fish.\nFuck Fox News and their Republican propaganda pieces. This article coincides with McCarthy saying they’ll cut the IRS budget and that the IRS is coming for you.\nFuck off Republican propaganda rag!\nStop upvoting any Fox News story. Fox should not be on the white list.", ">\n\nThis is a terrible article. It seems to include questions about tax returns as audits. If a low income filer makes a mistake it should be corrected. Is that an audit? If anyone makes a mistake and is contacted, is that an audit? Also there is no reason to go after low income as they rarely pay tax or are required to. The money requested would also pay for people to answer a phone. Those against increasing funding lie when they say all of it goes to audits. If you tell the truth, who cares if you are audited? Are y’all aware you can track your personal return online? However a business cannot. Businesses have to rely on humans that can’t be reached. I’ve waited a year for a refund. Didn’t know if IRS received the return. Didn’t know if there was an issue. Didn’t know if it was mailed or lost. I’m getting tired of Republicans pushing their crap on people.", ">\n\nwho keeps upvoting this right wing propaganda", ">\n\nWhy would the GOP want to give the agency the power to go after their donors.", ">\n\nAnd it was trumps guy that mandated it while Biden replaced him", ">\n\nApparently the mere use of an accounting firm somehow protected corps and the rich from the IRS who still (mistakenly) believe the accounting firms are trustworthy. How naive.", ">\n\nThe \"audits\" talked about are mostly form letters requesting more info about specific items.", ">\n\nThe poor can't pay for top flight attorneys.", ">\n\nYep keep the IRS underfunded so they can only go after the poors at the same time telling all the poors that the IRS is bad cause it goes after them but leave out the fact that they do that cause the poors are low hanging fruit.\nRepublicans are evil.", ">\n\nWell the GOP wants to cut funding to the IRS for new agents, so I’m sure the poor folk will continue to get screwed. I say toss the 50,000+ page tax code out and replace with a percentage based on total revenue/income made. Took a loss? No write-offs. Oh well, better luck next year. It’ll never happen because the wealthy don’t want it to.", ">\n\nWhere did you get this info? I know GOPers have been slashing IRS budgets and staffing for years but can't find reliable sources for what this has done to the actual audits - like who gets audited.", ">\n\nTheir link is Fox. This is a bad faith post.", ">\n\nThis says a lot coming from fox “news”", ">\n\nTo paraphrase Gilbert K. Chesterton, \"The Poor have sometimes objected to being taxed too heavily; The Rich have always objected to being taxed at all.\"", ">\n\ndon't post Fox news here....", ">\n\nCorporations and millionaires have the means to hire accountants and attorneys. Our tax code is gray in several areas. It’s easy to go after the poor that do not have the resources and will have no choice but to pay anything the IRS says. The additional agents will continue to target the poor and middle class because they are easy, It’s happened before, it will continue to happen.", ">\n\nI think it's funny/sad that a poor person can win the lottery and they get taxed at a higher rate than any billionaire has ever been taxed at. The system is built to keep the rich - rich and the poor - poor.", ">\n\nThe poorest can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nThe current system cannot be sustained. We are hurtling towards disaster.", ">\n\nThe only reason the bastards have the majority is because the corrupt SCOTUS allowed illegal gerrymanders to stand while they were fought in the courts.", ">\n\nThe I.R.S. goes after the poorer people because it's easier. They can't afford lawyers and accountants. So the poor can do nothing but roll over and take it up the rump. The Inflation Reduction Act that Biden signed into law in August is supposed to give $80 Billion to the I.R.S. so they can go after the millionaires. But we know that won't happen. More poor people are going to get screwed.", ">\n\nI'm confused. For decades, Faux news and the conservatives have been saying that millionaires deserve to keep more of their money than we do. That was a huge part of the 2017 tax scam that Trump signed. Now Faux is saying it's a problem? And they are rightly detailing that Republicans are the cause, along with Biden trying to fix the same issue that Fox has helped create?", ">\n\nFox News", ">\n\nHey IRS, don't forget to crawl up my ass this year because I sold some old stuff on eBay for a loss but make sure you put a few man hours into figuring out if it is legit or not.", ">\n\nlol, and the people opposed to IRS funding will say they are anti-establishment.", ">\n\nImagine how much they could squeeze the middle class with 87,000 more agents! But really, it’ll be good to see if the increase in officers actually increases tax revenue without changing the underlying laws.", ">\n\nSo, this is the newest Republican boogeyman, the IRS.\nWell, better than Drag Queens I guess.", ">\n\nOh hey just like last year, and the year before that, I think there might be a pattern", ">\n\nThank you republicans, always sticking up in the back on the small guys…", ">\n\nFox News saying this like it’s not something Rupert Murdoch’s network supports is pretty funny.", ">\n\nFox News. Ignore it.", ">\n\nFox News is still allowed in here?", ">\n\nFake news. This is Republican propaganda coming from Fox News.", ">\n\nFox News is NOT news", ">\n\nHmm sounds like it was underfunded then. Good thing now we helped ease that problem. Thanks Biden", ">\n\nIt's simply laziness by the IRS. Lower-income households have less complicated returns and easier to process. I'm sure IRS runs a non-effective but management-pleasing metric like \"how many returns were corrected\" opposed to how much money was recouped.", ">\n\nWe know. They don't have the resources to do anything. That was the point of increasing the staffing at the IRS so they had even the slightest hope of going after the big offenders with their armies or lawyers.", ">\n\nThere's less millionaires and billionaires than there are us. I'm not sure that answer fits the accuracy on hiring more workers but I'll go ahead and amuse that", ">\n\nIt's not a game of tax guy vs rich guy. The rich literally have armies of lawyers. You need the staff to overcome all the paper and challenges they'll throw at you. \nIf you throw one person to audit a millionaire, their lawyers can make it so it'll take a year to review a week of operations. Investigations will never finish unless there's sufficient staff to overcome their obstruction.", ">\n\nTo this day I do not understand why the IRS can demand our documents every year without a warrant. The 16th amendment does not alter the 4th, and the 4th does not apply only to criminal actions (as the 5th explicitly does). Yet no one seems to care about this annual violations.", ">\n\nReminder, Fox News is not news. It's entertainment, and should be regarded as such.", ">\n\nNo shit, poor ppl tend to file their own taxes and screw up where as millionaires hire expensive accountants to exploit all the legal loopholes without getting their clients in trouble.\nI don't think it's an intentional targeting as the article may be implying.", ">\n\nOne might imagine the resources of agents would be better put to use by focusing on returns that might produce more revenue, however it may be just a lot easier to collect a few bucks from easier targets.", ">\n\nThey are short staffed and accountants make it so difficult to find wrongdoing, if there is even wrongdoing to be found, that it would take a decent chunk of their workforce just to tackle it. It's like trying to find needle in a haystack but you don't know if there's a needle or not.", ">\n\nSo true....", ">\n\nShocked pikachu face.", ">\n\nYeah I’d believe this if it weren’t Fox News. They could give a fuck about the poor and middle class.", ">\n\nI would literally rather the IRS spend its time auditing 5 extraordinarily rich people or a single business than anyone who makes less than 100k per year\nETA: I’m aware that this article represents part of the Republican agenda to just gut the IRS and welfare spending generally. And I understand the difficulties in auditing the rich/businesses v lower income people claiming tax credits, etc", ">\n\nAlmost all of the little people \"audits\" are just a computer issuing a correspondence \"audit\" because the person misreported something from their W2, didn't report as much 1099 income as was reported to the IRS by others, or separated parents both trying to claim kids for tax credits or something. \n-\nThey don't really pull from the same resources. The rich people audits require human beings. Little people \"audits\" aren't really audits and a computer can do it. So if we want to audit more rich people, they need actual budget for human beings. The little people are going to be caught anyways because a computer can do it.", ">\n\nI interned at the IRS during the summer of 2012 when Lois Lerner made batshit crazy commrnts that they were targetting conservative groups", ">\n\nI say this every time it gets brought up. This is by design. I used to work in auditing and also used to do tax stuff. It’s super easy to find tax fraud on someone who only has a simple W-2 and no other income. You could find those people through a basic algorithm. Meanwhile, auditing a multi millionaire is expensive, time consuming, and often fruitless. If I was in charge of an underfunded, understaffed IRS I would tell my staff to go for the easy wins too.", ">\n\nUnpopular opinion - More funding won't resolve this. \nThe IRS will keep doing this. Unless rules & regulations forbid or disincentivize this practice, the IRS will keep this stupid practice", ">\n\nI make $40,000 a year and the IRS froze my bank accounts until I paid them $1000 in taxes I owed them because of an error I made filling my taxes. They froze my bank accounts for $1000. I was fucked for a month. I had to borrow cash from people just for food and gas money to get to work to get paid money that I couldn’t access. It was a scary time for me. Meanwhile millionaires are purposely avoiding taxes worth more than what I make in a year and nothing happens to them.", ">\n\nThe IRS sends no less than a dozen letters to a taxpayer prior to leaving a bank account. Why didn't you just put it into a repayment plan? Takes about ten minutes online.", ">\n\nDon't you just hate autocorrect?", ">\n\nIf true, its a holdover from jrbush who slashed IRS staff and budget and told them to spend more time auditing tip jars and busboys than millionaires because the millionaires had better lawyers than the IRS and service workers were unlikely to have any lawyers at all.", ">\n\nFox News solution: remove the IRS", ">\n\nAbsolutely. They’ll NEVER target the rich, adding more agents just made them a lot more capable to target all the lower class.", ">\n\nWhat people don't realize..Those 87K \"Agents\" aren't that. It's 87K employees over 25 years. Clerks etc. People are so fucking stupid when they just believe these clowns.", ">\n\nThose numbers also count it as an \"audit\" when a person misreports a number from a W2, 1099s, etc and the irs number matching software sends an automatically generated correspondence letter that basically says \"we actually show this number, this is what your tax return would have been if you reported that number correctly\". \nThe IRS isn't wasting time doing random \"audits\" as people think of them for low to middle income people. It would be a complete waste of their time. The computer just catches obvious verifiable mistakes and it counts as an audit in those numbers.", ">\n\n“those in the lowest income bracket hit 12.7 per 1,000….. The odds of a millionaire facing an audit were around 1.1%.”\nSo they’re saying 1.27% vs 1.1%!!! And acting like that’s a scandal 🙄", ">\n\nWhich means millionaires REALLY don't want more IRS auditors which means when our new resident house fascist fires five thousand auditors, said fascist (McCarthy) is making sure those millionaires aren't going to get audited. \nCha CHING !!! Go the \"donations\" into house rat republican's pockets. \nThe grift will be in full swing shortly.\nAnd with putin whispering in their ears and telling them EXACTLY how break the law - how can they lose?", ">\n\n💯 Exactly why theres a Fox link here pushing for that same reason.", ">\n\nTwo things. First of all, this is from a far right-wing propaganda outlet which should immediately raise red flags. They're trying to scare you into allowing a republican-initiated movement to entirely remove all remaining power from the IRS by making it seem like they're coming after you.\nSecond, the reason the IRS is already already virtually powerless against the rich is because the republicans have already eviscerated them in the past several decades, largely through defunding them leading to not only staffing cuts, but the inability to pursue the wealthiest people who have the resources for endless litigation. So as a result, the FBI can only really afford to go after people who cannot financially defend themselves.", ">\n\nThird, you might as well throw in that the aiming low guidance was under a Trump appointee who is no longer in that position.", ">\n\nThe GOP intentionally defunded the IRS so that it could not audit the wealthy. It takes a great deal more money upfront to audit them but the payback is far greater.", ">\n\nI'm not sure why dems voted against an amendment that would have mandated the giant infusion of cash into the IRS couldn't be used to audit folks making >$400k.", ">\n\nHrm this is pretty fucked I'd like to hear about why the Dems voted nay.", ">\n\nBecause they work for the same people as Republicans. \nThey are different but only when their owners allow them to be. \nI don't know how many times we are going to have to learn this lesson before it sticks.", ">\n\nDemocrats are responsible for this", ">\n\nThe rich returns are just too hard, enough lower class errors you can leave the rich alone. Love to see it… sigh", ">\n\nIt takes money to police the wealthy. Can't have that can we?!", ">\n\nr/noshitsherlock", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised?\nI’m not even American and this seemed obvious to me. All you have to do is look at how the poor live and compare that to the news about someone like Elon musk or Donald trump.", ">\n\nThis is why the IRS needs to go.", ">\n\nFox News helped make that happen.", ">\n\nThey'll never change,all the time when the guys in charge benefit from doing the same shit.", ">\n\nAnd yet the republicans dont submit or pass legislations to change the rules to favor targeting rich people. Curious.", ">\n\nThen 78,000 new, armed tax collectors should be able to extract even more money from the poor, middle-class and small business owners.", ">\n\nWhy did they focus on the Poorest? The thought of 87,000 more of them will actually do what? If the existing can’t focus on the wealthy! Then what makes anybody think more can?", ">\n\nMillionaires and billionaires make the government more money by creating lobbying loopholes and exploiting the economy to bilk the 99%. It's really cheap to go after the poorest who are struggling to pay day to day obligations and don't have loopholes or government sanctioned exploitation to take advantage of.", ">\n\nI could have told you this would happen. You think millionaires get $600 Venmo transactions?", ">\n\nThat's a move democrats should not make. That's one month of rent for me. What of folks worse-off?", ">\n\nHonestly it’s like squeezing blood from the stone over here anyway.", ">\n\nDuh lmfao theyve already stated it costs too much to tax weathy people previously and its most cost effective to audit the poor due to many factors...", ">\n\nI mean 99% of us are poor compared to the other 1%", ">\n\nColor me surprised", ">\n\nWe need some laws for equitable auditing.", ">\n\nYou are an Army commander about to attack the enemy. Do you prefer to attack where they have experienced career solders backed up by artillery, tanks, and airplanes, or do you attack where there are poorly armed and equipped untrained conscripts?", ">\n\nThey must be upset someone replaced their sign with a card from Cards Against Humanity", ">\n\nMay it ever be so…. Don’t reproduce if you only consume and can’t accumulate or help a Dow Jones winter water witch. Like snow, weathermen.", ">\n\nIt’s weirdly fitting how much their building sign in the photo looks like a cards against humanity card.", ">\n\nTypical", ">\n\nWow? How unusual.", ">\n\nI’d support double the number of IRS agents", ">\n\nI was low income and won about 3,000 gambling, the irs went after me", ">\n\nThe IRS came after me hard for 8$", ">\n\nAudit frequency should correlate to income, someone with a million in income should be audited 10x those with 100k income", ">\n\nSomeone should explain Pareto charts to the IRS.", ">\n\nI've been audited three times. First when I was 27, did some consulting and didn't do the 1099 prepayments. Ended up owing $17k. Second audit was after moving across country for a job. The tax preparer we hired made a mistake with the move expense deductions, owed a few thousand. Third audit was another tax preparer mistake, but this time we overpaid and were owed money we credited to the next year. \nIf you assume for discussion that the average audit on an ordinary tax payer returns $10,000, it would take 100,000,000 audits to make $1 trillion. By just doing the easy work, the IRS is leaving the real money on the table.", ">\n\nRepublicans are famous for giving rich breaks while middle class etc close the gaps", ">\n\nThe last line, \"The Inflation Reduction Act provides the IRS with $80 billion in future funding to ramp up its audits and potentially target the wealthiest taxpayers.\"", ">\n\nThe cure is not the root cause, but the middle class and the poor will eventually bear the burden after the capital operation", ">\n\nIt’s like they timed the “research” and the drop of the article with the speech. Sad man.", ">\n\nWatch Madoff. The wealthy skate and steal billions. The poor are in prison over thousands.", ">\n\nWhy does their sign look like a Card Against Humanity", ">\n\nFucking Trump, still at it.", ">\n\nOh you mean the thing people said would happen once they got massive funding actually happened? Checks out", ">\n\nOf course they did, because millionaires will lawyer up.", ">\n\nBecause the poor can't afford to fight back.", ">\n\nIt's so unfair the poor and the middle class taxpayers suffer so much while the millionaries got away with not paying the taxes It's really hurting the poor. The middle class is fading", ">\n\nAll of this can be fixed if we just use no-exemption graduated income", ">\n\nYeah we know", ">\n\nShow of hands for all surprised.\ncrickets\nHmm. Seems like Reddit suffers from a plague of double amputees...", ">\n\nWhat the actual fuck", ">\n\nAnd 2021, 2020, 2019, …", ">\n\nSounds about right.", ">\n\nOf course. Poor people can’t afford attorneys.", ">\n\nI made a mistake on my forms while I was overseas and ticked “self-employed” instead of “employed”. I was on a student visa and had two children and was making less than 10k a year. They hounded me for years. By the time I figured out what had happened I could not amend the forms and had paid thousands in penalties and interest.\nMeanwhile I knew lots of people who were there fully employed not reporting their income.\nFuck them.", ">\n\nYep! During the pandemic, even while I wasn't working didn't come after me the entire time that I was working but the minute that I wasn't nobody was cuz we were in lockdown they started popping up", ">\n\nI just now realized that the Cards Against Humanity box looks like the IRS sign", ">\n\nWhy is the sign a Cards Against Humanity question?", ">\n\nI am shocked and appalled. clutches pearls", ">\n\nRich should be taxed more than the average not right at all. Or at least there is a tier system based on pay only makes sense. Come on now", ">\n\nSounds about right, make the rich richer again.", ">\n\nWho are we going to vote for in the future ,all of them are decayed , corrupted and useless , the “most rich country in the world , governed by the most ignorant an corrupted. What a contrast .", ">\n\nGod bless America", ">\n\nno way. wait until you see those people responds. Those people are chipping away.", ">\n\nSounds about right", ">\n\nWe know.", ">\n\nI find it rather comical that Fox news is reporting on this since they are all about pushing the Republican agenda and that is all about pushing everyone else down that isn't rich and keeping them there. Not to mention they had no problem with Trump not paying taxes for years.", ">\n\nCan fucking confirm.", ">\n\nYeah, they (millionaires) have accountants who generally do things right and due to their millions being in investments it's not like it's taxable all the time. \nThen there's the ability to sell any stocks when they're down to build up losses on paper can reinvest them at a loss that can carry over across multiple years.", ">\n\nsounds about right. i don’t have a pot to piss in but they’re all over me for someone stealing my identity and filing a double tax return one year.", ">\n\nDuh", ">\n\nThere’s a reason why FOX is posting this article. The less people at the IRS, the more likely they come after folks who can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nIn order to pursue wealthy tax cheats, the IRS needs more resources and personnel. Otherwise it’s business as usual, picking on the low hanging fruit that earns under 6 figures.", ">\n\nSo wrong ....people need to be fired", ">\n\nIt’s because they can’t afford to take them to court", ">\n\nOf course it is about protecting the rich like Trump who lies ,lies , and about his tax returns . No wonder he did not want them released .", ">\n\nEasy prey bc most ppl can not lawyer up. Pretty heart breaking system we have at times.", ">\n\nWhy does the irs sign look like it's from cards against humanity?", ">\n\nCurrently getting audited over \\~$1500, which they owe me, when the rich get away with murder. Fucking unbelievably and unnecessarily stressful for me.", ">\n\nHas t this been know for a while?", ">\n\nyep and they are the same people getting tax cuts while everyone else does it tough ....\nAny one with too much money is your enemy .... not a hero of democracy", ">\n\nGet rid of taxes and the gov’t should just do stuff for free, or what ever.", ">\n\nYou have to be careful when you get one of those CP2000 notices from the IRS. The way they are written is a trap.\nIf you dispute it you are supposed to indicate that you disagree and send it back with documents supporting your dispute.\nYou are only supposed to sign it if you agree with them and when you sign it you are signing away your rights to dispute the back taxes and penalties they are demanding.\nMere worker bees like us can expect to be getting a lot of those from this years tax returns considering how the threshold for 1099k forms has been dropped to $600.\nGuys like Trump? The IRS doesn't even know where to begin.", ">\n\nThanks Biden", ">\n\nI presume those lower-income bracket filers might be more likely to reach out to 1-800-infomercial [quickie settlement/long-term penalties most favorable to gov/proprietor] than retain proper legal counsel?\nRegardless it’s got to be a lot less work for IRS agent to go after under-represented citizen(s), rather than someone who can afford to appeal, properly negotiate on their own terms?", ">\n\nLmfao Dems tax and spend. But I have to admit there Republicans that tax and spend to. Where do these Politicians get off taxing me or business and give to people who don't work what do you cause d the inflation. You can not print money \nI am Conservative not a Republican. To much money is wasted and put in pockets of people ot don't belong.\nBut all dems know how to tax tax tax. \nIts all great and good until you run out if other peoples money. \nMillionaire just like Berny he hated Millionaires until he became one now he hates Trillionaires. Funny how the gold post changes. And good old Nancy her I side stock trading. So I think you need to rethink.", ">\n\nThe IRS is only doing as directed by whomever controls the White House.", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised by this? Really?", ">\n\nThe sign in the thumbnail looks like a Cards Against Humanity card.", ">\n\nWhile this is mostly true, don’t believe everything you read. I’m no more an accountant than I am a ladies man, but someone (said they’re an accountant) posted a few days ago about this. They explained that the most likely people getting audited are trying to, fraudulently or mistakenly, claim the EITC. \nYES, it’s super easy to “bust” these people for an easy “mistake”. This is who the IRS is cracking down on. \nDo I think it’s better to bust poor people for claiming a few thousand in tax credits vs billionaires who avoid taxes altogether? Of course not, but don’t think they’re actively targeting people who fudge their mileage deductions or miss a decimal point in their calculations as small business owners. It’s simply not happening. \nAnd the reported “87,000 new IRS agents” are replacing the 10’s of 1,000’s of employees set to retire or quit over the next 10 years which doesn’t even begin to fill the gaps we’ve been growing for decades by not hiring and training more willing workers. Not to mention they’re not even close to all employees who will actively audit tax payers. They’re people who answer phones, file papers, assist others, etc… They’re mostly just average people with average jobs so of course the GOP wants to end this. They hate upward mobility and job creation unless that means tax breaks for their billionaire friends.", ">\n\nI wish everyone wasn’t a sheep and would understand this.", ">\n\nI can see the Media doing their best to turn the public against the IRS.", ">\n\nPicking on the week and helpless. That’s what we humans do. We suck. I’m waiting for that big meteor reset button.", ">\n\nAnd Fox news loves this.", ">\n\nLove it, Faux 'News' taking the piss, for 4 years under Dear Leader they campaigned for tax breaks for the rich, now they're pretending to care about the poor !", ">\n\nEvery millionaire should be audited yearly. Period.", ">\n\nAND now the gqp cult promises to rescind the money Biden set aside to aid the IRS to recover taxes from mega millionaire tax cheats like benedict donald, who paid less taxes than most working Americans.", ">\n\nRepublicans want to stop the IRS and Congress from taxing rich people, making the burden of maintaining civilization fall more heavily on poorer people. This is why Republicans vote for tax cuts for the rich and against funding for the IRS.\nAnd since Republican beliefs are based on wishful thinking, Republicans can screw over poor, rural Republicans while simultaneously taking credit for doing it to make Republicans happy about it and blaming it on Democrats to make those same Republicans resentful against Democrats for it. And what else would we expect from a Republican Party that blames Democrats for tricking them into attacking the Capitol to make Trump look bad and justifies and approves of assaulting Capitol police while brandishing their \"thin blue line\" flags.", ">\n\nThe IRS is like any other law enforcement agency, they prefer pursuing the poor because they don't have the resources to protect themselves.", ">\n\nThe IRS building sign looks like its from cards against humanity.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nNot a reliable news source.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nThat picture looks like the worst cards against humanity card too get.", ">\n\nScrew the Murdoch media empire and their failed trickle down ideologies.", ">\n\nOf course, the poorest haven’t paid over 400+ billion for decades. Not sure about the rich, we haven’t checked.", ">\n\nThis is not a surprise. With the recent inflation reduction act, the IRS an additional $80B over 10 years or $8B per year. The IRS budget for 2021 was $13.7B. The additional $8B over the year would be an increase of 58% to their budget. They will be looking to get a lot more money from taxpayers, due to this very large increase in their budget.", ">\n\nFox reported this? I'm in shock", ">\n\nAll propagandists publish clickbaity stuff that makes them sound like maybe they've let up on the evil. Unfortunately it works, since people just upvote headlines.", ">\n\nIt’s only going to get worse in 2023. Those 87k new IRS agents will not be going after the wealthy.", ">\n\nWhy?\nThat’s literally why they were being added. The IRS goes after the poorer taxpayers because they are low-hanging fruit and don’t have the lawyers and accountants to protect them. \nThe additional IRS employees were to give the personnel staffing sufficient to go after the wealthy.", ">\n\nIt doesn’t matter how many IRS agents there are. It will always be easier and more profitable for the IRS to nickel and dime the average taxpayer rather than go after the wealthy, who have the resources to lawyer up with the best lawyers and challenge the IRS in court.", ">\n\nEasier? Yes. More profitable? Doubtful.", ">\n\nIf Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it." ]
> It takes time to refactor an organization. It’s still full of Trump appointees.	[ "If Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nAnd when Barry was president they targeted conservative groups. I think phone calls can be made to tell them to back off of the little guy.", ">\n\n\nthey targeted conservative groups.\n\nNo. They went after specifically anti-tax tea party groups. The groups who openly flaunted tax laws", ">\n\nThey also went after progressive, left leaning groups - how do you explain that ? it was political", ">\n\nWait, did they target conservatives or progressives? Lol", ">\n\nBoth- it was quite clear they were involving themselves in politics - that’s what the IG found", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.", ">\n\nYep!\nAlso this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious.\nThe real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade.", ">\n\nThanks for the informative reply.\nYou make great points which I don't doubt. But there are times when I think it's important to consider both the letter and spirit of law at times.\nEven though it is perfectly by the letter of the law that people should be checked, it also seems against the intended spirit of said law that only a certain group of people are checked.\nI am not familiar with US law, but I think most of us can feel some degree of injustice with how things currently are.", ">\n\nThe point is to automate more checking of income common to wealthier people, and devote more resources to auditing those people. The Fox News article is disingenuous in how it describes the automated checking that goes on. It’s not great that rich people aren’t really audited, but there’s no reason to stop the automated checking of income where it’s already being done and essentially free to continue.\nIf you feel differently, explain yourself.", ">\n\nNo, we are in alignment concerning this.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nFUCK FOX NEWS\nFox is pretending to care about us poors. \nDon't reward these fascist fucks with upvotes for a disingenuous clickbait headline. They still hate us for not voting gop.", ">\n\nThey want people to hate the IRS and help defund it so they don’t go after the rich, which was the purpose of the additional funding", ">\n\nThey want people to link this to “87000” new agents, which is obviously happening on social media posts, but it’s not even a thing.", ">\n\nArticle is trash. The author is including correspondence audits (which means the IRS asked for some documentation by mail) for low income filers but not for millionaires when comparing their audit rates. Here are actual numbers according to their own source:\nAudit rates including correspondence audits\nlow income 1.27%\nmillionaires 2.38% \nAudit rates excluding correspondence audits\nlow income 0.0376%\nmillionaires 1.24%\n.\nFor low income filers, nearly all their audits were correspondence audits.", ">\n\nIt's hilarious when Fox News and the GOP pretend they care about poor people.\nNo amount of hypocrisy is too much to try to make democrats look bad.", ">\n\nIts unfortunately far easier to prove married couples who live together filed HoH for extra earned income credit than it is to prove complicated returns were incorrect.", ">\n\nIt's also trivially easy to prove the same child was claimed by two parents which is a lot of correspondence audits.", ">\n\nSo can my back taxes please just get forgiven already. 20% income being taxed is not livable", ">\n\nRepublican love flat rate taxes, you should talk to them.", ">\n\nThey’re required to audit the president and vice president, and that didn’t happen either.", ">\n\nThis isn't new, it's been been having for the last 5 - 6 years.", ">\n\nHopefully some wake up and realize its all just preparing us for the inevitable destruction of our economy. I imagine its almost too late to realize this. If we all realized this wed sell our 401Ks and not lean on money and use it to help our neighbors.", ">\n\nK bro.", ">\n\nMy wife and I are on social security. She works part time to keep us afloat. All in, we earned $50K in 2022. iRS wants $4500 from us. Really? 5X what Trump paid? Don't know if anyone is paying attention but $50k ain't rich. Oh, and out of that comes almost $4k in Medicare premiums. A program we paid into for 40+ years.\nEveryone of these arrogant, unqualified,, spoon fed assholes in Congress should be made to live on SSI or welfare, with no medical coverage, for a year. Then tell me I am acting entitled.\nSelf serving bastards.", ">\n\nDon't upvote this crap.\nDo you really think Fox cares about the working class??\nThis is just right wing propaganda, timed to coincide with McCarthy's promise to get rid of the new IRS agents who make it possible to audit the rich.\nDon't be used.", ">\n\nWhatever happened to \"dont shoot the messenger?\"", ">\n\nIRS understaffing would naturally trend to go after low-lying fruit. Easy pickings. Too many man hours to go after super complex cases. These moneyed fuckers and their bullshit. It's outrageous.", ">\n\nThe vast majority of these audits are automatically generated correspondence audits that have to be issued. We can't just turn off the program that raises a red flag when two people claim the same child as a dependent because we don't have enough forensic accountants. If you mistype your W2 you'll get an \"audit\" showing the correct info from the copy your boss sent them and telling you they'll correct it unless you tell them otherwise and you don't have to do anything if the info they have is correct.", ">\n\nYeah, all the nonsense about the IRS \"going after\" low income people is so stupid. Low income people make money in a way that their reporting is easily verifiable by a computer. They're also most likely to mess up and claim child tax credits incorrectly, etc - all of which is verifiable and issued a letter by a computer. \n-\nOther than actually being able to get someone on the phone when you call the IRS, and increased budget isn't going to impact the average person in any way.", ">\n\nMy thing is even assuming the 87k don't successfully get more money out of the rich, that's still 87k jobs. That's a net positive. I just don't understand the conservative logic here. Do they think these 87k new jobs are specifically for being insidiously predatory toward the poor? Where's the logic here? (I know I'll get hyperbolic answers, but I genuinely would like to know)", ">\n\nIt's 87,000 jobs over 10 years, the majority of which are replacement during that period. It's just a budget supplemental to stop hemorrhaging agents as they retire or cycle out into other jobs.", ">\n\nso.. this is on fox, which I assume support republican efforts to ensure that this is the permanent state of affairs. I don't really get anything anymore.", ">\n\nAnd that is the way the GOP wants it.", ">\n\n💯 Exactly what this Fox article is trying to do.", ">\n\nIt's who can afford a lawyer", ">\n\nAs the article hints at, the IRS does not do a lot of actual auditing. What it does is computer matching, which automatically generates material for a correspondence audit. Most correspondence audits occur because som poor working Joe didn't know he/her was supposed to include or exclude something, and the IRS caught it in its matching. Of course, the problem is that we have a complex code and little help in actually helping people through the various forms, rules, and so on. But millionaires don't have these issues, so they can escape most of the traps that lead to a correspondence audit. If a lot of these 87,000 were in taxpayer service (which I expect) it would lead to fewer audits at the low end, more robust audits for large corporations, wealthy individuals, and those who actively use tax avoidance strategies. But of course that is not the dialogue that gets promoted when the 87,000 agents are discussed.", ">\n\nThis is exactly why Fox News needs to be dismantled and thrown in the garbage. Ugh, \"look poors! They're coming for yoU!!!\". Scare tactics. And guess what? It sadly works. Every time.\nThey're lower than scum.", ">\n\nExactly. It's when someone misreports a number from their W2, didn't report 1099s they received, both separated parents claim a tax credit for the same kid, etc. All stuff that's easily checked by a computer. The IRS isn't \"auditing\" random low to middle income people. That would be a complete waste of their time.", ">\n\nlooks at Trump You don't say.", ">\n\nThe poor can't defend themselves, it's easier to take a little bit of money from people that won't fight back than a lot of money from people that will.", ">\n\nThe mega rich seem like they’re on a mission to destroy America, as we know it.", ">\n\nHiring 87,000 new IRS agents makes it possible to audit billionaires. So they pay their share. Those audits require an actual person or team that knows what they are doing. But Kevin McCarthy's first item of business was to announce legislation to overturn the hiring of 87,000 IRS agents. Meaning only the little guy (who can be audited by computer software) pays taxes.\nSSDD", ">\n\nThe \"87,000\" agents budget is over a ten year period. It's not for 87,000 new positions.", ">\n\nThe title is so misleading. Im surprised fox even put the juicy bit in the article about how (this stat is due to there not being enough IRS workers because) these \"audits\" on low earners are just automated letters asking for more info.\nYet again, this is just millionairs paid by billionairs to mislead the masses into blaming the poor for crimes committed by said billionairs.", ">\n\nWhich is why the IRS needs more manpower and budget, so they can go after the big fish.\nFuck Fox News and their Republican propaganda pieces. This article coincides with McCarthy saying they’ll cut the IRS budget and that the IRS is coming for you.\nFuck off Republican propaganda rag!\nStop upvoting any Fox News story. Fox should not be on the white list.", ">\n\nThis is a terrible article. It seems to include questions about tax returns as audits. If a low income filer makes a mistake it should be corrected. Is that an audit? If anyone makes a mistake and is contacted, is that an audit? Also there is no reason to go after low income as they rarely pay tax or are required to. The money requested would also pay for people to answer a phone. Those against increasing funding lie when they say all of it goes to audits. If you tell the truth, who cares if you are audited? Are y’all aware you can track your personal return online? However a business cannot. Businesses have to rely on humans that can’t be reached. I’ve waited a year for a refund. Didn’t know if IRS received the return. Didn’t know if there was an issue. Didn’t know if it was mailed or lost. I’m getting tired of Republicans pushing their crap on people.", ">\n\nwho keeps upvoting this right wing propaganda", ">\n\nWhy would the GOP want to give the agency the power to go after their donors.", ">\n\nAnd it was trumps guy that mandated it while Biden replaced him", ">\n\nApparently the mere use of an accounting firm somehow protected corps and the rich from the IRS who still (mistakenly) believe the accounting firms are trustworthy. How naive.", ">\n\nThe \"audits\" talked about are mostly form letters requesting more info about specific items.", ">\n\nThe poor can't pay for top flight attorneys.", ">\n\nYep keep the IRS underfunded so they can only go after the poors at the same time telling all the poors that the IRS is bad cause it goes after them but leave out the fact that they do that cause the poors are low hanging fruit.\nRepublicans are evil.", ">\n\nWell the GOP wants to cut funding to the IRS for new agents, so I’m sure the poor folk will continue to get screwed. I say toss the 50,000+ page tax code out and replace with a percentage based on total revenue/income made. Took a loss? No write-offs. Oh well, better luck next year. It’ll never happen because the wealthy don’t want it to.", ">\n\nWhere did you get this info? I know GOPers have been slashing IRS budgets and staffing for years but can't find reliable sources for what this has done to the actual audits - like who gets audited.", ">\n\nTheir link is Fox. This is a bad faith post.", ">\n\nThis says a lot coming from fox “news”", ">\n\nTo paraphrase Gilbert K. Chesterton, \"The Poor have sometimes objected to being taxed too heavily; The Rich have always objected to being taxed at all.\"", ">\n\ndon't post Fox news here....", ">\n\nCorporations and millionaires have the means to hire accountants and attorneys. Our tax code is gray in several areas. It’s easy to go after the poor that do not have the resources and will have no choice but to pay anything the IRS says. The additional agents will continue to target the poor and middle class because they are easy, It’s happened before, it will continue to happen.", ">\n\nI think it's funny/sad that a poor person can win the lottery and they get taxed at a higher rate than any billionaire has ever been taxed at. The system is built to keep the rich - rich and the poor - poor.", ">\n\nThe poorest can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nThe current system cannot be sustained. We are hurtling towards disaster.", ">\n\nThe only reason the bastards have the majority is because the corrupt SCOTUS allowed illegal gerrymanders to stand while they were fought in the courts.", ">\n\nThe I.R.S. goes after the poorer people because it's easier. They can't afford lawyers and accountants. So the poor can do nothing but roll over and take it up the rump. The Inflation Reduction Act that Biden signed into law in August is supposed to give $80 Billion to the I.R.S. so they can go after the millionaires. But we know that won't happen. More poor people are going to get screwed.", ">\n\nI'm confused. For decades, Faux news and the conservatives have been saying that millionaires deserve to keep more of their money than we do. That was a huge part of the 2017 tax scam that Trump signed. Now Faux is saying it's a problem? And they are rightly detailing that Republicans are the cause, along with Biden trying to fix the same issue that Fox has helped create?", ">\n\nFox News", ">\n\nHey IRS, don't forget to crawl up my ass this year because I sold some old stuff on eBay for a loss but make sure you put a few man hours into figuring out if it is legit or not.", ">\n\nlol, and the people opposed to IRS funding will say they are anti-establishment.", ">\n\nImagine how much they could squeeze the middle class with 87,000 more agents! But really, it’ll be good to see if the increase in officers actually increases tax revenue without changing the underlying laws.", ">\n\nSo, this is the newest Republican boogeyman, the IRS.\nWell, better than Drag Queens I guess.", ">\n\nOh hey just like last year, and the year before that, I think there might be a pattern", ">\n\nThank you republicans, always sticking up in the back on the small guys…", ">\n\nFox News saying this like it’s not something Rupert Murdoch’s network supports is pretty funny.", ">\n\nFox News. Ignore it.", ">\n\nFox News is still allowed in here?", ">\n\nFake news. This is Republican propaganda coming from Fox News.", ">\n\nFox News is NOT news", ">\n\nHmm sounds like it was underfunded then. Good thing now we helped ease that problem. Thanks Biden", ">\n\nIt's simply laziness by the IRS. Lower-income households have less complicated returns and easier to process. I'm sure IRS runs a non-effective but management-pleasing metric like \"how many returns were corrected\" opposed to how much money was recouped.", ">\n\nWe know. They don't have the resources to do anything. That was the point of increasing the staffing at the IRS so they had even the slightest hope of going after the big offenders with their armies or lawyers.", ">\n\nThere's less millionaires and billionaires than there are us. I'm not sure that answer fits the accuracy on hiring more workers but I'll go ahead and amuse that", ">\n\nIt's not a game of tax guy vs rich guy. The rich literally have armies of lawyers. You need the staff to overcome all the paper and challenges they'll throw at you. \nIf you throw one person to audit a millionaire, their lawyers can make it so it'll take a year to review a week of operations. Investigations will never finish unless there's sufficient staff to overcome their obstruction.", ">\n\nTo this day I do not understand why the IRS can demand our documents every year without a warrant. The 16th amendment does not alter the 4th, and the 4th does not apply only to criminal actions (as the 5th explicitly does). Yet no one seems to care about this annual violations.", ">\n\nReminder, Fox News is not news. It's entertainment, and should be regarded as such.", ">\n\nNo shit, poor ppl tend to file their own taxes and screw up where as millionaires hire expensive accountants to exploit all the legal loopholes without getting their clients in trouble.\nI don't think it's an intentional targeting as the article may be implying.", ">\n\nOne might imagine the resources of agents would be better put to use by focusing on returns that might produce more revenue, however it may be just a lot easier to collect a few bucks from easier targets.", ">\n\nThey are short staffed and accountants make it so difficult to find wrongdoing, if there is even wrongdoing to be found, that it would take a decent chunk of their workforce just to tackle it. It's like trying to find needle in a haystack but you don't know if there's a needle or not.", ">\n\nSo true....", ">\n\nShocked pikachu face.", ">\n\nYeah I’d believe this if it weren’t Fox News. They could give a fuck about the poor and middle class.", ">\n\nI would literally rather the IRS spend its time auditing 5 extraordinarily rich people or a single business than anyone who makes less than 100k per year\nETA: I’m aware that this article represents part of the Republican agenda to just gut the IRS and welfare spending generally. And I understand the difficulties in auditing the rich/businesses v lower income people claiming tax credits, etc", ">\n\nAlmost all of the little people \"audits\" are just a computer issuing a correspondence \"audit\" because the person misreported something from their W2, didn't report as much 1099 income as was reported to the IRS by others, or separated parents both trying to claim kids for tax credits or something. \n-\nThey don't really pull from the same resources. The rich people audits require human beings. Little people \"audits\" aren't really audits and a computer can do it. So if we want to audit more rich people, they need actual budget for human beings. The little people are going to be caught anyways because a computer can do it.", ">\n\nI interned at the IRS during the summer of 2012 when Lois Lerner made batshit crazy commrnts that they were targetting conservative groups", ">\n\nI say this every time it gets brought up. This is by design. I used to work in auditing and also used to do tax stuff. It’s super easy to find tax fraud on someone who only has a simple W-2 and no other income. You could find those people through a basic algorithm. Meanwhile, auditing a multi millionaire is expensive, time consuming, and often fruitless. If I was in charge of an underfunded, understaffed IRS I would tell my staff to go for the easy wins too.", ">\n\nUnpopular opinion - More funding won't resolve this. \nThe IRS will keep doing this. Unless rules & regulations forbid or disincentivize this practice, the IRS will keep this stupid practice", ">\n\nI make $40,000 a year and the IRS froze my bank accounts until I paid them $1000 in taxes I owed them because of an error I made filling my taxes. They froze my bank accounts for $1000. I was fucked for a month. I had to borrow cash from people just for food and gas money to get to work to get paid money that I couldn’t access. It was a scary time for me. Meanwhile millionaires are purposely avoiding taxes worth more than what I make in a year and nothing happens to them.", ">\n\nThe IRS sends no less than a dozen letters to a taxpayer prior to leaving a bank account. Why didn't you just put it into a repayment plan? Takes about ten minutes online.", ">\n\nDon't you just hate autocorrect?", ">\n\nIf true, its a holdover from jrbush who slashed IRS staff and budget and told them to spend more time auditing tip jars and busboys than millionaires because the millionaires had better lawyers than the IRS and service workers were unlikely to have any lawyers at all.", ">\n\nFox News solution: remove the IRS", ">\n\nAbsolutely. They’ll NEVER target the rich, adding more agents just made them a lot more capable to target all the lower class.", ">\n\nWhat people don't realize..Those 87K \"Agents\" aren't that. It's 87K employees over 25 years. Clerks etc. People are so fucking stupid when they just believe these clowns.", ">\n\nThose numbers also count it as an \"audit\" when a person misreports a number from a W2, 1099s, etc and the irs number matching software sends an automatically generated correspondence letter that basically says \"we actually show this number, this is what your tax return would have been if you reported that number correctly\". \nThe IRS isn't wasting time doing random \"audits\" as people think of them for low to middle income people. It would be a complete waste of their time. The computer just catches obvious verifiable mistakes and it counts as an audit in those numbers.", ">\n\n“those in the lowest income bracket hit 12.7 per 1,000….. The odds of a millionaire facing an audit were around 1.1%.”\nSo they’re saying 1.27% vs 1.1%!!! And acting like that’s a scandal 🙄", ">\n\nWhich means millionaires REALLY don't want more IRS auditors which means when our new resident house fascist fires five thousand auditors, said fascist (McCarthy) is making sure those millionaires aren't going to get audited. \nCha CHING !!! Go the \"donations\" into house rat republican's pockets. \nThe grift will be in full swing shortly.\nAnd with putin whispering in their ears and telling them EXACTLY how break the law - how can they lose?", ">\n\n💯 Exactly why theres a Fox link here pushing for that same reason.", ">\n\nTwo things. First of all, this is from a far right-wing propaganda outlet which should immediately raise red flags. They're trying to scare you into allowing a republican-initiated movement to entirely remove all remaining power from the IRS by making it seem like they're coming after you.\nSecond, the reason the IRS is already already virtually powerless against the rich is because the republicans have already eviscerated them in the past several decades, largely through defunding them leading to not only staffing cuts, but the inability to pursue the wealthiest people who have the resources for endless litigation. So as a result, the FBI can only really afford to go after people who cannot financially defend themselves.", ">\n\nThird, you might as well throw in that the aiming low guidance was under a Trump appointee who is no longer in that position.", ">\n\nThe GOP intentionally defunded the IRS so that it could not audit the wealthy. It takes a great deal more money upfront to audit them but the payback is far greater.", ">\n\nI'm not sure why dems voted against an amendment that would have mandated the giant infusion of cash into the IRS couldn't be used to audit folks making >$400k.", ">\n\nHrm this is pretty fucked I'd like to hear about why the Dems voted nay.", ">\n\nBecause they work for the same people as Republicans. \nThey are different but only when their owners allow them to be. \nI don't know how many times we are going to have to learn this lesson before it sticks.", ">\n\nDemocrats are responsible for this", ">\n\nThe rich returns are just too hard, enough lower class errors you can leave the rich alone. Love to see it… sigh", ">\n\nIt takes money to police the wealthy. Can't have that can we?!", ">\n\nr/noshitsherlock", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised?\nI’m not even American and this seemed obvious to me. All you have to do is look at how the poor live and compare that to the news about someone like Elon musk or Donald trump.", ">\n\nThis is why the IRS needs to go.", ">\n\nFox News helped make that happen.", ">\n\nThey'll never change,all the time when the guys in charge benefit from doing the same shit.", ">\n\nAnd yet the republicans dont submit or pass legislations to change the rules to favor targeting rich people. Curious.", ">\n\nThen 78,000 new, armed tax collectors should be able to extract even more money from the poor, middle-class and small business owners.", ">\n\nWhy did they focus on the Poorest? The thought of 87,000 more of them will actually do what? If the existing can’t focus on the wealthy! Then what makes anybody think more can?", ">\n\nMillionaires and billionaires make the government more money by creating lobbying loopholes and exploiting the economy to bilk the 99%. It's really cheap to go after the poorest who are struggling to pay day to day obligations and don't have loopholes or government sanctioned exploitation to take advantage of.", ">\n\nI could have told you this would happen. You think millionaires get $600 Venmo transactions?", ">\n\nThat's a move democrats should not make. That's one month of rent for me. What of folks worse-off?", ">\n\nHonestly it’s like squeezing blood from the stone over here anyway.", ">\n\nDuh lmfao theyve already stated it costs too much to tax weathy people previously and its most cost effective to audit the poor due to many factors...", ">\n\nI mean 99% of us are poor compared to the other 1%", ">\n\nColor me surprised", ">\n\nWe need some laws for equitable auditing.", ">\n\nYou are an Army commander about to attack the enemy. Do you prefer to attack where they have experienced career solders backed up by artillery, tanks, and airplanes, or do you attack where there are poorly armed and equipped untrained conscripts?", ">\n\nThey must be upset someone replaced their sign with a card from Cards Against Humanity", ">\n\nMay it ever be so…. Don’t reproduce if you only consume and can’t accumulate or help a Dow Jones winter water witch. Like snow, weathermen.", ">\n\nIt’s weirdly fitting how much their building sign in the photo looks like a cards against humanity card.", ">\n\nTypical", ">\n\nWow? How unusual.", ">\n\nI’d support double the number of IRS agents", ">\n\nI was low income and won about 3,000 gambling, the irs went after me", ">\n\nThe IRS came after me hard for 8$", ">\n\nAudit frequency should correlate to income, someone with a million in income should be audited 10x those with 100k income", ">\n\nSomeone should explain Pareto charts to the IRS.", ">\n\nI've been audited three times. First when I was 27, did some consulting and didn't do the 1099 prepayments. Ended up owing $17k. Second audit was after moving across country for a job. The tax preparer we hired made a mistake with the move expense deductions, owed a few thousand. Third audit was another tax preparer mistake, but this time we overpaid and were owed money we credited to the next year. \nIf you assume for discussion that the average audit on an ordinary tax payer returns $10,000, it would take 100,000,000 audits to make $1 trillion. By just doing the easy work, the IRS is leaving the real money on the table.", ">\n\nRepublicans are famous for giving rich breaks while middle class etc close the gaps", ">\n\nThe last line, \"The Inflation Reduction Act provides the IRS with $80 billion in future funding to ramp up its audits and potentially target the wealthiest taxpayers.\"", ">\n\nThe cure is not the root cause, but the middle class and the poor will eventually bear the burden after the capital operation", ">\n\nIt’s like they timed the “research” and the drop of the article with the speech. Sad man.", ">\n\nWatch Madoff. The wealthy skate and steal billions. The poor are in prison over thousands.", ">\n\nWhy does their sign look like a Card Against Humanity", ">\n\nFucking Trump, still at it.", ">\n\nOh you mean the thing people said would happen once they got massive funding actually happened? Checks out", ">\n\nOf course they did, because millionaires will lawyer up.", ">\n\nBecause the poor can't afford to fight back.", ">\n\nIt's so unfair the poor and the middle class taxpayers suffer so much while the millionaries got away with not paying the taxes It's really hurting the poor. The middle class is fading", ">\n\nAll of this can be fixed if we just use no-exemption graduated income", ">\n\nYeah we know", ">\n\nShow of hands for all surprised.\ncrickets\nHmm. Seems like Reddit suffers from a plague of double amputees...", ">\n\nWhat the actual fuck", ">\n\nAnd 2021, 2020, 2019, …", ">\n\nSounds about right.", ">\n\nOf course. Poor people can’t afford attorneys.", ">\n\nI made a mistake on my forms while I was overseas and ticked “self-employed” instead of “employed”. I was on a student visa and had two children and was making less than 10k a year. They hounded me for years. By the time I figured out what had happened I could not amend the forms and had paid thousands in penalties and interest.\nMeanwhile I knew lots of people who were there fully employed not reporting their income.\nFuck them.", ">\n\nYep! During the pandemic, even while I wasn't working didn't come after me the entire time that I was working but the minute that I wasn't nobody was cuz we were in lockdown they started popping up", ">\n\nI just now realized that the Cards Against Humanity box looks like the IRS sign", ">\n\nWhy is the sign a Cards Against Humanity question?", ">\n\nI am shocked and appalled. clutches pearls", ">\n\nRich should be taxed more than the average not right at all. Or at least there is a tier system based on pay only makes sense. Come on now", ">\n\nSounds about right, make the rich richer again.", ">\n\nWho are we going to vote for in the future ,all of them are decayed , corrupted and useless , the “most rich country in the world , governed by the most ignorant an corrupted. What a contrast .", ">\n\nGod bless America", ">\n\nno way. wait until you see those people responds. Those people are chipping away.", ">\n\nSounds about right", ">\n\nWe know.", ">\n\nI find it rather comical that Fox news is reporting on this since they are all about pushing the Republican agenda and that is all about pushing everyone else down that isn't rich and keeping them there. Not to mention they had no problem with Trump not paying taxes for years.", ">\n\nCan fucking confirm.", ">\n\nYeah, they (millionaires) have accountants who generally do things right and due to their millions being in investments it's not like it's taxable all the time. \nThen there's the ability to sell any stocks when they're down to build up losses on paper can reinvest them at a loss that can carry over across multiple years.", ">\n\nsounds about right. i don’t have a pot to piss in but they’re all over me for someone stealing my identity and filing a double tax return one year.", ">\n\nDuh", ">\n\nThere’s a reason why FOX is posting this article. The less people at the IRS, the more likely they come after folks who can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nIn order to pursue wealthy tax cheats, the IRS needs more resources and personnel. Otherwise it’s business as usual, picking on the low hanging fruit that earns under 6 figures.", ">\n\nSo wrong ....people need to be fired", ">\n\nIt’s because they can’t afford to take them to court", ">\n\nOf course it is about protecting the rich like Trump who lies ,lies , and about his tax returns . No wonder he did not want them released .", ">\n\nEasy prey bc most ppl can not lawyer up. Pretty heart breaking system we have at times.", ">\n\nWhy does the irs sign look like it's from cards against humanity?", ">\n\nCurrently getting audited over \\~$1500, which they owe me, when the rich get away with murder. Fucking unbelievably and unnecessarily stressful for me.", ">\n\nHas t this been know for a while?", ">\n\nyep and they are the same people getting tax cuts while everyone else does it tough ....\nAny one with too much money is your enemy .... not a hero of democracy", ">\n\nGet rid of taxes and the gov’t should just do stuff for free, or what ever.", ">\n\nYou have to be careful when you get one of those CP2000 notices from the IRS. The way they are written is a trap.\nIf you dispute it you are supposed to indicate that you disagree and send it back with documents supporting your dispute.\nYou are only supposed to sign it if you agree with them and when you sign it you are signing away your rights to dispute the back taxes and penalties they are demanding.\nMere worker bees like us can expect to be getting a lot of those from this years tax returns considering how the threshold for 1099k forms has been dropped to $600.\nGuys like Trump? The IRS doesn't even know where to begin.", ">\n\nThanks Biden", ">\n\nI presume those lower-income bracket filers might be more likely to reach out to 1-800-infomercial [quickie settlement/long-term penalties most favorable to gov/proprietor] than retain proper legal counsel?\nRegardless it’s got to be a lot less work for IRS agent to go after under-represented citizen(s), rather than someone who can afford to appeal, properly negotiate on their own terms?", ">\n\nLmfao Dems tax and spend. But I have to admit there Republicans that tax and spend to. Where do these Politicians get off taxing me or business and give to people who don't work what do you cause d the inflation. You can not print money \nI am Conservative not a Republican. To much money is wasted and put in pockets of people ot don't belong.\nBut all dems know how to tax tax tax. \nIts all great and good until you run out if other peoples money. \nMillionaire just like Berny he hated Millionaires until he became one now he hates Trillionaires. Funny how the gold post changes. And good old Nancy her I side stock trading. So I think you need to rethink.", ">\n\nThe IRS is only doing as directed by whomever controls the White House.", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised by this? Really?", ">\n\nThe sign in the thumbnail looks like a Cards Against Humanity card.", ">\n\nWhile this is mostly true, don’t believe everything you read. I’m no more an accountant than I am a ladies man, but someone (said they’re an accountant) posted a few days ago about this. They explained that the most likely people getting audited are trying to, fraudulently or mistakenly, claim the EITC. \nYES, it’s super easy to “bust” these people for an easy “mistake”. This is who the IRS is cracking down on. \nDo I think it’s better to bust poor people for claiming a few thousand in tax credits vs billionaires who avoid taxes altogether? Of course not, but don’t think they’re actively targeting people who fudge their mileage deductions or miss a decimal point in their calculations as small business owners. It’s simply not happening. \nAnd the reported “87,000 new IRS agents” are replacing the 10’s of 1,000’s of employees set to retire or quit over the next 10 years which doesn’t even begin to fill the gaps we’ve been growing for decades by not hiring and training more willing workers. Not to mention they’re not even close to all employees who will actively audit tax payers. They’re people who answer phones, file papers, assist others, etc… They’re mostly just average people with average jobs so of course the GOP wants to end this. They hate upward mobility and job creation unless that means tax breaks for their billionaire friends.", ">\n\nI wish everyone wasn’t a sheep and would understand this.", ">\n\nI can see the Media doing their best to turn the public against the IRS.", ">\n\nPicking on the week and helpless. That’s what we humans do. We suck. I’m waiting for that big meteor reset button.", ">\n\nAnd Fox news loves this.", ">\n\nLove it, Faux 'News' taking the piss, for 4 years under Dear Leader they campaigned for tax breaks for the rich, now they're pretending to care about the poor !", ">\n\nEvery millionaire should be audited yearly. Period.", ">\n\nAND now the gqp cult promises to rescind the money Biden set aside to aid the IRS to recover taxes from mega millionaire tax cheats like benedict donald, who paid less taxes than most working Americans.", ">\n\nRepublicans want to stop the IRS and Congress from taxing rich people, making the burden of maintaining civilization fall more heavily on poorer people. This is why Republicans vote for tax cuts for the rich and against funding for the IRS.\nAnd since Republican beliefs are based on wishful thinking, Republicans can screw over poor, rural Republicans while simultaneously taking credit for doing it to make Republicans happy about it and blaming it on Democrats to make those same Republicans resentful against Democrats for it. And what else would we expect from a Republican Party that blames Democrats for tricking them into attacking the Capitol to make Trump look bad and justifies and approves of assaulting Capitol police while brandishing their \"thin blue line\" flags.", ">\n\nThe IRS is like any other law enforcement agency, they prefer pursuing the poor because they don't have the resources to protect themselves.", ">\n\nThe IRS building sign looks like its from cards against humanity.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nNot a reliable news source.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nThat picture looks like the worst cards against humanity card too get.", ">\n\nScrew the Murdoch media empire and their failed trickle down ideologies.", ">\n\nOf course, the poorest haven’t paid over 400+ billion for decades. Not sure about the rich, we haven’t checked.", ">\n\nThis is not a surprise. With the recent inflation reduction act, the IRS an additional $80B over 10 years or $8B per year. The IRS budget for 2021 was $13.7B. The additional $8B over the year would be an increase of 58% to their budget. They will be looking to get a lot more money from taxpayers, due to this very large increase in their budget.", ">\n\nFox reported this? I'm in shock", ">\n\nAll propagandists publish clickbaity stuff that makes them sound like maybe they've let up on the evil. Unfortunately it works, since people just upvote headlines.", ">\n\nIt’s only going to get worse in 2023. Those 87k new IRS agents will not be going after the wealthy.", ">\n\nWhy?\nThat’s literally why they were being added. The IRS goes after the poorer taxpayers because they are low-hanging fruit and don’t have the lawyers and accountants to protect them. \nThe additional IRS employees were to give the personnel staffing sufficient to go after the wealthy.", ">\n\nIt doesn’t matter how many IRS agents there are. It will always be easier and more profitable for the IRS to nickel and dime the average taxpayer rather than go after the wealthy, who have the resources to lawyer up with the best lawyers and challenge the IRS in court.", ">\n\nEasier? Yes. More profitable? Doubtful.", ">\n\nIf Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nBut in 2022 ( when Biden was president and the House belonged to the Dems) they didn’t did they." ]
> 2020 was a long time ago	[ "If Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nAnd when Barry was president they targeted conservative groups. I think phone calls can be made to tell them to back off of the little guy.", ">\n\n\nthey targeted conservative groups.\n\nNo. They went after specifically anti-tax tea party groups. The groups who openly flaunted tax laws", ">\n\nThey also went after progressive, left leaning groups - how do you explain that ? it was political", ">\n\nWait, did they target conservatives or progressives? Lol", ">\n\nBoth- it was quite clear they were involving themselves in politics - that’s what the IG found", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.", ">\n\nYep!\nAlso this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious.\nThe real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade.", ">\n\nThanks for the informative reply.\nYou make great points which I don't doubt. But there are times when I think it's important to consider both the letter and spirit of law at times.\nEven though it is perfectly by the letter of the law that people should be checked, it also seems against the intended spirit of said law that only a certain group of people are checked.\nI am not familiar with US law, but I think most of us can feel some degree of injustice with how things currently are.", ">\n\nThe point is to automate more checking of income common to wealthier people, and devote more resources to auditing those people. The Fox News article is disingenuous in how it describes the automated checking that goes on. It’s not great that rich people aren’t really audited, but there’s no reason to stop the automated checking of income where it’s already being done and essentially free to continue.\nIf you feel differently, explain yourself.", ">\n\nNo, we are in alignment concerning this.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nFUCK FOX NEWS\nFox is pretending to care about us poors. \nDon't reward these fascist fucks with upvotes for a disingenuous clickbait headline. They still hate us for not voting gop.", ">\n\nThey want people to hate the IRS and help defund it so they don’t go after the rich, which was the purpose of the additional funding", ">\n\nThey want people to link this to “87000” new agents, which is obviously happening on social media posts, but it’s not even a thing.", ">\n\nArticle is trash. The author is including correspondence audits (which means the IRS asked for some documentation by mail) for low income filers but not for millionaires when comparing their audit rates. Here are actual numbers according to their own source:\nAudit rates including correspondence audits\nlow income 1.27%\nmillionaires 2.38% \nAudit rates excluding correspondence audits\nlow income 0.0376%\nmillionaires 1.24%\n.\nFor low income filers, nearly all their audits were correspondence audits.", ">\n\nIt's hilarious when Fox News and the GOP pretend they care about poor people.\nNo amount of hypocrisy is too much to try to make democrats look bad.", ">\n\nIts unfortunately far easier to prove married couples who live together filed HoH for extra earned income credit than it is to prove complicated returns were incorrect.", ">\n\nIt's also trivially easy to prove the same child was claimed by two parents which is a lot of correspondence audits.", ">\n\nSo can my back taxes please just get forgiven already. 20% income being taxed is not livable", ">\n\nRepublican love flat rate taxes, you should talk to them.", ">\n\nThey’re required to audit the president and vice president, and that didn’t happen either.", ">\n\nThis isn't new, it's been been having for the last 5 - 6 years.", ">\n\nHopefully some wake up and realize its all just preparing us for the inevitable destruction of our economy. I imagine its almost too late to realize this. If we all realized this wed sell our 401Ks and not lean on money and use it to help our neighbors.", ">\n\nK bro.", ">\n\nMy wife and I are on social security. She works part time to keep us afloat. All in, we earned $50K in 2022. iRS wants $4500 from us. Really? 5X what Trump paid? Don't know if anyone is paying attention but $50k ain't rich. Oh, and out of that comes almost $4k in Medicare premiums. A program we paid into for 40+ years.\nEveryone of these arrogant, unqualified,, spoon fed assholes in Congress should be made to live on SSI or welfare, with no medical coverage, for a year. Then tell me I am acting entitled.\nSelf serving bastards.", ">\n\nDon't upvote this crap.\nDo you really think Fox cares about the working class??\nThis is just right wing propaganda, timed to coincide with McCarthy's promise to get rid of the new IRS agents who make it possible to audit the rich.\nDon't be used.", ">\n\nWhatever happened to \"dont shoot the messenger?\"", ">\n\nIRS understaffing would naturally trend to go after low-lying fruit. Easy pickings. Too many man hours to go after super complex cases. These moneyed fuckers and their bullshit. It's outrageous.", ">\n\nThe vast majority of these audits are automatically generated correspondence audits that have to be issued. We can't just turn off the program that raises a red flag when two people claim the same child as a dependent because we don't have enough forensic accountants. If you mistype your W2 you'll get an \"audit\" showing the correct info from the copy your boss sent them and telling you they'll correct it unless you tell them otherwise and you don't have to do anything if the info they have is correct.", ">\n\nYeah, all the nonsense about the IRS \"going after\" low income people is so stupid. Low income people make money in a way that their reporting is easily verifiable by a computer. They're also most likely to mess up and claim child tax credits incorrectly, etc - all of which is verifiable and issued a letter by a computer. \n-\nOther than actually being able to get someone on the phone when you call the IRS, and increased budget isn't going to impact the average person in any way.", ">\n\nMy thing is even assuming the 87k don't successfully get more money out of the rich, that's still 87k jobs. That's a net positive. I just don't understand the conservative logic here. Do they think these 87k new jobs are specifically for being insidiously predatory toward the poor? Where's the logic here? (I know I'll get hyperbolic answers, but I genuinely would like to know)", ">\n\nIt's 87,000 jobs over 10 years, the majority of which are replacement during that period. It's just a budget supplemental to stop hemorrhaging agents as they retire or cycle out into other jobs.", ">\n\nso.. this is on fox, which I assume support republican efforts to ensure that this is the permanent state of affairs. I don't really get anything anymore.", ">\n\nAnd that is the way the GOP wants it.", ">\n\n💯 Exactly what this Fox article is trying to do.", ">\n\nIt's who can afford a lawyer", ">\n\nAs the article hints at, the IRS does not do a lot of actual auditing. What it does is computer matching, which automatically generates material for a correspondence audit. Most correspondence audits occur because som poor working Joe didn't know he/her was supposed to include or exclude something, and the IRS caught it in its matching. Of course, the problem is that we have a complex code and little help in actually helping people through the various forms, rules, and so on. But millionaires don't have these issues, so they can escape most of the traps that lead to a correspondence audit. If a lot of these 87,000 were in taxpayer service (which I expect) it would lead to fewer audits at the low end, more robust audits for large corporations, wealthy individuals, and those who actively use tax avoidance strategies. But of course that is not the dialogue that gets promoted when the 87,000 agents are discussed.", ">\n\nThis is exactly why Fox News needs to be dismantled and thrown in the garbage. Ugh, \"look poors! They're coming for yoU!!!\". Scare tactics. And guess what? It sadly works. Every time.\nThey're lower than scum.", ">\n\nExactly. It's when someone misreports a number from their W2, didn't report 1099s they received, both separated parents claim a tax credit for the same kid, etc. All stuff that's easily checked by a computer. The IRS isn't \"auditing\" random low to middle income people. That would be a complete waste of their time.", ">\n\nlooks at Trump You don't say.", ">\n\nThe poor can't defend themselves, it's easier to take a little bit of money from people that won't fight back than a lot of money from people that will.", ">\n\nThe mega rich seem like they’re on a mission to destroy America, as we know it.", ">\n\nHiring 87,000 new IRS agents makes it possible to audit billionaires. So they pay their share. Those audits require an actual person or team that knows what they are doing. But Kevin McCarthy's first item of business was to announce legislation to overturn the hiring of 87,000 IRS agents. Meaning only the little guy (who can be audited by computer software) pays taxes.\nSSDD", ">\n\nThe \"87,000\" agents budget is over a ten year period. It's not for 87,000 new positions.", ">\n\nThe title is so misleading. Im surprised fox even put the juicy bit in the article about how (this stat is due to there not being enough IRS workers because) these \"audits\" on low earners are just automated letters asking for more info.\nYet again, this is just millionairs paid by billionairs to mislead the masses into blaming the poor for crimes committed by said billionairs.", ">\n\nWhich is why the IRS needs more manpower and budget, so they can go after the big fish.\nFuck Fox News and their Republican propaganda pieces. This article coincides with McCarthy saying they’ll cut the IRS budget and that the IRS is coming for you.\nFuck off Republican propaganda rag!\nStop upvoting any Fox News story. Fox should not be on the white list.", ">\n\nThis is a terrible article. It seems to include questions about tax returns as audits. If a low income filer makes a mistake it should be corrected. Is that an audit? If anyone makes a mistake and is contacted, is that an audit? Also there is no reason to go after low income as they rarely pay tax or are required to. The money requested would also pay for people to answer a phone. Those against increasing funding lie when they say all of it goes to audits. If you tell the truth, who cares if you are audited? Are y’all aware you can track your personal return online? However a business cannot. Businesses have to rely on humans that can’t be reached. I’ve waited a year for a refund. Didn’t know if IRS received the return. Didn’t know if there was an issue. Didn’t know if it was mailed or lost. I’m getting tired of Republicans pushing their crap on people.", ">\n\nwho keeps upvoting this right wing propaganda", ">\n\nWhy would the GOP want to give the agency the power to go after their donors.", ">\n\nAnd it was trumps guy that mandated it while Biden replaced him", ">\n\nApparently the mere use of an accounting firm somehow protected corps and the rich from the IRS who still (mistakenly) believe the accounting firms are trustworthy. How naive.", ">\n\nThe \"audits\" talked about are mostly form letters requesting more info about specific items.", ">\n\nThe poor can't pay for top flight attorneys.", ">\n\nYep keep the IRS underfunded so they can only go after the poors at the same time telling all the poors that the IRS is bad cause it goes after them but leave out the fact that they do that cause the poors are low hanging fruit.\nRepublicans are evil.", ">\n\nWell the GOP wants to cut funding to the IRS for new agents, so I’m sure the poor folk will continue to get screwed. I say toss the 50,000+ page tax code out and replace with a percentage based on total revenue/income made. Took a loss? No write-offs. Oh well, better luck next year. It’ll never happen because the wealthy don’t want it to.", ">\n\nWhere did you get this info? I know GOPers have been slashing IRS budgets and staffing for years but can't find reliable sources for what this has done to the actual audits - like who gets audited.", ">\n\nTheir link is Fox. This is a bad faith post.", ">\n\nThis says a lot coming from fox “news”", ">\n\nTo paraphrase Gilbert K. Chesterton, \"The Poor have sometimes objected to being taxed too heavily; The Rich have always objected to being taxed at all.\"", ">\n\ndon't post Fox news here....", ">\n\nCorporations and millionaires have the means to hire accountants and attorneys. Our tax code is gray in several areas. It’s easy to go after the poor that do not have the resources and will have no choice but to pay anything the IRS says. The additional agents will continue to target the poor and middle class because they are easy, It’s happened before, it will continue to happen.", ">\n\nI think it's funny/sad that a poor person can win the lottery and they get taxed at a higher rate than any billionaire has ever been taxed at. The system is built to keep the rich - rich and the poor - poor.", ">\n\nThe poorest can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nThe current system cannot be sustained. We are hurtling towards disaster.", ">\n\nThe only reason the bastards have the majority is because the corrupt SCOTUS allowed illegal gerrymanders to stand while they were fought in the courts.", ">\n\nThe I.R.S. goes after the poorer people because it's easier. They can't afford lawyers and accountants. So the poor can do nothing but roll over and take it up the rump. The Inflation Reduction Act that Biden signed into law in August is supposed to give $80 Billion to the I.R.S. so they can go after the millionaires. But we know that won't happen. More poor people are going to get screwed.", ">\n\nI'm confused. For decades, Faux news and the conservatives have been saying that millionaires deserve to keep more of their money than we do. That was a huge part of the 2017 tax scam that Trump signed. Now Faux is saying it's a problem? And they are rightly detailing that Republicans are the cause, along with Biden trying to fix the same issue that Fox has helped create?", ">\n\nFox News", ">\n\nHey IRS, don't forget to crawl up my ass this year because I sold some old stuff on eBay for a loss but make sure you put a few man hours into figuring out if it is legit or not.", ">\n\nlol, and the people opposed to IRS funding will say they are anti-establishment.", ">\n\nImagine how much they could squeeze the middle class with 87,000 more agents! But really, it’ll be good to see if the increase in officers actually increases tax revenue without changing the underlying laws.", ">\n\nSo, this is the newest Republican boogeyman, the IRS.\nWell, better than Drag Queens I guess.", ">\n\nOh hey just like last year, and the year before that, I think there might be a pattern", ">\n\nThank you republicans, always sticking up in the back on the small guys…", ">\n\nFox News saying this like it’s not something Rupert Murdoch’s network supports is pretty funny.", ">\n\nFox News. Ignore it.", ">\n\nFox News is still allowed in here?", ">\n\nFake news. This is Republican propaganda coming from Fox News.", ">\n\nFox News is NOT news", ">\n\nHmm sounds like it was underfunded then. Good thing now we helped ease that problem. Thanks Biden", ">\n\nIt's simply laziness by the IRS. Lower-income households have less complicated returns and easier to process. I'm sure IRS runs a non-effective but management-pleasing metric like \"how many returns were corrected\" opposed to how much money was recouped.", ">\n\nWe know. They don't have the resources to do anything. That was the point of increasing the staffing at the IRS so they had even the slightest hope of going after the big offenders with their armies or lawyers.", ">\n\nThere's less millionaires and billionaires than there are us. I'm not sure that answer fits the accuracy on hiring more workers but I'll go ahead and amuse that", ">\n\nIt's not a game of tax guy vs rich guy. The rich literally have armies of lawyers. You need the staff to overcome all the paper and challenges they'll throw at you. \nIf you throw one person to audit a millionaire, their lawyers can make it so it'll take a year to review a week of operations. Investigations will never finish unless there's sufficient staff to overcome their obstruction.", ">\n\nTo this day I do not understand why the IRS can demand our documents every year without a warrant. The 16th amendment does not alter the 4th, and the 4th does not apply only to criminal actions (as the 5th explicitly does). Yet no one seems to care about this annual violations.", ">\n\nReminder, Fox News is not news. It's entertainment, and should be regarded as such.", ">\n\nNo shit, poor ppl tend to file their own taxes and screw up where as millionaires hire expensive accountants to exploit all the legal loopholes without getting their clients in trouble.\nI don't think it's an intentional targeting as the article may be implying.", ">\n\nOne might imagine the resources of agents would be better put to use by focusing on returns that might produce more revenue, however it may be just a lot easier to collect a few bucks from easier targets.", ">\n\nThey are short staffed and accountants make it so difficult to find wrongdoing, if there is even wrongdoing to be found, that it would take a decent chunk of their workforce just to tackle it. It's like trying to find needle in a haystack but you don't know if there's a needle or not.", ">\n\nSo true....", ">\n\nShocked pikachu face.", ">\n\nYeah I’d believe this if it weren’t Fox News. They could give a fuck about the poor and middle class.", ">\n\nI would literally rather the IRS spend its time auditing 5 extraordinarily rich people or a single business than anyone who makes less than 100k per year\nETA: I’m aware that this article represents part of the Republican agenda to just gut the IRS and welfare spending generally. And I understand the difficulties in auditing the rich/businesses v lower income people claiming tax credits, etc", ">\n\nAlmost all of the little people \"audits\" are just a computer issuing a correspondence \"audit\" because the person misreported something from their W2, didn't report as much 1099 income as was reported to the IRS by others, or separated parents both trying to claim kids for tax credits or something. \n-\nThey don't really pull from the same resources. The rich people audits require human beings. Little people \"audits\" aren't really audits and a computer can do it. So if we want to audit more rich people, they need actual budget for human beings. The little people are going to be caught anyways because a computer can do it.", ">\n\nI interned at the IRS during the summer of 2012 when Lois Lerner made batshit crazy commrnts that they were targetting conservative groups", ">\n\nI say this every time it gets brought up. This is by design. I used to work in auditing and also used to do tax stuff. It’s super easy to find tax fraud on someone who only has a simple W-2 and no other income. You could find those people through a basic algorithm. Meanwhile, auditing a multi millionaire is expensive, time consuming, and often fruitless. If I was in charge of an underfunded, understaffed IRS I would tell my staff to go for the easy wins too.", ">\n\nUnpopular opinion - More funding won't resolve this. \nThe IRS will keep doing this. Unless rules & regulations forbid or disincentivize this practice, the IRS will keep this stupid practice", ">\n\nI make $40,000 a year and the IRS froze my bank accounts until I paid them $1000 in taxes I owed them because of an error I made filling my taxes. They froze my bank accounts for $1000. I was fucked for a month. I had to borrow cash from people just for food and gas money to get to work to get paid money that I couldn’t access. It was a scary time for me. Meanwhile millionaires are purposely avoiding taxes worth more than what I make in a year and nothing happens to them.", ">\n\nThe IRS sends no less than a dozen letters to a taxpayer prior to leaving a bank account. Why didn't you just put it into a repayment plan? Takes about ten minutes online.", ">\n\nDon't you just hate autocorrect?", ">\n\nIf true, its a holdover from jrbush who slashed IRS staff and budget and told them to spend more time auditing tip jars and busboys than millionaires because the millionaires had better lawyers than the IRS and service workers were unlikely to have any lawyers at all.", ">\n\nFox News solution: remove the IRS", ">\n\nAbsolutely. They’ll NEVER target the rich, adding more agents just made them a lot more capable to target all the lower class.", ">\n\nWhat people don't realize..Those 87K \"Agents\" aren't that. It's 87K employees over 25 years. Clerks etc. People are so fucking stupid when they just believe these clowns.", ">\n\nThose numbers also count it as an \"audit\" when a person misreports a number from a W2, 1099s, etc and the irs number matching software sends an automatically generated correspondence letter that basically says \"we actually show this number, this is what your tax return would have been if you reported that number correctly\". \nThe IRS isn't wasting time doing random \"audits\" as people think of them for low to middle income people. It would be a complete waste of their time. The computer just catches obvious verifiable mistakes and it counts as an audit in those numbers.", ">\n\n“those in the lowest income bracket hit 12.7 per 1,000….. The odds of a millionaire facing an audit were around 1.1%.”\nSo they’re saying 1.27% vs 1.1%!!! And acting like that’s a scandal 🙄", ">\n\nWhich means millionaires REALLY don't want more IRS auditors which means when our new resident house fascist fires five thousand auditors, said fascist (McCarthy) is making sure those millionaires aren't going to get audited. \nCha CHING !!! Go the \"donations\" into house rat republican's pockets. \nThe grift will be in full swing shortly.\nAnd with putin whispering in their ears and telling them EXACTLY how break the law - how can they lose?", ">\n\n💯 Exactly why theres a Fox link here pushing for that same reason.", ">\n\nTwo things. First of all, this is from a far right-wing propaganda outlet which should immediately raise red flags. They're trying to scare you into allowing a republican-initiated movement to entirely remove all remaining power from the IRS by making it seem like they're coming after you.\nSecond, the reason the IRS is already already virtually powerless against the rich is because the republicans have already eviscerated them in the past several decades, largely through defunding them leading to not only staffing cuts, but the inability to pursue the wealthiest people who have the resources for endless litigation. So as a result, the FBI can only really afford to go after people who cannot financially defend themselves.", ">\n\nThird, you might as well throw in that the aiming low guidance was under a Trump appointee who is no longer in that position.", ">\n\nThe GOP intentionally defunded the IRS so that it could not audit the wealthy. It takes a great deal more money upfront to audit them but the payback is far greater.", ">\n\nI'm not sure why dems voted against an amendment that would have mandated the giant infusion of cash into the IRS couldn't be used to audit folks making >$400k.", ">\n\nHrm this is pretty fucked I'd like to hear about why the Dems voted nay.", ">\n\nBecause they work for the same people as Republicans. \nThey are different but only when their owners allow them to be. \nI don't know how many times we are going to have to learn this lesson before it sticks.", ">\n\nDemocrats are responsible for this", ">\n\nThe rich returns are just too hard, enough lower class errors you can leave the rich alone. Love to see it… sigh", ">\n\nIt takes money to police the wealthy. Can't have that can we?!", ">\n\nr/noshitsherlock", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised?\nI’m not even American and this seemed obvious to me. All you have to do is look at how the poor live and compare that to the news about someone like Elon musk or Donald trump.", ">\n\nThis is why the IRS needs to go.", ">\n\nFox News helped make that happen.", ">\n\nThey'll never change,all the time when the guys in charge benefit from doing the same shit.", ">\n\nAnd yet the republicans dont submit or pass legislations to change the rules to favor targeting rich people. Curious.", ">\n\nThen 78,000 new, armed tax collectors should be able to extract even more money from the poor, middle-class and small business owners.", ">\n\nWhy did they focus on the Poorest? The thought of 87,000 more of them will actually do what? If the existing can’t focus on the wealthy! Then what makes anybody think more can?", ">\n\nMillionaires and billionaires make the government more money by creating lobbying loopholes and exploiting the economy to bilk the 99%. It's really cheap to go after the poorest who are struggling to pay day to day obligations and don't have loopholes or government sanctioned exploitation to take advantage of.", ">\n\nI could have told you this would happen. You think millionaires get $600 Venmo transactions?", ">\n\nThat's a move democrats should not make. That's one month of rent for me. What of folks worse-off?", ">\n\nHonestly it’s like squeezing blood from the stone over here anyway.", ">\n\nDuh lmfao theyve already stated it costs too much to tax weathy people previously and its most cost effective to audit the poor due to many factors...", ">\n\nI mean 99% of us are poor compared to the other 1%", ">\n\nColor me surprised", ">\n\nWe need some laws for equitable auditing.", ">\n\nYou are an Army commander about to attack the enemy. Do you prefer to attack where they have experienced career solders backed up by artillery, tanks, and airplanes, or do you attack where there are poorly armed and equipped untrained conscripts?", ">\n\nThey must be upset someone replaced their sign with a card from Cards Against Humanity", ">\n\nMay it ever be so…. Don’t reproduce if you only consume and can’t accumulate or help a Dow Jones winter water witch. Like snow, weathermen.", ">\n\nIt’s weirdly fitting how much their building sign in the photo looks like a cards against humanity card.", ">\n\nTypical", ">\n\nWow? How unusual.", ">\n\nI’d support double the number of IRS agents", ">\n\nI was low income and won about 3,000 gambling, the irs went after me", ">\n\nThe IRS came after me hard for 8$", ">\n\nAudit frequency should correlate to income, someone with a million in income should be audited 10x those with 100k income", ">\n\nSomeone should explain Pareto charts to the IRS.", ">\n\nI've been audited three times. First when I was 27, did some consulting and didn't do the 1099 prepayments. Ended up owing $17k. Second audit was after moving across country for a job. The tax preparer we hired made a mistake with the move expense deductions, owed a few thousand. Third audit was another tax preparer mistake, but this time we overpaid and were owed money we credited to the next year. \nIf you assume for discussion that the average audit on an ordinary tax payer returns $10,000, it would take 100,000,000 audits to make $1 trillion. By just doing the easy work, the IRS is leaving the real money on the table.", ">\n\nRepublicans are famous for giving rich breaks while middle class etc close the gaps", ">\n\nThe last line, \"The Inflation Reduction Act provides the IRS with $80 billion in future funding to ramp up its audits and potentially target the wealthiest taxpayers.\"", ">\n\nThe cure is not the root cause, but the middle class and the poor will eventually bear the burden after the capital operation", ">\n\nIt’s like they timed the “research” and the drop of the article with the speech. Sad man.", ">\n\nWatch Madoff. The wealthy skate and steal billions. The poor are in prison over thousands.", ">\n\nWhy does their sign look like a Card Against Humanity", ">\n\nFucking Trump, still at it.", ">\n\nOh you mean the thing people said would happen once they got massive funding actually happened? Checks out", ">\n\nOf course they did, because millionaires will lawyer up.", ">\n\nBecause the poor can't afford to fight back.", ">\n\nIt's so unfair the poor and the middle class taxpayers suffer so much while the millionaries got away with not paying the taxes It's really hurting the poor. The middle class is fading", ">\n\nAll of this can be fixed if we just use no-exemption graduated income", ">\n\nYeah we know", ">\n\nShow of hands for all surprised.\ncrickets\nHmm. Seems like Reddit suffers from a plague of double amputees...", ">\n\nWhat the actual fuck", ">\n\nAnd 2021, 2020, 2019, …", ">\n\nSounds about right.", ">\n\nOf course. Poor people can’t afford attorneys.", ">\n\nI made a mistake on my forms while I was overseas and ticked “self-employed” instead of “employed”. I was on a student visa and had two children and was making less than 10k a year. They hounded me for years. By the time I figured out what had happened I could not amend the forms and had paid thousands in penalties and interest.\nMeanwhile I knew lots of people who were there fully employed not reporting their income.\nFuck them.", ">\n\nYep! During the pandemic, even while I wasn't working didn't come after me the entire time that I was working but the minute that I wasn't nobody was cuz we were in lockdown they started popping up", ">\n\nI just now realized that the Cards Against Humanity box looks like the IRS sign", ">\n\nWhy is the sign a Cards Against Humanity question?", ">\n\nI am shocked and appalled. clutches pearls", ">\n\nRich should be taxed more than the average not right at all. Or at least there is a tier system based on pay only makes sense. Come on now", ">\n\nSounds about right, make the rich richer again.", ">\n\nWho are we going to vote for in the future ,all of them are decayed , corrupted and useless , the “most rich country in the world , governed by the most ignorant an corrupted. What a contrast .", ">\n\nGod bless America", ">\n\nno way. wait until you see those people responds. Those people are chipping away.", ">\n\nSounds about right", ">\n\nWe know.", ">\n\nI find it rather comical that Fox news is reporting on this since they are all about pushing the Republican agenda and that is all about pushing everyone else down that isn't rich and keeping them there. Not to mention they had no problem with Trump not paying taxes for years.", ">\n\nCan fucking confirm.", ">\n\nYeah, they (millionaires) have accountants who generally do things right and due to their millions being in investments it's not like it's taxable all the time. \nThen there's the ability to sell any stocks when they're down to build up losses on paper can reinvest them at a loss that can carry over across multiple years.", ">\n\nsounds about right. i don’t have a pot to piss in but they’re all over me for someone stealing my identity and filing a double tax return one year.", ">\n\nDuh", ">\n\nThere’s a reason why FOX is posting this article. The less people at the IRS, the more likely they come after folks who can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nIn order to pursue wealthy tax cheats, the IRS needs more resources and personnel. Otherwise it’s business as usual, picking on the low hanging fruit that earns under 6 figures.", ">\n\nSo wrong ....people need to be fired", ">\n\nIt’s because they can’t afford to take them to court", ">\n\nOf course it is about protecting the rich like Trump who lies ,lies , and about his tax returns . No wonder he did not want them released .", ">\n\nEasy prey bc most ppl can not lawyer up. Pretty heart breaking system we have at times.", ">\n\nWhy does the irs sign look like it's from cards against humanity?", ">\n\nCurrently getting audited over \\~$1500, which they owe me, when the rich get away with murder. Fucking unbelievably and unnecessarily stressful for me.", ">\n\nHas t this been know for a while?", ">\n\nyep and they are the same people getting tax cuts while everyone else does it tough ....\nAny one with too much money is your enemy .... not a hero of democracy", ">\n\nGet rid of taxes and the gov’t should just do stuff for free, or what ever.", ">\n\nYou have to be careful when you get one of those CP2000 notices from the IRS. The way they are written is a trap.\nIf you dispute it you are supposed to indicate that you disagree and send it back with documents supporting your dispute.\nYou are only supposed to sign it if you agree with them and when you sign it you are signing away your rights to dispute the back taxes and penalties they are demanding.\nMere worker bees like us can expect to be getting a lot of those from this years tax returns considering how the threshold for 1099k forms has been dropped to $600.\nGuys like Trump? The IRS doesn't even know where to begin.", ">\n\nThanks Biden", ">\n\nI presume those lower-income bracket filers might be more likely to reach out to 1-800-infomercial [quickie settlement/long-term penalties most favorable to gov/proprietor] than retain proper legal counsel?\nRegardless it’s got to be a lot less work for IRS agent to go after under-represented citizen(s), rather than someone who can afford to appeal, properly negotiate on their own terms?", ">\n\nLmfao Dems tax and spend. But I have to admit there Republicans that tax and spend to. Where do these Politicians get off taxing me or business and give to people who don't work what do you cause d the inflation. You can not print money \nI am Conservative not a Republican. To much money is wasted and put in pockets of people ot don't belong.\nBut all dems know how to tax tax tax. \nIts all great and good until you run out if other peoples money. \nMillionaire just like Berny he hated Millionaires until he became one now he hates Trillionaires. Funny how the gold post changes. And good old Nancy her I side stock trading. So I think you need to rethink.", ">\n\nThe IRS is only doing as directed by whomever controls the White House.", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised by this? Really?", ">\n\nThe sign in the thumbnail looks like a Cards Against Humanity card.", ">\n\nWhile this is mostly true, don’t believe everything you read. I’m no more an accountant than I am a ladies man, but someone (said they’re an accountant) posted a few days ago about this. They explained that the most likely people getting audited are trying to, fraudulently or mistakenly, claim the EITC. \nYES, it’s super easy to “bust” these people for an easy “mistake”. This is who the IRS is cracking down on. \nDo I think it’s better to bust poor people for claiming a few thousand in tax credits vs billionaires who avoid taxes altogether? Of course not, but don’t think they’re actively targeting people who fudge their mileage deductions or miss a decimal point in their calculations as small business owners. It’s simply not happening. \nAnd the reported “87,000 new IRS agents” are replacing the 10’s of 1,000’s of employees set to retire or quit over the next 10 years which doesn’t even begin to fill the gaps we’ve been growing for decades by not hiring and training more willing workers. Not to mention they’re not even close to all employees who will actively audit tax payers. They’re people who answer phones, file papers, assist others, etc… They’re mostly just average people with average jobs so of course the GOP wants to end this. They hate upward mobility and job creation unless that means tax breaks for their billionaire friends.", ">\n\nI wish everyone wasn’t a sheep and would understand this.", ">\n\nI can see the Media doing their best to turn the public against the IRS.", ">\n\nPicking on the week and helpless. That’s what we humans do. We suck. I’m waiting for that big meteor reset button.", ">\n\nAnd Fox news loves this.", ">\n\nLove it, Faux 'News' taking the piss, for 4 years under Dear Leader they campaigned for tax breaks for the rich, now they're pretending to care about the poor !", ">\n\nEvery millionaire should be audited yearly. Period.", ">\n\nAND now the gqp cult promises to rescind the money Biden set aside to aid the IRS to recover taxes from mega millionaire tax cheats like benedict donald, who paid less taxes than most working Americans.", ">\n\nRepublicans want to stop the IRS and Congress from taxing rich people, making the burden of maintaining civilization fall more heavily on poorer people. This is why Republicans vote for tax cuts for the rich and against funding for the IRS.\nAnd since Republican beliefs are based on wishful thinking, Republicans can screw over poor, rural Republicans while simultaneously taking credit for doing it to make Republicans happy about it and blaming it on Democrats to make those same Republicans resentful against Democrats for it. And what else would we expect from a Republican Party that blames Democrats for tricking them into attacking the Capitol to make Trump look bad and justifies and approves of assaulting Capitol police while brandishing their \"thin blue line\" flags.", ">\n\nThe IRS is like any other law enforcement agency, they prefer pursuing the poor because they don't have the resources to protect themselves.", ">\n\nThe IRS building sign looks like its from cards against humanity.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nNot a reliable news source.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nThat picture looks like the worst cards against humanity card too get.", ">\n\nScrew the Murdoch media empire and their failed trickle down ideologies.", ">\n\nOf course, the poorest haven’t paid over 400+ billion for decades. Not sure about the rich, we haven’t checked.", ">\n\nThis is not a surprise. With the recent inflation reduction act, the IRS an additional $80B over 10 years or $8B per year. The IRS budget for 2021 was $13.7B. The additional $8B over the year would be an increase of 58% to their budget. They will be looking to get a lot more money from taxpayers, due to this very large increase in their budget.", ">\n\nFox reported this? I'm in shock", ">\n\nAll propagandists publish clickbaity stuff that makes them sound like maybe they've let up on the evil. Unfortunately it works, since people just upvote headlines.", ">\n\nIt’s only going to get worse in 2023. Those 87k new IRS agents will not be going after the wealthy.", ">\n\nWhy?\nThat’s literally why they were being added. The IRS goes after the poorer taxpayers because they are low-hanging fruit and don’t have the lawyers and accountants to protect them. \nThe additional IRS employees were to give the personnel staffing sufficient to go after the wealthy.", ">\n\nIt doesn’t matter how many IRS agents there are. It will always be easier and more profitable for the IRS to nickel and dime the average taxpayer rather than go after the wealthy, who have the resources to lawyer up with the best lawyers and challenge the IRS in court.", ">\n\nEasier? Yes. More profitable? Doubtful.", ">\n\nIf Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nBut in 2022 ( when Biden was president and the House belonged to the Dems) they didn’t did they.", ">\n\nIt takes time to refactor an organization. It’s still full of Trump appointees." ]
> Not on organizational time scales. It takes several months to safely restructure an organization as big as the federal government, and when it is the federal government it takes years. Congress gets a say in every political appointment, budget change, and organization change. It’s designed to be slow to assure continuity. There is a saying that every president gets credited and blamed for what the prior administration put in motion. There is a lot of truth to that, and this organizational inertia is a big reason why. There are similar long lags in changing laws, re-writing policies, modifying rules, and so on. It’s a “feature” of having checks and balances.	[ "If Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nAnd when Barry was president they targeted conservative groups. I think phone calls can be made to tell them to back off of the little guy.", ">\n\n\nthey targeted conservative groups.\n\nNo. They went after specifically anti-tax tea party groups. The groups who openly flaunted tax laws", ">\n\nThey also went after progressive, left leaning groups - how do you explain that ? it was political", ">\n\nWait, did they target conservatives or progressives? Lol", ">\n\nBoth- it was quite clear they were involving themselves in politics - that’s what the IG found", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.", ">\n\nYep!\nAlso this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious.\nThe real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade.", ">\n\nThanks for the informative reply.\nYou make great points which I don't doubt. But there are times when I think it's important to consider both the letter and spirit of law at times.\nEven though it is perfectly by the letter of the law that people should be checked, it also seems against the intended spirit of said law that only a certain group of people are checked.\nI am not familiar with US law, but I think most of us can feel some degree of injustice with how things currently are.", ">\n\nThe point is to automate more checking of income common to wealthier people, and devote more resources to auditing those people. The Fox News article is disingenuous in how it describes the automated checking that goes on. It’s not great that rich people aren’t really audited, but there’s no reason to stop the automated checking of income where it’s already being done and essentially free to continue.\nIf you feel differently, explain yourself.", ">\n\nNo, we are in alignment concerning this.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nFUCK FOX NEWS\nFox is pretending to care about us poors. \nDon't reward these fascist fucks with upvotes for a disingenuous clickbait headline. They still hate us for not voting gop.", ">\n\nThey want people to hate the IRS and help defund it so they don’t go after the rich, which was the purpose of the additional funding", ">\n\nThey want people to link this to “87000” new agents, which is obviously happening on social media posts, but it’s not even a thing.", ">\n\nArticle is trash. The author is including correspondence audits (which means the IRS asked for some documentation by mail) for low income filers but not for millionaires when comparing their audit rates. Here are actual numbers according to their own source:\nAudit rates including correspondence audits\nlow income 1.27%\nmillionaires 2.38% \nAudit rates excluding correspondence audits\nlow income 0.0376%\nmillionaires 1.24%\n.\nFor low income filers, nearly all their audits were correspondence audits.", ">\n\nIt's hilarious when Fox News and the GOP pretend they care about poor people.\nNo amount of hypocrisy is too much to try to make democrats look bad.", ">\n\nIts unfortunately far easier to prove married couples who live together filed HoH for extra earned income credit than it is to prove complicated returns were incorrect.", ">\n\nIt's also trivially easy to prove the same child was claimed by two parents which is a lot of correspondence audits.", ">\n\nSo can my back taxes please just get forgiven already. 20% income being taxed is not livable", ">\n\nRepublican love flat rate taxes, you should talk to them.", ">\n\nThey’re required to audit the president and vice president, and that didn’t happen either.", ">\n\nThis isn't new, it's been been having for the last 5 - 6 years.", ">\n\nHopefully some wake up and realize its all just preparing us for the inevitable destruction of our economy. I imagine its almost too late to realize this. If we all realized this wed sell our 401Ks and not lean on money and use it to help our neighbors.", ">\n\nK bro.", ">\n\nMy wife and I are on social security. She works part time to keep us afloat. All in, we earned $50K in 2022. iRS wants $4500 from us. Really? 5X what Trump paid? Don't know if anyone is paying attention but $50k ain't rich. Oh, and out of that comes almost $4k in Medicare premiums. A program we paid into for 40+ years.\nEveryone of these arrogant, unqualified,, spoon fed assholes in Congress should be made to live on SSI or welfare, with no medical coverage, for a year. Then tell me I am acting entitled.\nSelf serving bastards.", ">\n\nDon't upvote this crap.\nDo you really think Fox cares about the working class??\nThis is just right wing propaganda, timed to coincide with McCarthy's promise to get rid of the new IRS agents who make it possible to audit the rich.\nDon't be used.", ">\n\nWhatever happened to \"dont shoot the messenger?\"", ">\n\nIRS understaffing would naturally trend to go after low-lying fruit. Easy pickings. Too many man hours to go after super complex cases. These moneyed fuckers and their bullshit. It's outrageous.", ">\n\nThe vast majority of these audits are automatically generated correspondence audits that have to be issued. We can't just turn off the program that raises a red flag when two people claim the same child as a dependent because we don't have enough forensic accountants. If you mistype your W2 you'll get an \"audit\" showing the correct info from the copy your boss sent them and telling you they'll correct it unless you tell them otherwise and you don't have to do anything if the info they have is correct.", ">\n\nYeah, all the nonsense about the IRS \"going after\" low income people is so stupid. Low income people make money in a way that their reporting is easily verifiable by a computer. They're also most likely to mess up and claim child tax credits incorrectly, etc - all of which is verifiable and issued a letter by a computer. \n-\nOther than actually being able to get someone on the phone when you call the IRS, and increased budget isn't going to impact the average person in any way.", ">\n\nMy thing is even assuming the 87k don't successfully get more money out of the rich, that's still 87k jobs. That's a net positive. I just don't understand the conservative logic here. Do they think these 87k new jobs are specifically for being insidiously predatory toward the poor? Where's the logic here? (I know I'll get hyperbolic answers, but I genuinely would like to know)", ">\n\nIt's 87,000 jobs over 10 years, the majority of which are replacement during that period. It's just a budget supplemental to stop hemorrhaging agents as they retire or cycle out into other jobs.", ">\n\nso.. this is on fox, which I assume support republican efforts to ensure that this is the permanent state of affairs. I don't really get anything anymore.", ">\n\nAnd that is the way the GOP wants it.", ">\n\n💯 Exactly what this Fox article is trying to do.", ">\n\nIt's who can afford a lawyer", ">\n\nAs the article hints at, the IRS does not do a lot of actual auditing. What it does is computer matching, which automatically generates material for a correspondence audit. Most correspondence audits occur because som poor working Joe didn't know he/her was supposed to include or exclude something, and the IRS caught it in its matching. Of course, the problem is that we have a complex code and little help in actually helping people through the various forms, rules, and so on. But millionaires don't have these issues, so they can escape most of the traps that lead to a correspondence audit. If a lot of these 87,000 were in taxpayer service (which I expect) it would lead to fewer audits at the low end, more robust audits for large corporations, wealthy individuals, and those who actively use tax avoidance strategies. But of course that is not the dialogue that gets promoted when the 87,000 agents are discussed.", ">\n\nThis is exactly why Fox News needs to be dismantled and thrown in the garbage. Ugh, \"look poors! They're coming for yoU!!!\". Scare tactics. And guess what? It sadly works. Every time.\nThey're lower than scum.", ">\n\nExactly. It's when someone misreports a number from their W2, didn't report 1099s they received, both separated parents claim a tax credit for the same kid, etc. All stuff that's easily checked by a computer. The IRS isn't \"auditing\" random low to middle income people. That would be a complete waste of their time.", ">\n\nlooks at Trump You don't say.", ">\n\nThe poor can't defend themselves, it's easier to take a little bit of money from people that won't fight back than a lot of money from people that will.", ">\n\nThe mega rich seem like they’re on a mission to destroy America, as we know it.", ">\n\nHiring 87,000 new IRS agents makes it possible to audit billionaires. So they pay their share. Those audits require an actual person or team that knows what they are doing. But Kevin McCarthy's first item of business was to announce legislation to overturn the hiring of 87,000 IRS agents. Meaning only the little guy (who can be audited by computer software) pays taxes.\nSSDD", ">\n\nThe \"87,000\" agents budget is over a ten year period. It's not for 87,000 new positions.", ">\n\nThe title is so misleading. Im surprised fox even put the juicy bit in the article about how (this stat is due to there not being enough IRS workers because) these \"audits\" on low earners are just automated letters asking for more info.\nYet again, this is just millionairs paid by billionairs to mislead the masses into blaming the poor for crimes committed by said billionairs.", ">\n\nWhich is why the IRS needs more manpower and budget, so they can go after the big fish.\nFuck Fox News and their Republican propaganda pieces. This article coincides with McCarthy saying they’ll cut the IRS budget and that the IRS is coming for you.\nFuck off Republican propaganda rag!\nStop upvoting any Fox News story. Fox should not be on the white list.", ">\n\nThis is a terrible article. It seems to include questions about tax returns as audits. If a low income filer makes a mistake it should be corrected. Is that an audit? If anyone makes a mistake and is contacted, is that an audit? Also there is no reason to go after low income as they rarely pay tax or are required to. The money requested would also pay for people to answer a phone. Those against increasing funding lie when they say all of it goes to audits. If you tell the truth, who cares if you are audited? Are y’all aware you can track your personal return online? However a business cannot. Businesses have to rely on humans that can’t be reached. I’ve waited a year for a refund. Didn’t know if IRS received the return. Didn’t know if there was an issue. Didn’t know if it was mailed or lost. I’m getting tired of Republicans pushing their crap on people.", ">\n\nwho keeps upvoting this right wing propaganda", ">\n\nWhy would the GOP want to give the agency the power to go after their donors.", ">\n\nAnd it was trumps guy that mandated it while Biden replaced him", ">\n\nApparently the mere use of an accounting firm somehow protected corps and the rich from the IRS who still (mistakenly) believe the accounting firms are trustworthy. How naive.", ">\n\nThe \"audits\" talked about are mostly form letters requesting more info about specific items.", ">\n\nThe poor can't pay for top flight attorneys.", ">\n\nYep keep the IRS underfunded so they can only go after the poors at the same time telling all the poors that the IRS is bad cause it goes after them but leave out the fact that they do that cause the poors are low hanging fruit.\nRepublicans are evil.", ">\n\nWell the GOP wants to cut funding to the IRS for new agents, so I’m sure the poor folk will continue to get screwed. I say toss the 50,000+ page tax code out and replace with a percentage based on total revenue/income made. Took a loss? No write-offs. Oh well, better luck next year. It’ll never happen because the wealthy don’t want it to.", ">\n\nWhere did you get this info? I know GOPers have been slashing IRS budgets and staffing for years but can't find reliable sources for what this has done to the actual audits - like who gets audited.", ">\n\nTheir link is Fox. This is a bad faith post.", ">\n\nThis says a lot coming from fox “news”", ">\n\nTo paraphrase Gilbert K. Chesterton, \"The Poor have sometimes objected to being taxed too heavily; The Rich have always objected to being taxed at all.\"", ">\n\ndon't post Fox news here....", ">\n\nCorporations and millionaires have the means to hire accountants and attorneys. Our tax code is gray in several areas. It’s easy to go after the poor that do not have the resources and will have no choice but to pay anything the IRS says. The additional agents will continue to target the poor and middle class because they are easy, It’s happened before, it will continue to happen.", ">\n\nI think it's funny/sad that a poor person can win the lottery and they get taxed at a higher rate than any billionaire has ever been taxed at. The system is built to keep the rich - rich and the poor - poor.", ">\n\nThe poorest can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nThe current system cannot be sustained. We are hurtling towards disaster.", ">\n\nThe only reason the bastards have the majority is because the corrupt SCOTUS allowed illegal gerrymanders to stand while they were fought in the courts.", ">\n\nThe I.R.S. goes after the poorer people because it's easier. They can't afford lawyers and accountants. So the poor can do nothing but roll over and take it up the rump. The Inflation Reduction Act that Biden signed into law in August is supposed to give $80 Billion to the I.R.S. so they can go after the millionaires. But we know that won't happen. More poor people are going to get screwed.", ">\n\nI'm confused. For decades, Faux news and the conservatives have been saying that millionaires deserve to keep more of their money than we do. That was a huge part of the 2017 tax scam that Trump signed. Now Faux is saying it's a problem? And they are rightly detailing that Republicans are the cause, along with Biden trying to fix the same issue that Fox has helped create?", ">\n\nFox News", ">\n\nHey IRS, don't forget to crawl up my ass this year because I sold some old stuff on eBay for a loss but make sure you put a few man hours into figuring out if it is legit or not.", ">\n\nlol, and the people opposed to IRS funding will say they are anti-establishment.", ">\n\nImagine how much they could squeeze the middle class with 87,000 more agents! But really, it’ll be good to see if the increase in officers actually increases tax revenue without changing the underlying laws.", ">\n\nSo, this is the newest Republican boogeyman, the IRS.\nWell, better than Drag Queens I guess.", ">\n\nOh hey just like last year, and the year before that, I think there might be a pattern", ">\n\nThank you republicans, always sticking up in the back on the small guys…", ">\n\nFox News saying this like it’s not something Rupert Murdoch’s network supports is pretty funny.", ">\n\nFox News. Ignore it.", ">\n\nFox News is still allowed in here?", ">\n\nFake news. This is Republican propaganda coming from Fox News.", ">\n\nFox News is NOT news", ">\n\nHmm sounds like it was underfunded then. Good thing now we helped ease that problem. Thanks Biden", ">\n\nIt's simply laziness by the IRS. Lower-income households have less complicated returns and easier to process. I'm sure IRS runs a non-effective but management-pleasing metric like \"how many returns were corrected\" opposed to how much money was recouped.", ">\n\nWe know. They don't have the resources to do anything. That was the point of increasing the staffing at the IRS so they had even the slightest hope of going after the big offenders with their armies or lawyers.", ">\n\nThere's less millionaires and billionaires than there are us. I'm not sure that answer fits the accuracy on hiring more workers but I'll go ahead and amuse that", ">\n\nIt's not a game of tax guy vs rich guy. The rich literally have armies of lawyers. You need the staff to overcome all the paper and challenges they'll throw at you. \nIf you throw one person to audit a millionaire, their lawyers can make it so it'll take a year to review a week of operations. Investigations will never finish unless there's sufficient staff to overcome their obstruction.", ">\n\nTo this day I do not understand why the IRS can demand our documents every year without a warrant. The 16th amendment does not alter the 4th, and the 4th does not apply only to criminal actions (as the 5th explicitly does). Yet no one seems to care about this annual violations.", ">\n\nReminder, Fox News is not news. It's entertainment, and should be regarded as such.", ">\n\nNo shit, poor ppl tend to file their own taxes and screw up where as millionaires hire expensive accountants to exploit all the legal loopholes without getting their clients in trouble.\nI don't think it's an intentional targeting as the article may be implying.", ">\n\nOne might imagine the resources of agents would be better put to use by focusing on returns that might produce more revenue, however it may be just a lot easier to collect a few bucks from easier targets.", ">\n\nThey are short staffed and accountants make it so difficult to find wrongdoing, if there is even wrongdoing to be found, that it would take a decent chunk of their workforce just to tackle it. It's like trying to find needle in a haystack but you don't know if there's a needle or not.", ">\n\nSo true....", ">\n\nShocked pikachu face.", ">\n\nYeah I’d believe this if it weren’t Fox News. They could give a fuck about the poor and middle class.", ">\n\nI would literally rather the IRS spend its time auditing 5 extraordinarily rich people or a single business than anyone who makes less than 100k per year\nETA: I’m aware that this article represents part of the Republican agenda to just gut the IRS and welfare spending generally. And I understand the difficulties in auditing the rich/businesses v lower income people claiming tax credits, etc", ">\n\nAlmost all of the little people \"audits\" are just a computer issuing a correspondence \"audit\" because the person misreported something from their W2, didn't report as much 1099 income as was reported to the IRS by others, or separated parents both trying to claim kids for tax credits or something. \n-\nThey don't really pull from the same resources. The rich people audits require human beings. Little people \"audits\" aren't really audits and a computer can do it. So if we want to audit more rich people, they need actual budget for human beings. The little people are going to be caught anyways because a computer can do it.", ">\n\nI interned at the IRS during the summer of 2012 when Lois Lerner made batshit crazy commrnts that they were targetting conservative groups", ">\n\nI say this every time it gets brought up. This is by design. I used to work in auditing and also used to do tax stuff. It’s super easy to find tax fraud on someone who only has a simple W-2 and no other income. You could find those people through a basic algorithm. Meanwhile, auditing a multi millionaire is expensive, time consuming, and often fruitless. If I was in charge of an underfunded, understaffed IRS I would tell my staff to go for the easy wins too.", ">\n\nUnpopular opinion - More funding won't resolve this. \nThe IRS will keep doing this. Unless rules & regulations forbid or disincentivize this practice, the IRS will keep this stupid practice", ">\n\nI make $40,000 a year and the IRS froze my bank accounts until I paid them $1000 in taxes I owed them because of an error I made filling my taxes. They froze my bank accounts for $1000. I was fucked for a month. I had to borrow cash from people just for food and gas money to get to work to get paid money that I couldn’t access. It was a scary time for me. Meanwhile millionaires are purposely avoiding taxes worth more than what I make in a year and nothing happens to them.", ">\n\nThe IRS sends no less than a dozen letters to a taxpayer prior to leaving a bank account. Why didn't you just put it into a repayment plan? Takes about ten minutes online.", ">\n\nDon't you just hate autocorrect?", ">\n\nIf true, its a holdover from jrbush who slashed IRS staff and budget and told them to spend more time auditing tip jars and busboys than millionaires because the millionaires had better lawyers than the IRS and service workers were unlikely to have any lawyers at all.", ">\n\nFox News solution: remove the IRS", ">\n\nAbsolutely. They’ll NEVER target the rich, adding more agents just made them a lot more capable to target all the lower class.", ">\n\nWhat people don't realize..Those 87K \"Agents\" aren't that. It's 87K employees over 25 years. Clerks etc. People are so fucking stupid when they just believe these clowns.", ">\n\nThose numbers also count it as an \"audit\" when a person misreports a number from a W2, 1099s, etc and the irs number matching software sends an automatically generated correspondence letter that basically says \"we actually show this number, this is what your tax return would have been if you reported that number correctly\". \nThe IRS isn't wasting time doing random \"audits\" as people think of them for low to middle income people. It would be a complete waste of their time. The computer just catches obvious verifiable mistakes and it counts as an audit in those numbers.", ">\n\n“those in the lowest income bracket hit 12.7 per 1,000….. The odds of a millionaire facing an audit were around 1.1%.”\nSo they’re saying 1.27% vs 1.1%!!! And acting like that’s a scandal 🙄", ">\n\nWhich means millionaires REALLY don't want more IRS auditors which means when our new resident house fascist fires five thousand auditors, said fascist (McCarthy) is making sure those millionaires aren't going to get audited. \nCha CHING !!! Go the \"donations\" into house rat republican's pockets. \nThe grift will be in full swing shortly.\nAnd with putin whispering in their ears and telling them EXACTLY how break the law - how can they lose?", ">\n\n💯 Exactly why theres a Fox link here pushing for that same reason.", ">\n\nTwo things. First of all, this is from a far right-wing propaganda outlet which should immediately raise red flags. They're trying to scare you into allowing a republican-initiated movement to entirely remove all remaining power from the IRS by making it seem like they're coming after you.\nSecond, the reason the IRS is already already virtually powerless against the rich is because the republicans have already eviscerated them in the past several decades, largely through defunding them leading to not only staffing cuts, but the inability to pursue the wealthiest people who have the resources for endless litigation. So as a result, the FBI can only really afford to go after people who cannot financially defend themselves.", ">\n\nThird, you might as well throw in that the aiming low guidance was under a Trump appointee who is no longer in that position.", ">\n\nThe GOP intentionally defunded the IRS so that it could not audit the wealthy. It takes a great deal more money upfront to audit them but the payback is far greater.", ">\n\nI'm not sure why dems voted against an amendment that would have mandated the giant infusion of cash into the IRS couldn't be used to audit folks making >$400k.", ">\n\nHrm this is pretty fucked I'd like to hear about why the Dems voted nay.", ">\n\nBecause they work for the same people as Republicans. \nThey are different but only when their owners allow them to be. \nI don't know how many times we are going to have to learn this lesson before it sticks.", ">\n\nDemocrats are responsible for this", ">\n\nThe rich returns are just too hard, enough lower class errors you can leave the rich alone. Love to see it… sigh", ">\n\nIt takes money to police the wealthy. Can't have that can we?!", ">\n\nr/noshitsherlock", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised?\nI’m not even American and this seemed obvious to me. All you have to do is look at how the poor live and compare that to the news about someone like Elon musk or Donald trump.", ">\n\nThis is why the IRS needs to go.", ">\n\nFox News helped make that happen.", ">\n\nThey'll never change,all the time when the guys in charge benefit from doing the same shit.", ">\n\nAnd yet the republicans dont submit or pass legislations to change the rules to favor targeting rich people. Curious.", ">\n\nThen 78,000 new, armed tax collectors should be able to extract even more money from the poor, middle-class and small business owners.", ">\n\nWhy did they focus on the Poorest? The thought of 87,000 more of them will actually do what? If the existing can’t focus on the wealthy! Then what makes anybody think more can?", ">\n\nMillionaires and billionaires make the government more money by creating lobbying loopholes and exploiting the economy to bilk the 99%. It's really cheap to go after the poorest who are struggling to pay day to day obligations and don't have loopholes or government sanctioned exploitation to take advantage of.", ">\n\nI could have told you this would happen. You think millionaires get $600 Venmo transactions?", ">\n\nThat's a move democrats should not make. That's one month of rent for me. What of folks worse-off?", ">\n\nHonestly it’s like squeezing blood from the stone over here anyway.", ">\n\nDuh lmfao theyve already stated it costs too much to tax weathy people previously and its most cost effective to audit the poor due to many factors...", ">\n\nI mean 99% of us are poor compared to the other 1%", ">\n\nColor me surprised", ">\n\nWe need some laws for equitable auditing.", ">\n\nYou are an Army commander about to attack the enemy. Do you prefer to attack where they have experienced career solders backed up by artillery, tanks, and airplanes, or do you attack where there are poorly armed and equipped untrained conscripts?", ">\n\nThey must be upset someone replaced their sign with a card from Cards Against Humanity", ">\n\nMay it ever be so…. Don’t reproduce if you only consume and can’t accumulate or help a Dow Jones winter water witch. Like snow, weathermen.", ">\n\nIt’s weirdly fitting how much their building sign in the photo looks like a cards against humanity card.", ">\n\nTypical", ">\n\nWow? How unusual.", ">\n\nI’d support double the number of IRS agents", ">\n\nI was low income and won about 3,000 gambling, the irs went after me", ">\n\nThe IRS came after me hard for 8$", ">\n\nAudit frequency should correlate to income, someone with a million in income should be audited 10x those with 100k income", ">\n\nSomeone should explain Pareto charts to the IRS.", ">\n\nI've been audited three times. First when I was 27, did some consulting and didn't do the 1099 prepayments. Ended up owing $17k. Second audit was after moving across country for a job. The tax preparer we hired made a mistake with the move expense deductions, owed a few thousand. Third audit was another tax preparer mistake, but this time we overpaid and were owed money we credited to the next year. \nIf you assume for discussion that the average audit on an ordinary tax payer returns $10,000, it would take 100,000,000 audits to make $1 trillion. By just doing the easy work, the IRS is leaving the real money on the table.", ">\n\nRepublicans are famous for giving rich breaks while middle class etc close the gaps", ">\n\nThe last line, \"The Inflation Reduction Act provides the IRS with $80 billion in future funding to ramp up its audits and potentially target the wealthiest taxpayers.\"", ">\n\nThe cure is not the root cause, but the middle class and the poor will eventually bear the burden after the capital operation", ">\n\nIt’s like they timed the “research” and the drop of the article with the speech. Sad man.", ">\n\nWatch Madoff. The wealthy skate and steal billions. The poor are in prison over thousands.", ">\n\nWhy does their sign look like a Card Against Humanity", ">\n\nFucking Trump, still at it.", ">\n\nOh you mean the thing people said would happen once they got massive funding actually happened? Checks out", ">\n\nOf course they did, because millionaires will lawyer up.", ">\n\nBecause the poor can't afford to fight back.", ">\n\nIt's so unfair the poor and the middle class taxpayers suffer so much while the millionaries got away with not paying the taxes It's really hurting the poor. The middle class is fading", ">\n\nAll of this can be fixed if we just use no-exemption graduated income", ">\n\nYeah we know", ">\n\nShow of hands for all surprised.\ncrickets\nHmm. Seems like Reddit suffers from a plague of double amputees...", ">\n\nWhat the actual fuck", ">\n\nAnd 2021, 2020, 2019, …", ">\n\nSounds about right.", ">\n\nOf course. Poor people can’t afford attorneys.", ">\n\nI made a mistake on my forms while I was overseas and ticked “self-employed” instead of “employed”. I was on a student visa and had two children and was making less than 10k a year. They hounded me for years. By the time I figured out what had happened I could not amend the forms and had paid thousands in penalties and interest.\nMeanwhile I knew lots of people who were there fully employed not reporting their income.\nFuck them.", ">\n\nYep! During the pandemic, even while I wasn't working didn't come after me the entire time that I was working but the minute that I wasn't nobody was cuz we were in lockdown they started popping up", ">\n\nI just now realized that the Cards Against Humanity box looks like the IRS sign", ">\n\nWhy is the sign a Cards Against Humanity question?", ">\n\nI am shocked and appalled. clutches pearls", ">\n\nRich should be taxed more than the average not right at all. Or at least there is a tier system based on pay only makes sense. Come on now", ">\n\nSounds about right, make the rich richer again.", ">\n\nWho are we going to vote for in the future ,all of them are decayed , corrupted and useless , the “most rich country in the world , governed by the most ignorant an corrupted. What a contrast .", ">\n\nGod bless America", ">\n\nno way. wait until you see those people responds. Those people are chipping away.", ">\n\nSounds about right", ">\n\nWe know.", ">\n\nI find it rather comical that Fox news is reporting on this since they are all about pushing the Republican agenda and that is all about pushing everyone else down that isn't rich and keeping them there. Not to mention they had no problem with Trump not paying taxes for years.", ">\n\nCan fucking confirm.", ">\n\nYeah, they (millionaires) have accountants who generally do things right and due to their millions being in investments it's not like it's taxable all the time. \nThen there's the ability to sell any stocks when they're down to build up losses on paper can reinvest them at a loss that can carry over across multiple years.", ">\n\nsounds about right. i don’t have a pot to piss in but they’re all over me for someone stealing my identity and filing a double tax return one year.", ">\n\nDuh", ">\n\nThere’s a reason why FOX is posting this article. The less people at the IRS, the more likely they come after folks who can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nIn order to pursue wealthy tax cheats, the IRS needs more resources and personnel. Otherwise it’s business as usual, picking on the low hanging fruit that earns under 6 figures.", ">\n\nSo wrong ....people need to be fired", ">\n\nIt’s because they can’t afford to take them to court", ">\n\nOf course it is about protecting the rich like Trump who lies ,lies , and about his tax returns . No wonder he did not want them released .", ">\n\nEasy prey bc most ppl can not lawyer up. Pretty heart breaking system we have at times.", ">\n\nWhy does the irs sign look like it's from cards against humanity?", ">\n\nCurrently getting audited over \\~$1500, which they owe me, when the rich get away with murder. Fucking unbelievably and unnecessarily stressful for me.", ">\n\nHas t this been know for a while?", ">\n\nyep and they are the same people getting tax cuts while everyone else does it tough ....\nAny one with too much money is your enemy .... not a hero of democracy", ">\n\nGet rid of taxes and the gov’t should just do stuff for free, or what ever.", ">\n\nYou have to be careful when you get one of those CP2000 notices from the IRS. The way they are written is a trap.\nIf you dispute it you are supposed to indicate that you disagree and send it back with documents supporting your dispute.\nYou are only supposed to sign it if you agree with them and when you sign it you are signing away your rights to dispute the back taxes and penalties they are demanding.\nMere worker bees like us can expect to be getting a lot of those from this years tax returns considering how the threshold for 1099k forms has been dropped to $600.\nGuys like Trump? The IRS doesn't even know where to begin.", ">\n\nThanks Biden", ">\n\nI presume those lower-income bracket filers might be more likely to reach out to 1-800-infomercial [quickie settlement/long-term penalties most favorable to gov/proprietor] than retain proper legal counsel?\nRegardless it’s got to be a lot less work for IRS agent to go after under-represented citizen(s), rather than someone who can afford to appeal, properly negotiate on their own terms?", ">\n\nLmfao Dems tax and spend. But I have to admit there Republicans that tax and spend to. Where do these Politicians get off taxing me or business and give to people who don't work what do you cause d the inflation. You can not print money \nI am Conservative not a Republican. To much money is wasted and put in pockets of people ot don't belong.\nBut all dems know how to tax tax tax. \nIts all great and good until you run out if other peoples money. \nMillionaire just like Berny he hated Millionaires until he became one now he hates Trillionaires. Funny how the gold post changes. And good old Nancy her I side stock trading. So I think you need to rethink.", ">\n\nThe IRS is only doing as directed by whomever controls the White House.", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised by this? Really?", ">\n\nThe sign in the thumbnail looks like a Cards Against Humanity card.", ">\n\nWhile this is mostly true, don’t believe everything you read. I’m no more an accountant than I am a ladies man, but someone (said they’re an accountant) posted a few days ago about this. They explained that the most likely people getting audited are trying to, fraudulently or mistakenly, claim the EITC. \nYES, it’s super easy to “bust” these people for an easy “mistake”. This is who the IRS is cracking down on. \nDo I think it’s better to bust poor people for claiming a few thousand in tax credits vs billionaires who avoid taxes altogether? Of course not, but don’t think they’re actively targeting people who fudge their mileage deductions or miss a decimal point in their calculations as small business owners. It’s simply not happening. \nAnd the reported “87,000 new IRS agents” are replacing the 10’s of 1,000’s of employees set to retire or quit over the next 10 years which doesn’t even begin to fill the gaps we’ve been growing for decades by not hiring and training more willing workers. Not to mention they’re not even close to all employees who will actively audit tax payers. They’re people who answer phones, file papers, assist others, etc… They’re mostly just average people with average jobs so of course the GOP wants to end this. They hate upward mobility and job creation unless that means tax breaks for their billionaire friends.", ">\n\nI wish everyone wasn’t a sheep and would understand this.", ">\n\nI can see the Media doing their best to turn the public against the IRS.", ">\n\nPicking on the week and helpless. That’s what we humans do. We suck. I’m waiting for that big meteor reset button.", ">\n\nAnd Fox news loves this.", ">\n\nLove it, Faux 'News' taking the piss, for 4 years under Dear Leader they campaigned for tax breaks for the rich, now they're pretending to care about the poor !", ">\n\nEvery millionaire should be audited yearly. Period.", ">\n\nAND now the gqp cult promises to rescind the money Biden set aside to aid the IRS to recover taxes from mega millionaire tax cheats like benedict donald, who paid less taxes than most working Americans.", ">\n\nRepublicans want to stop the IRS and Congress from taxing rich people, making the burden of maintaining civilization fall more heavily on poorer people. This is why Republicans vote for tax cuts for the rich and against funding for the IRS.\nAnd since Republican beliefs are based on wishful thinking, Republicans can screw over poor, rural Republicans while simultaneously taking credit for doing it to make Republicans happy about it and blaming it on Democrats to make those same Republicans resentful against Democrats for it. And what else would we expect from a Republican Party that blames Democrats for tricking them into attacking the Capitol to make Trump look bad and justifies and approves of assaulting Capitol police while brandishing their \"thin blue line\" flags.", ">\n\nThe IRS is like any other law enforcement agency, they prefer pursuing the poor because they don't have the resources to protect themselves.", ">\n\nThe IRS building sign looks like its from cards against humanity.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nNot a reliable news source.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nThat picture looks like the worst cards against humanity card too get.", ">\n\nScrew the Murdoch media empire and their failed trickle down ideologies.", ">\n\nOf course, the poorest haven’t paid over 400+ billion for decades. Not sure about the rich, we haven’t checked.", ">\n\nThis is not a surprise. With the recent inflation reduction act, the IRS an additional $80B over 10 years or $8B per year. The IRS budget for 2021 was $13.7B. The additional $8B over the year would be an increase of 58% to their budget. They will be looking to get a lot more money from taxpayers, due to this very large increase in their budget.", ">\n\nFox reported this? I'm in shock", ">\n\nAll propagandists publish clickbaity stuff that makes them sound like maybe they've let up on the evil. Unfortunately it works, since people just upvote headlines.", ">\n\nIt’s only going to get worse in 2023. Those 87k new IRS agents will not be going after the wealthy.", ">\n\nWhy?\nThat’s literally why they were being added. The IRS goes after the poorer taxpayers because they are low-hanging fruit and don’t have the lawyers and accountants to protect them. \nThe additional IRS employees were to give the personnel staffing sufficient to go after the wealthy.", ">\n\nIt doesn’t matter how many IRS agents there are. It will always be easier and more profitable for the IRS to nickel and dime the average taxpayer rather than go after the wealthy, who have the resources to lawyer up with the best lawyers and challenge the IRS in court.", ">\n\nEasier? Yes. More profitable? Doubtful.", ">\n\nIf Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nBut in 2022 ( when Biden was president and the House belonged to the Dems) they didn’t did they.", ">\n\nIt takes time to refactor an organization. It’s still full of Trump appointees.", ">\n\n2020 was a long time ago" ]
> Fun with statistics Tale as old as time	[ "If Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nAnd when Barry was president they targeted conservative groups. I think phone calls can be made to tell them to back off of the little guy.", ">\n\n\nthey targeted conservative groups.\n\nNo. They went after specifically anti-tax tea party groups. The groups who openly flaunted tax laws", ">\n\nThey also went after progressive, left leaning groups - how do you explain that ? it was political", ">\n\nWait, did they target conservatives or progressives? Lol", ">\n\nBoth- it was quite clear they were involving themselves in politics - that’s what the IG found", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.", ">\n\nYep!\nAlso this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious.\nThe real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade.", ">\n\nThanks for the informative reply.\nYou make great points which I don't doubt. But there are times when I think it's important to consider both the letter and spirit of law at times.\nEven though it is perfectly by the letter of the law that people should be checked, it also seems against the intended spirit of said law that only a certain group of people are checked.\nI am not familiar with US law, but I think most of us can feel some degree of injustice with how things currently are.", ">\n\nThe point is to automate more checking of income common to wealthier people, and devote more resources to auditing those people. The Fox News article is disingenuous in how it describes the automated checking that goes on. It’s not great that rich people aren’t really audited, but there’s no reason to stop the automated checking of income where it’s already being done and essentially free to continue.\nIf you feel differently, explain yourself.", ">\n\nNo, we are in alignment concerning this.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nFUCK FOX NEWS\nFox is pretending to care about us poors. \nDon't reward these fascist fucks with upvotes for a disingenuous clickbait headline. They still hate us for not voting gop.", ">\n\nThey want people to hate the IRS and help defund it so they don’t go after the rich, which was the purpose of the additional funding", ">\n\nThey want people to link this to “87000” new agents, which is obviously happening on social media posts, but it’s not even a thing.", ">\n\nArticle is trash. The author is including correspondence audits (which means the IRS asked for some documentation by mail) for low income filers but not for millionaires when comparing their audit rates. Here are actual numbers according to their own source:\nAudit rates including correspondence audits\nlow income 1.27%\nmillionaires 2.38% \nAudit rates excluding correspondence audits\nlow income 0.0376%\nmillionaires 1.24%\n.\nFor low income filers, nearly all their audits were correspondence audits.", ">\n\nIt's hilarious when Fox News and the GOP pretend they care about poor people.\nNo amount of hypocrisy is too much to try to make democrats look bad.", ">\n\nIts unfortunately far easier to prove married couples who live together filed HoH for extra earned income credit than it is to prove complicated returns were incorrect.", ">\n\nIt's also trivially easy to prove the same child was claimed by two parents which is a lot of correspondence audits.", ">\n\nSo can my back taxes please just get forgiven already. 20% income being taxed is not livable", ">\n\nRepublican love flat rate taxes, you should talk to them.", ">\n\nThey’re required to audit the president and vice president, and that didn’t happen either.", ">\n\nThis isn't new, it's been been having for the last 5 - 6 years.", ">\n\nHopefully some wake up and realize its all just preparing us for the inevitable destruction of our economy. I imagine its almost too late to realize this. If we all realized this wed sell our 401Ks and not lean on money and use it to help our neighbors.", ">\n\nK bro.", ">\n\nMy wife and I are on social security. She works part time to keep us afloat. All in, we earned $50K in 2022. iRS wants $4500 from us. Really? 5X what Trump paid? Don't know if anyone is paying attention but $50k ain't rich. Oh, and out of that comes almost $4k in Medicare premiums. A program we paid into for 40+ years.\nEveryone of these arrogant, unqualified,, spoon fed assholes in Congress should be made to live on SSI or welfare, with no medical coverage, for a year. Then tell me I am acting entitled.\nSelf serving bastards.", ">\n\nDon't upvote this crap.\nDo you really think Fox cares about the working class??\nThis is just right wing propaganda, timed to coincide with McCarthy's promise to get rid of the new IRS agents who make it possible to audit the rich.\nDon't be used.", ">\n\nWhatever happened to \"dont shoot the messenger?\"", ">\n\nIRS understaffing would naturally trend to go after low-lying fruit. Easy pickings. Too many man hours to go after super complex cases. These moneyed fuckers and their bullshit. It's outrageous.", ">\n\nThe vast majority of these audits are automatically generated correspondence audits that have to be issued. We can't just turn off the program that raises a red flag when two people claim the same child as a dependent because we don't have enough forensic accountants. If you mistype your W2 you'll get an \"audit\" showing the correct info from the copy your boss sent them and telling you they'll correct it unless you tell them otherwise and you don't have to do anything if the info they have is correct.", ">\n\nYeah, all the nonsense about the IRS \"going after\" low income people is so stupid. Low income people make money in a way that their reporting is easily verifiable by a computer. They're also most likely to mess up and claim child tax credits incorrectly, etc - all of which is verifiable and issued a letter by a computer. \n-\nOther than actually being able to get someone on the phone when you call the IRS, and increased budget isn't going to impact the average person in any way.", ">\n\nMy thing is even assuming the 87k don't successfully get more money out of the rich, that's still 87k jobs. That's a net positive. I just don't understand the conservative logic here. Do they think these 87k new jobs are specifically for being insidiously predatory toward the poor? Where's the logic here? (I know I'll get hyperbolic answers, but I genuinely would like to know)", ">\n\nIt's 87,000 jobs over 10 years, the majority of which are replacement during that period. It's just a budget supplemental to stop hemorrhaging agents as they retire or cycle out into other jobs.", ">\n\nso.. this is on fox, which I assume support republican efforts to ensure that this is the permanent state of affairs. I don't really get anything anymore.", ">\n\nAnd that is the way the GOP wants it.", ">\n\n💯 Exactly what this Fox article is trying to do.", ">\n\nIt's who can afford a lawyer", ">\n\nAs the article hints at, the IRS does not do a lot of actual auditing. What it does is computer matching, which automatically generates material for a correspondence audit. Most correspondence audits occur because som poor working Joe didn't know he/her was supposed to include or exclude something, and the IRS caught it in its matching. Of course, the problem is that we have a complex code and little help in actually helping people through the various forms, rules, and so on. But millionaires don't have these issues, so they can escape most of the traps that lead to a correspondence audit. If a lot of these 87,000 were in taxpayer service (which I expect) it would lead to fewer audits at the low end, more robust audits for large corporations, wealthy individuals, and those who actively use tax avoidance strategies. But of course that is not the dialogue that gets promoted when the 87,000 agents are discussed.", ">\n\nThis is exactly why Fox News needs to be dismantled and thrown in the garbage. Ugh, \"look poors! They're coming for yoU!!!\". Scare tactics. And guess what? It sadly works. Every time.\nThey're lower than scum.", ">\n\nExactly. It's when someone misreports a number from their W2, didn't report 1099s they received, both separated parents claim a tax credit for the same kid, etc. All stuff that's easily checked by a computer. The IRS isn't \"auditing\" random low to middle income people. That would be a complete waste of their time.", ">\n\nlooks at Trump You don't say.", ">\n\nThe poor can't defend themselves, it's easier to take a little bit of money from people that won't fight back than a lot of money from people that will.", ">\n\nThe mega rich seem like they’re on a mission to destroy America, as we know it.", ">\n\nHiring 87,000 new IRS agents makes it possible to audit billionaires. So they pay their share. Those audits require an actual person or team that knows what they are doing. But Kevin McCarthy's first item of business was to announce legislation to overturn the hiring of 87,000 IRS agents. Meaning only the little guy (who can be audited by computer software) pays taxes.\nSSDD", ">\n\nThe \"87,000\" agents budget is over a ten year period. It's not for 87,000 new positions.", ">\n\nThe title is so misleading. Im surprised fox even put the juicy bit in the article about how (this stat is due to there not being enough IRS workers because) these \"audits\" on low earners are just automated letters asking for more info.\nYet again, this is just millionairs paid by billionairs to mislead the masses into blaming the poor for crimes committed by said billionairs.", ">\n\nWhich is why the IRS needs more manpower and budget, so they can go after the big fish.\nFuck Fox News and their Republican propaganda pieces. This article coincides with McCarthy saying they’ll cut the IRS budget and that the IRS is coming for you.\nFuck off Republican propaganda rag!\nStop upvoting any Fox News story. Fox should not be on the white list.", ">\n\nThis is a terrible article. It seems to include questions about tax returns as audits. If a low income filer makes a mistake it should be corrected. Is that an audit? If anyone makes a mistake and is contacted, is that an audit? Also there is no reason to go after low income as they rarely pay tax or are required to. The money requested would also pay for people to answer a phone. Those against increasing funding lie when they say all of it goes to audits. If you tell the truth, who cares if you are audited? Are y’all aware you can track your personal return online? However a business cannot. Businesses have to rely on humans that can’t be reached. I’ve waited a year for a refund. Didn’t know if IRS received the return. Didn’t know if there was an issue. Didn’t know if it was mailed or lost. I’m getting tired of Republicans pushing their crap on people.", ">\n\nwho keeps upvoting this right wing propaganda", ">\n\nWhy would the GOP want to give the agency the power to go after their donors.", ">\n\nAnd it was trumps guy that mandated it while Biden replaced him", ">\n\nApparently the mere use of an accounting firm somehow protected corps and the rich from the IRS who still (mistakenly) believe the accounting firms are trustworthy. How naive.", ">\n\nThe \"audits\" talked about are mostly form letters requesting more info about specific items.", ">\n\nThe poor can't pay for top flight attorneys.", ">\n\nYep keep the IRS underfunded so they can only go after the poors at the same time telling all the poors that the IRS is bad cause it goes after them but leave out the fact that they do that cause the poors are low hanging fruit.\nRepublicans are evil.", ">\n\nWell the GOP wants to cut funding to the IRS for new agents, so I’m sure the poor folk will continue to get screwed. I say toss the 50,000+ page tax code out and replace with a percentage based on total revenue/income made. Took a loss? No write-offs. Oh well, better luck next year. It’ll never happen because the wealthy don’t want it to.", ">\n\nWhere did you get this info? I know GOPers have been slashing IRS budgets and staffing for years but can't find reliable sources for what this has done to the actual audits - like who gets audited.", ">\n\nTheir link is Fox. This is a bad faith post.", ">\n\nThis says a lot coming from fox “news”", ">\n\nTo paraphrase Gilbert K. Chesterton, \"The Poor have sometimes objected to being taxed too heavily; The Rich have always objected to being taxed at all.\"", ">\n\ndon't post Fox news here....", ">\n\nCorporations and millionaires have the means to hire accountants and attorneys. Our tax code is gray in several areas. It’s easy to go after the poor that do not have the resources and will have no choice but to pay anything the IRS says. The additional agents will continue to target the poor and middle class because they are easy, It’s happened before, it will continue to happen.", ">\n\nI think it's funny/sad that a poor person can win the lottery and they get taxed at a higher rate than any billionaire has ever been taxed at. The system is built to keep the rich - rich and the poor - poor.", ">\n\nThe poorest can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nThe current system cannot be sustained. We are hurtling towards disaster.", ">\n\nThe only reason the bastards have the majority is because the corrupt SCOTUS allowed illegal gerrymanders to stand while they were fought in the courts.", ">\n\nThe I.R.S. goes after the poorer people because it's easier. They can't afford lawyers and accountants. So the poor can do nothing but roll over and take it up the rump. The Inflation Reduction Act that Biden signed into law in August is supposed to give $80 Billion to the I.R.S. so they can go after the millionaires. But we know that won't happen. More poor people are going to get screwed.", ">\n\nI'm confused. For decades, Faux news and the conservatives have been saying that millionaires deserve to keep more of their money than we do. That was a huge part of the 2017 tax scam that Trump signed. Now Faux is saying it's a problem? And they are rightly detailing that Republicans are the cause, along with Biden trying to fix the same issue that Fox has helped create?", ">\n\nFox News", ">\n\nHey IRS, don't forget to crawl up my ass this year because I sold some old stuff on eBay for a loss but make sure you put a few man hours into figuring out if it is legit or not.", ">\n\nlol, and the people opposed to IRS funding will say they are anti-establishment.", ">\n\nImagine how much they could squeeze the middle class with 87,000 more agents! But really, it’ll be good to see if the increase in officers actually increases tax revenue without changing the underlying laws.", ">\n\nSo, this is the newest Republican boogeyman, the IRS.\nWell, better than Drag Queens I guess.", ">\n\nOh hey just like last year, and the year before that, I think there might be a pattern", ">\n\nThank you republicans, always sticking up in the back on the small guys…", ">\n\nFox News saying this like it’s not something Rupert Murdoch’s network supports is pretty funny.", ">\n\nFox News. Ignore it.", ">\n\nFox News is still allowed in here?", ">\n\nFake news. This is Republican propaganda coming from Fox News.", ">\n\nFox News is NOT news", ">\n\nHmm sounds like it was underfunded then. Good thing now we helped ease that problem. Thanks Biden", ">\n\nIt's simply laziness by the IRS. Lower-income households have less complicated returns and easier to process. I'm sure IRS runs a non-effective but management-pleasing metric like \"how many returns were corrected\" opposed to how much money was recouped.", ">\n\nWe know. They don't have the resources to do anything. That was the point of increasing the staffing at the IRS so they had even the slightest hope of going after the big offenders with their armies or lawyers.", ">\n\nThere's less millionaires and billionaires than there are us. I'm not sure that answer fits the accuracy on hiring more workers but I'll go ahead and amuse that", ">\n\nIt's not a game of tax guy vs rich guy. The rich literally have armies of lawyers. You need the staff to overcome all the paper and challenges they'll throw at you. \nIf you throw one person to audit a millionaire, their lawyers can make it so it'll take a year to review a week of operations. Investigations will never finish unless there's sufficient staff to overcome their obstruction.", ">\n\nTo this day I do not understand why the IRS can demand our documents every year without a warrant. The 16th amendment does not alter the 4th, and the 4th does not apply only to criminal actions (as the 5th explicitly does). Yet no one seems to care about this annual violations.", ">\n\nReminder, Fox News is not news. It's entertainment, and should be regarded as such.", ">\n\nNo shit, poor ppl tend to file their own taxes and screw up where as millionaires hire expensive accountants to exploit all the legal loopholes without getting their clients in trouble.\nI don't think it's an intentional targeting as the article may be implying.", ">\n\nOne might imagine the resources of agents would be better put to use by focusing on returns that might produce more revenue, however it may be just a lot easier to collect a few bucks from easier targets.", ">\n\nThey are short staffed and accountants make it so difficult to find wrongdoing, if there is even wrongdoing to be found, that it would take a decent chunk of their workforce just to tackle it. It's like trying to find needle in a haystack but you don't know if there's a needle or not.", ">\n\nSo true....", ">\n\nShocked pikachu face.", ">\n\nYeah I’d believe this if it weren’t Fox News. They could give a fuck about the poor and middle class.", ">\n\nI would literally rather the IRS spend its time auditing 5 extraordinarily rich people or a single business than anyone who makes less than 100k per year\nETA: I’m aware that this article represents part of the Republican agenda to just gut the IRS and welfare spending generally. And I understand the difficulties in auditing the rich/businesses v lower income people claiming tax credits, etc", ">\n\nAlmost all of the little people \"audits\" are just a computer issuing a correspondence \"audit\" because the person misreported something from their W2, didn't report as much 1099 income as was reported to the IRS by others, or separated parents both trying to claim kids for tax credits or something. \n-\nThey don't really pull from the same resources. The rich people audits require human beings. Little people \"audits\" aren't really audits and a computer can do it. So if we want to audit more rich people, they need actual budget for human beings. The little people are going to be caught anyways because a computer can do it.", ">\n\nI interned at the IRS during the summer of 2012 when Lois Lerner made batshit crazy commrnts that they were targetting conservative groups", ">\n\nI say this every time it gets brought up. This is by design. I used to work in auditing and also used to do tax stuff. It’s super easy to find tax fraud on someone who only has a simple W-2 and no other income. You could find those people through a basic algorithm. Meanwhile, auditing a multi millionaire is expensive, time consuming, and often fruitless. If I was in charge of an underfunded, understaffed IRS I would tell my staff to go for the easy wins too.", ">\n\nUnpopular opinion - More funding won't resolve this. \nThe IRS will keep doing this. Unless rules & regulations forbid or disincentivize this practice, the IRS will keep this stupid practice", ">\n\nI make $40,000 a year and the IRS froze my bank accounts until I paid them $1000 in taxes I owed them because of an error I made filling my taxes. They froze my bank accounts for $1000. I was fucked for a month. I had to borrow cash from people just for food and gas money to get to work to get paid money that I couldn’t access. It was a scary time for me. Meanwhile millionaires are purposely avoiding taxes worth more than what I make in a year and nothing happens to them.", ">\n\nThe IRS sends no less than a dozen letters to a taxpayer prior to leaving a bank account. Why didn't you just put it into a repayment plan? Takes about ten minutes online.", ">\n\nDon't you just hate autocorrect?", ">\n\nIf true, its a holdover from jrbush who slashed IRS staff and budget and told them to spend more time auditing tip jars and busboys than millionaires because the millionaires had better lawyers than the IRS and service workers were unlikely to have any lawyers at all.", ">\n\nFox News solution: remove the IRS", ">\n\nAbsolutely. They’ll NEVER target the rich, adding more agents just made them a lot more capable to target all the lower class.", ">\n\nWhat people don't realize..Those 87K \"Agents\" aren't that. It's 87K employees over 25 years. Clerks etc. People are so fucking stupid when they just believe these clowns.", ">\n\nThose numbers also count it as an \"audit\" when a person misreports a number from a W2, 1099s, etc and the irs number matching software sends an automatically generated correspondence letter that basically says \"we actually show this number, this is what your tax return would have been if you reported that number correctly\". \nThe IRS isn't wasting time doing random \"audits\" as people think of them for low to middle income people. It would be a complete waste of their time. The computer just catches obvious verifiable mistakes and it counts as an audit in those numbers.", ">\n\n“those in the lowest income bracket hit 12.7 per 1,000….. The odds of a millionaire facing an audit were around 1.1%.”\nSo they’re saying 1.27% vs 1.1%!!! And acting like that’s a scandal 🙄", ">\n\nWhich means millionaires REALLY don't want more IRS auditors which means when our new resident house fascist fires five thousand auditors, said fascist (McCarthy) is making sure those millionaires aren't going to get audited. \nCha CHING !!! Go the \"donations\" into house rat republican's pockets. \nThe grift will be in full swing shortly.\nAnd with putin whispering in their ears and telling them EXACTLY how break the law - how can they lose?", ">\n\n💯 Exactly why theres a Fox link here pushing for that same reason.", ">\n\nTwo things. First of all, this is from a far right-wing propaganda outlet which should immediately raise red flags. They're trying to scare you into allowing a republican-initiated movement to entirely remove all remaining power from the IRS by making it seem like they're coming after you.\nSecond, the reason the IRS is already already virtually powerless against the rich is because the republicans have already eviscerated them in the past several decades, largely through defunding them leading to not only staffing cuts, but the inability to pursue the wealthiest people who have the resources for endless litigation. So as a result, the FBI can only really afford to go after people who cannot financially defend themselves.", ">\n\nThird, you might as well throw in that the aiming low guidance was under a Trump appointee who is no longer in that position.", ">\n\nThe GOP intentionally defunded the IRS so that it could not audit the wealthy. It takes a great deal more money upfront to audit them but the payback is far greater.", ">\n\nI'm not sure why dems voted against an amendment that would have mandated the giant infusion of cash into the IRS couldn't be used to audit folks making >$400k.", ">\n\nHrm this is pretty fucked I'd like to hear about why the Dems voted nay.", ">\n\nBecause they work for the same people as Republicans. \nThey are different but only when their owners allow them to be. \nI don't know how many times we are going to have to learn this lesson before it sticks.", ">\n\nDemocrats are responsible for this", ">\n\nThe rich returns are just too hard, enough lower class errors you can leave the rich alone. Love to see it… sigh", ">\n\nIt takes money to police the wealthy. Can't have that can we?!", ">\n\nr/noshitsherlock", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised?\nI’m not even American and this seemed obvious to me. All you have to do is look at how the poor live and compare that to the news about someone like Elon musk or Donald trump.", ">\n\nThis is why the IRS needs to go.", ">\n\nFox News helped make that happen.", ">\n\nThey'll never change,all the time when the guys in charge benefit from doing the same shit.", ">\n\nAnd yet the republicans dont submit or pass legislations to change the rules to favor targeting rich people. Curious.", ">\n\nThen 78,000 new, armed tax collectors should be able to extract even more money from the poor, middle-class and small business owners.", ">\n\nWhy did they focus on the Poorest? The thought of 87,000 more of them will actually do what? If the existing can’t focus on the wealthy! Then what makes anybody think more can?", ">\n\nMillionaires and billionaires make the government more money by creating lobbying loopholes and exploiting the economy to bilk the 99%. It's really cheap to go after the poorest who are struggling to pay day to day obligations and don't have loopholes or government sanctioned exploitation to take advantage of.", ">\n\nI could have told you this would happen. You think millionaires get $600 Venmo transactions?", ">\n\nThat's a move democrats should not make. That's one month of rent for me. What of folks worse-off?", ">\n\nHonestly it’s like squeezing blood from the stone over here anyway.", ">\n\nDuh lmfao theyve already stated it costs too much to tax weathy people previously and its most cost effective to audit the poor due to many factors...", ">\n\nI mean 99% of us are poor compared to the other 1%", ">\n\nColor me surprised", ">\n\nWe need some laws for equitable auditing.", ">\n\nYou are an Army commander about to attack the enemy. Do you prefer to attack where they have experienced career solders backed up by artillery, tanks, and airplanes, or do you attack where there are poorly armed and equipped untrained conscripts?", ">\n\nThey must be upset someone replaced their sign with a card from Cards Against Humanity", ">\n\nMay it ever be so…. Don’t reproduce if you only consume and can’t accumulate or help a Dow Jones winter water witch. Like snow, weathermen.", ">\n\nIt’s weirdly fitting how much their building sign in the photo looks like a cards against humanity card.", ">\n\nTypical", ">\n\nWow? How unusual.", ">\n\nI’d support double the number of IRS agents", ">\n\nI was low income and won about 3,000 gambling, the irs went after me", ">\n\nThe IRS came after me hard for 8$", ">\n\nAudit frequency should correlate to income, someone with a million in income should be audited 10x those with 100k income", ">\n\nSomeone should explain Pareto charts to the IRS.", ">\n\nI've been audited three times. First when I was 27, did some consulting and didn't do the 1099 prepayments. Ended up owing $17k. Second audit was after moving across country for a job. The tax preparer we hired made a mistake with the move expense deductions, owed a few thousand. Third audit was another tax preparer mistake, but this time we overpaid and were owed money we credited to the next year. \nIf you assume for discussion that the average audit on an ordinary tax payer returns $10,000, it would take 100,000,000 audits to make $1 trillion. By just doing the easy work, the IRS is leaving the real money on the table.", ">\n\nRepublicans are famous for giving rich breaks while middle class etc close the gaps", ">\n\nThe last line, \"The Inflation Reduction Act provides the IRS with $80 billion in future funding to ramp up its audits and potentially target the wealthiest taxpayers.\"", ">\n\nThe cure is not the root cause, but the middle class and the poor will eventually bear the burden after the capital operation", ">\n\nIt’s like they timed the “research” and the drop of the article with the speech. Sad man.", ">\n\nWatch Madoff. The wealthy skate and steal billions. The poor are in prison over thousands.", ">\n\nWhy does their sign look like a Card Against Humanity", ">\n\nFucking Trump, still at it.", ">\n\nOh you mean the thing people said would happen once they got massive funding actually happened? Checks out", ">\n\nOf course they did, because millionaires will lawyer up.", ">\n\nBecause the poor can't afford to fight back.", ">\n\nIt's so unfair the poor and the middle class taxpayers suffer so much while the millionaries got away with not paying the taxes It's really hurting the poor. The middle class is fading", ">\n\nAll of this can be fixed if we just use no-exemption graduated income", ">\n\nYeah we know", ">\n\nShow of hands for all surprised.\ncrickets\nHmm. Seems like Reddit suffers from a plague of double amputees...", ">\n\nWhat the actual fuck", ">\n\nAnd 2021, 2020, 2019, …", ">\n\nSounds about right.", ">\n\nOf course. Poor people can’t afford attorneys.", ">\n\nI made a mistake on my forms while I was overseas and ticked “self-employed” instead of “employed”. I was on a student visa and had two children and was making less than 10k a year. They hounded me for years. By the time I figured out what had happened I could not amend the forms and had paid thousands in penalties and interest.\nMeanwhile I knew lots of people who were there fully employed not reporting their income.\nFuck them.", ">\n\nYep! During the pandemic, even while I wasn't working didn't come after me the entire time that I was working but the minute that I wasn't nobody was cuz we were in lockdown they started popping up", ">\n\nI just now realized that the Cards Against Humanity box looks like the IRS sign", ">\n\nWhy is the sign a Cards Against Humanity question?", ">\n\nI am shocked and appalled. clutches pearls", ">\n\nRich should be taxed more than the average not right at all. Or at least there is a tier system based on pay only makes sense. Come on now", ">\n\nSounds about right, make the rich richer again.", ">\n\nWho are we going to vote for in the future ,all of them are decayed , corrupted and useless , the “most rich country in the world , governed by the most ignorant an corrupted. What a contrast .", ">\n\nGod bless America", ">\n\nno way. wait until you see those people responds. Those people are chipping away.", ">\n\nSounds about right", ">\n\nWe know.", ">\n\nI find it rather comical that Fox news is reporting on this since they are all about pushing the Republican agenda and that is all about pushing everyone else down that isn't rich and keeping them there. Not to mention they had no problem with Trump not paying taxes for years.", ">\n\nCan fucking confirm.", ">\n\nYeah, they (millionaires) have accountants who generally do things right and due to their millions being in investments it's not like it's taxable all the time. \nThen there's the ability to sell any stocks when they're down to build up losses on paper can reinvest them at a loss that can carry over across multiple years.", ">\n\nsounds about right. i don’t have a pot to piss in but they’re all over me for someone stealing my identity and filing a double tax return one year.", ">\n\nDuh", ">\n\nThere’s a reason why FOX is posting this article. The less people at the IRS, the more likely they come after folks who can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nIn order to pursue wealthy tax cheats, the IRS needs more resources and personnel. Otherwise it’s business as usual, picking on the low hanging fruit that earns under 6 figures.", ">\n\nSo wrong ....people need to be fired", ">\n\nIt’s because they can’t afford to take them to court", ">\n\nOf course it is about protecting the rich like Trump who lies ,lies , and about his tax returns . No wonder he did not want them released .", ">\n\nEasy prey bc most ppl can not lawyer up. Pretty heart breaking system we have at times.", ">\n\nWhy does the irs sign look like it's from cards against humanity?", ">\n\nCurrently getting audited over \\~$1500, which they owe me, when the rich get away with murder. Fucking unbelievably and unnecessarily stressful for me.", ">\n\nHas t this been know for a while?", ">\n\nyep and they are the same people getting tax cuts while everyone else does it tough ....\nAny one with too much money is your enemy .... not a hero of democracy", ">\n\nGet rid of taxes and the gov’t should just do stuff for free, or what ever.", ">\n\nYou have to be careful when you get one of those CP2000 notices from the IRS. The way they are written is a trap.\nIf you dispute it you are supposed to indicate that you disagree and send it back with documents supporting your dispute.\nYou are only supposed to sign it if you agree with them and when you sign it you are signing away your rights to dispute the back taxes and penalties they are demanding.\nMere worker bees like us can expect to be getting a lot of those from this years tax returns considering how the threshold for 1099k forms has been dropped to $600.\nGuys like Trump? The IRS doesn't even know where to begin.", ">\n\nThanks Biden", ">\n\nI presume those lower-income bracket filers might be more likely to reach out to 1-800-infomercial [quickie settlement/long-term penalties most favorable to gov/proprietor] than retain proper legal counsel?\nRegardless it’s got to be a lot less work for IRS agent to go after under-represented citizen(s), rather than someone who can afford to appeal, properly negotiate on their own terms?", ">\n\nLmfao Dems tax and spend. But I have to admit there Republicans that tax and spend to. Where do these Politicians get off taxing me or business and give to people who don't work what do you cause d the inflation. You can not print money \nI am Conservative not a Republican. To much money is wasted and put in pockets of people ot don't belong.\nBut all dems know how to tax tax tax. \nIts all great and good until you run out if other peoples money. \nMillionaire just like Berny he hated Millionaires until he became one now he hates Trillionaires. Funny how the gold post changes. And good old Nancy her I side stock trading. So I think you need to rethink.", ">\n\nThe IRS is only doing as directed by whomever controls the White House.", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised by this? Really?", ">\n\nThe sign in the thumbnail looks like a Cards Against Humanity card.", ">\n\nWhile this is mostly true, don’t believe everything you read. I’m no more an accountant than I am a ladies man, but someone (said they’re an accountant) posted a few days ago about this. They explained that the most likely people getting audited are trying to, fraudulently or mistakenly, claim the EITC. \nYES, it’s super easy to “bust” these people for an easy “mistake”. This is who the IRS is cracking down on. \nDo I think it’s better to bust poor people for claiming a few thousand in tax credits vs billionaires who avoid taxes altogether? Of course not, but don’t think they’re actively targeting people who fudge their mileage deductions or miss a decimal point in their calculations as small business owners. It’s simply not happening. \nAnd the reported “87,000 new IRS agents” are replacing the 10’s of 1,000’s of employees set to retire or quit over the next 10 years which doesn’t even begin to fill the gaps we’ve been growing for decades by not hiring and training more willing workers. Not to mention they’re not even close to all employees who will actively audit tax payers. They’re people who answer phones, file papers, assist others, etc… They’re mostly just average people with average jobs so of course the GOP wants to end this. They hate upward mobility and job creation unless that means tax breaks for their billionaire friends.", ">\n\nI wish everyone wasn’t a sheep and would understand this.", ">\n\nI can see the Media doing their best to turn the public against the IRS.", ">\n\nPicking on the week and helpless. That’s what we humans do. We suck. I’m waiting for that big meteor reset button.", ">\n\nAnd Fox news loves this.", ">\n\nLove it, Faux 'News' taking the piss, for 4 years under Dear Leader they campaigned for tax breaks for the rich, now they're pretending to care about the poor !", ">\n\nEvery millionaire should be audited yearly. Period.", ">\n\nAND now the gqp cult promises to rescind the money Biden set aside to aid the IRS to recover taxes from mega millionaire tax cheats like benedict donald, who paid less taxes than most working Americans.", ">\n\nRepublicans want to stop the IRS and Congress from taxing rich people, making the burden of maintaining civilization fall more heavily on poorer people. This is why Republicans vote for tax cuts for the rich and against funding for the IRS.\nAnd since Republican beliefs are based on wishful thinking, Republicans can screw over poor, rural Republicans while simultaneously taking credit for doing it to make Republicans happy about it and blaming it on Democrats to make those same Republicans resentful against Democrats for it. And what else would we expect from a Republican Party that blames Democrats for tricking them into attacking the Capitol to make Trump look bad and justifies and approves of assaulting Capitol police while brandishing their \"thin blue line\" flags.", ">\n\nThe IRS is like any other law enforcement agency, they prefer pursuing the poor because they don't have the resources to protect themselves.", ">\n\nThe IRS building sign looks like its from cards against humanity.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nNot a reliable news source.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nThat picture looks like the worst cards against humanity card too get.", ">\n\nScrew the Murdoch media empire and their failed trickle down ideologies.", ">\n\nOf course, the poorest haven’t paid over 400+ billion for decades. Not sure about the rich, we haven’t checked.", ">\n\nThis is not a surprise. With the recent inflation reduction act, the IRS an additional $80B over 10 years or $8B per year. The IRS budget for 2021 was $13.7B. The additional $8B over the year would be an increase of 58% to their budget. They will be looking to get a lot more money from taxpayers, due to this very large increase in their budget.", ">\n\nFox reported this? I'm in shock", ">\n\nAll propagandists publish clickbaity stuff that makes them sound like maybe they've let up on the evil. Unfortunately it works, since people just upvote headlines.", ">\n\nIt’s only going to get worse in 2023. Those 87k new IRS agents will not be going after the wealthy.", ">\n\nWhy?\nThat’s literally why they were being added. The IRS goes after the poorer taxpayers because they are low-hanging fruit and don’t have the lawyers and accountants to protect them. \nThe additional IRS employees were to give the personnel staffing sufficient to go after the wealthy.", ">\n\nIt doesn’t matter how many IRS agents there are. It will always be easier and more profitable for the IRS to nickel and dime the average taxpayer rather than go after the wealthy, who have the resources to lawyer up with the best lawyers and challenge the IRS in court.", ">\n\nEasier? Yes. More profitable? Doubtful.", ">\n\nIf Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nBut in 2022 ( when Biden was president and the House belonged to the Dems) they didn’t did they.", ">\n\nIt takes time to refactor an organization. It’s still full of Trump appointees.", ">\n\n2020 was a long time ago", ">\n\nNot on organizational time scales. It takes several months to safely restructure an organization as big as the federal government, and when it is the federal government it takes years. Congress gets a say in every political appointment, budget change, and organization change. It’s designed to be slow to assure continuity. \nThere is a saying that every president gets credited and blamed for what the prior administration put in motion. There is a lot of truth to that, and this organizational inertia is a big reason why. There are similar long lags in changing laws, re-writing policies, modifying rules, and so on. It’s a “feature” of having checks and balances." ]
> There's lies, damn lies and statistics -Benjamin Disraeli	[ "If Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nAnd when Barry was president they targeted conservative groups. I think phone calls can be made to tell them to back off of the little guy.", ">\n\n\nthey targeted conservative groups.\n\nNo. They went after specifically anti-tax tea party groups. The groups who openly flaunted tax laws", ">\n\nThey also went after progressive, left leaning groups - how do you explain that ? it was political", ">\n\nWait, did they target conservatives or progressives? Lol", ">\n\nBoth- it was quite clear they were involving themselves in politics - that’s what the IG found", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.", ">\n\nYep!\nAlso this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious.\nThe real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade.", ">\n\nThanks for the informative reply.\nYou make great points which I don't doubt. But there are times when I think it's important to consider both the letter and spirit of law at times.\nEven though it is perfectly by the letter of the law that people should be checked, it also seems against the intended spirit of said law that only a certain group of people are checked.\nI am not familiar with US law, but I think most of us can feel some degree of injustice with how things currently are.", ">\n\nThe point is to automate more checking of income common to wealthier people, and devote more resources to auditing those people. The Fox News article is disingenuous in how it describes the automated checking that goes on. It’s not great that rich people aren’t really audited, but there’s no reason to stop the automated checking of income where it’s already being done and essentially free to continue.\nIf you feel differently, explain yourself.", ">\n\nNo, we are in alignment concerning this.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nFUCK FOX NEWS\nFox is pretending to care about us poors. \nDon't reward these fascist fucks with upvotes for a disingenuous clickbait headline. They still hate us for not voting gop.", ">\n\nThey want people to hate the IRS and help defund it so they don’t go after the rich, which was the purpose of the additional funding", ">\n\nThey want people to link this to “87000” new agents, which is obviously happening on social media posts, but it’s not even a thing.", ">\n\nArticle is trash. The author is including correspondence audits (which means the IRS asked for some documentation by mail) for low income filers but not for millionaires when comparing their audit rates. Here are actual numbers according to their own source:\nAudit rates including correspondence audits\nlow income 1.27%\nmillionaires 2.38% \nAudit rates excluding correspondence audits\nlow income 0.0376%\nmillionaires 1.24%\n.\nFor low income filers, nearly all their audits were correspondence audits.", ">\n\nIt's hilarious when Fox News and the GOP pretend they care about poor people.\nNo amount of hypocrisy is too much to try to make democrats look bad.", ">\n\nIts unfortunately far easier to prove married couples who live together filed HoH for extra earned income credit than it is to prove complicated returns were incorrect.", ">\n\nIt's also trivially easy to prove the same child was claimed by two parents which is a lot of correspondence audits.", ">\n\nSo can my back taxes please just get forgiven already. 20% income being taxed is not livable", ">\n\nRepublican love flat rate taxes, you should talk to them.", ">\n\nThey’re required to audit the president and vice president, and that didn’t happen either.", ">\n\nThis isn't new, it's been been having for the last 5 - 6 years.", ">\n\nHopefully some wake up and realize its all just preparing us for the inevitable destruction of our economy. I imagine its almost too late to realize this. If we all realized this wed sell our 401Ks and not lean on money and use it to help our neighbors.", ">\n\nK bro.", ">\n\nMy wife and I are on social security. She works part time to keep us afloat. All in, we earned $50K in 2022. iRS wants $4500 from us. Really? 5X what Trump paid? Don't know if anyone is paying attention but $50k ain't rich. Oh, and out of that comes almost $4k in Medicare premiums. A program we paid into for 40+ years.\nEveryone of these arrogant, unqualified,, spoon fed assholes in Congress should be made to live on SSI or welfare, with no medical coverage, for a year. Then tell me I am acting entitled.\nSelf serving bastards.", ">\n\nDon't upvote this crap.\nDo you really think Fox cares about the working class??\nThis is just right wing propaganda, timed to coincide with McCarthy's promise to get rid of the new IRS agents who make it possible to audit the rich.\nDon't be used.", ">\n\nWhatever happened to \"dont shoot the messenger?\"", ">\n\nIRS understaffing would naturally trend to go after low-lying fruit. Easy pickings. Too many man hours to go after super complex cases. These moneyed fuckers and their bullshit. It's outrageous.", ">\n\nThe vast majority of these audits are automatically generated correspondence audits that have to be issued. We can't just turn off the program that raises a red flag when two people claim the same child as a dependent because we don't have enough forensic accountants. If you mistype your W2 you'll get an \"audit\" showing the correct info from the copy your boss sent them and telling you they'll correct it unless you tell them otherwise and you don't have to do anything if the info they have is correct.", ">\n\nYeah, all the nonsense about the IRS \"going after\" low income people is so stupid. Low income people make money in a way that their reporting is easily verifiable by a computer. They're also most likely to mess up and claim child tax credits incorrectly, etc - all of which is verifiable and issued a letter by a computer. \n-\nOther than actually being able to get someone on the phone when you call the IRS, and increased budget isn't going to impact the average person in any way.", ">\n\nMy thing is even assuming the 87k don't successfully get more money out of the rich, that's still 87k jobs. That's a net positive. I just don't understand the conservative logic here. Do they think these 87k new jobs are specifically for being insidiously predatory toward the poor? Where's the logic here? (I know I'll get hyperbolic answers, but I genuinely would like to know)", ">\n\nIt's 87,000 jobs over 10 years, the majority of which are replacement during that period. It's just a budget supplemental to stop hemorrhaging agents as they retire or cycle out into other jobs.", ">\n\nso.. this is on fox, which I assume support republican efforts to ensure that this is the permanent state of affairs. I don't really get anything anymore.", ">\n\nAnd that is the way the GOP wants it.", ">\n\n💯 Exactly what this Fox article is trying to do.", ">\n\nIt's who can afford a lawyer", ">\n\nAs the article hints at, the IRS does not do a lot of actual auditing. What it does is computer matching, which automatically generates material for a correspondence audit. Most correspondence audits occur because som poor working Joe didn't know he/her was supposed to include or exclude something, and the IRS caught it in its matching. Of course, the problem is that we have a complex code and little help in actually helping people through the various forms, rules, and so on. But millionaires don't have these issues, so they can escape most of the traps that lead to a correspondence audit. If a lot of these 87,000 were in taxpayer service (which I expect) it would lead to fewer audits at the low end, more robust audits for large corporations, wealthy individuals, and those who actively use tax avoidance strategies. But of course that is not the dialogue that gets promoted when the 87,000 agents are discussed.", ">\n\nThis is exactly why Fox News needs to be dismantled and thrown in the garbage. Ugh, \"look poors! They're coming for yoU!!!\". Scare tactics. And guess what? It sadly works. Every time.\nThey're lower than scum.", ">\n\nExactly. It's when someone misreports a number from their W2, didn't report 1099s they received, both separated parents claim a tax credit for the same kid, etc. All stuff that's easily checked by a computer. The IRS isn't \"auditing\" random low to middle income people. That would be a complete waste of their time.", ">\n\nlooks at Trump You don't say.", ">\n\nThe poor can't defend themselves, it's easier to take a little bit of money from people that won't fight back than a lot of money from people that will.", ">\n\nThe mega rich seem like they’re on a mission to destroy America, as we know it.", ">\n\nHiring 87,000 new IRS agents makes it possible to audit billionaires. So they pay their share. Those audits require an actual person or team that knows what they are doing. But Kevin McCarthy's first item of business was to announce legislation to overturn the hiring of 87,000 IRS agents. Meaning only the little guy (who can be audited by computer software) pays taxes.\nSSDD", ">\n\nThe \"87,000\" agents budget is over a ten year period. It's not for 87,000 new positions.", ">\n\nThe title is so misleading. Im surprised fox even put the juicy bit in the article about how (this stat is due to there not being enough IRS workers because) these \"audits\" on low earners are just automated letters asking for more info.\nYet again, this is just millionairs paid by billionairs to mislead the masses into blaming the poor for crimes committed by said billionairs.", ">\n\nWhich is why the IRS needs more manpower and budget, so they can go after the big fish.\nFuck Fox News and their Republican propaganda pieces. This article coincides with McCarthy saying they’ll cut the IRS budget and that the IRS is coming for you.\nFuck off Republican propaganda rag!\nStop upvoting any Fox News story. Fox should not be on the white list.", ">\n\nThis is a terrible article. It seems to include questions about tax returns as audits. If a low income filer makes a mistake it should be corrected. Is that an audit? If anyone makes a mistake and is contacted, is that an audit? Also there is no reason to go after low income as they rarely pay tax or are required to. The money requested would also pay for people to answer a phone. Those against increasing funding lie when they say all of it goes to audits. If you tell the truth, who cares if you are audited? Are y’all aware you can track your personal return online? However a business cannot. Businesses have to rely on humans that can’t be reached. I’ve waited a year for a refund. Didn’t know if IRS received the return. Didn’t know if there was an issue. Didn’t know if it was mailed or lost. I’m getting tired of Republicans pushing their crap on people.", ">\n\nwho keeps upvoting this right wing propaganda", ">\n\nWhy would the GOP want to give the agency the power to go after their donors.", ">\n\nAnd it was trumps guy that mandated it while Biden replaced him", ">\n\nApparently the mere use of an accounting firm somehow protected corps and the rich from the IRS who still (mistakenly) believe the accounting firms are trustworthy. How naive.", ">\n\nThe \"audits\" talked about are mostly form letters requesting more info about specific items.", ">\n\nThe poor can't pay for top flight attorneys.", ">\n\nYep keep the IRS underfunded so they can only go after the poors at the same time telling all the poors that the IRS is bad cause it goes after them but leave out the fact that they do that cause the poors are low hanging fruit.\nRepublicans are evil.", ">\n\nWell the GOP wants to cut funding to the IRS for new agents, so I’m sure the poor folk will continue to get screwed. I say toss the 50,000+ page tax code out and replace with a percentage based on total revenue/income made. Took a loss? No write-offs. Oh well, better luck next year. It’ll never happen because the wealthy don’t want it to.", ">\n\nWhere did you get this info? I know GOPers have been slashing IRS budgets and staffing for years but can't find reliable sources for what this has done to the actual audits - like who gets audited.", ">\n\nTheir link is Fox. This is a bad faith post.", ">\n\nThis says a lot coming from fox “news”", ">\n\nTo paraphrase Gilbert K. Chesterton, \"The Poor have sometimes objected to being taxed too heavily; The Rich have always objected to being taxed at all.\"", ">\n\ndon't post Fox news here....", ">\n\nCorporations and millionaires have the means to hire accountants and attorneys. Our tax code is gray in several areas. It’s easy to go after the poor that do not have the resources and will have no choice but to pay anything the IRS says. The additional agents will continue to target the poor and middle class because they are easy, It’s happened before, it will continue to happen.", ">\n\nI think it's funny/sad that a poor person can win the lottery and they get taxed at a higher rate than any billionaire has ever been taxed at. The system is built to keep the rich - rich and the poor - poor.", ">\n\nThe poorest can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nThe current system cannot be sustained. We are hurtling towards disaster.", ">\n\nThe only reason the bastards have the majority is because the corrupt SCOTUS allowed illegal gerrymanders to stand while they were fought in the courts.", ">\n\nThe I.R.S. goes after the poorer people because it's easier. They can't afford lawyers and accountants. So the poor can do nothing but roll over and take it up the rump. The Inflation Reduction Act that Biden signed into law in August is supposed to give $80 Billion to the I.R.S. so they can go after the millionaires. But we know that won't happen. More poor people are going to get screwed.", ">\n\nI'm confused. For decades, Faux news and the conservatives have been saying that millionaires deserve to keep more of their money than we do. That was a huge part of the 2017 tax scam that Trump signed. Now Faux is saying it's a problem? And they are rightly detailing that Republicans are the cause, along with Biden trying to fix the same issue that Fox has helped create?", ">\n\nFox News", ">\n\nHey IRS, don't forget to crawl up my ass this year because I sold some old stuff on eBay for a loss but make sure you put a few man hours into figuring out if it is legit or not.", ">\n\nlol, and the people opposed to IRS funding will say they are anti-establishment.", ">\n\nImagine how much they could squeeze the middle class with 87,000 more agents! But really, it’ll be good to see if the increase in officers actually increases tax revenue without changing the underlying laws.", ">\n\nSo, this is the newest Republican boogeyman, the IRS.\nWell, better than Drag Queens I guess.", ">\n\nOh hey just like last year, and the year before that, I think there might be a pattern", ">\n\nThank you republicans, always sticking up in the back on the small guys…", ">\n\nFox News saying this like it’s not something Rupert Murdoch’s network supports is pretty funny.", ">\n\nFox News. Ignore it.", ">\n\nFox News is still allowed in here?", ">\n\nFake news. This is Republican propaganda coming from Fox News.", ">\n\nFox News is NOT news", ">\n\nHmm sounds like it was underfunded then. Good thing now we helped ease that problem. Thanks Biden", ">\n\nIt's simply laziness by the IRS. Lower-income households have less complicated returns and easier to process. I'm sure IRS runs a non-effective but management-pleasing metric like \"how many returns were corrected\" opposed to how much money was recouped.", ">\n\nWe know. They don't have the resources to do anything. That was the point of increasing the staffing at the IRS so they had even the slightest hope of going after the big offenders with their armies or lawyers.", ">\n\nThere's less millionaires and billionaires than there are us. I'm not sure that answer fits the accuracy on hiring more workers but I'll go ahead and amuse that", ">\n\nIt's not a game of tax guy vs rich guy. The rich literally have armies of lawyers. You need the staff to overcome all the paper and challenges they'll throw at you. \nIf you throw one person to audit a millionaire, their lawyers can make it so it'll take a year to review a week of operations. Investigations will never finish unless there's sufficient staff to overcome their obstruction.", ">\n\nTo this day I do not understand why the IRS can demand our documents every year without a warrant. The 16th amendment does not alter the 4th, and the 4th does not apply only to criminal actions (as the 5th explicitly does). Yet no one seems to care about this annual violations.", ">\n\nReminder, Fox News is not news. It's entertainment, and should be regarded as such.", ">\n\nNo shit, poor ppl tend to file their own taxes and screw up where as millionaires hire expensive accountants to exploit all the legal loopholes without getting their clients in trouble.\nI don't think it's an intentional targeting as the article may be implying.", ">\n\nOne might imagine the resources of agents would be better put to use by focusing on returns that might produce more revenue, however it may be just a lot easier to collect a few bucks from easier targets.", ">\n\nThey are short staffed and accountants make it so difficult to find wrongdoing, if there is even wrongdoing to be found, that it would take a decent chunk of their workforce just to tackle it. It's like trying to find needle in a haystack but you don't know if there's a needle or not.", ">\n\nSo true....", ">\n\nShocked pikachu face.", ">\n\nYeah I’d believe this if it weren’t Fox News. They could give a fuck about the poor and middle class.", ">\n\nI would literally rather the IRS spend its time auditing 5 extraordinarily rich people or a single business than anyone who makes less than 100k per year\nETA: I’m aware that this article represents part of the Republican agenda to just gut the IRS and welfare spending generally. And I understand the difficulties in auditing the rich/businesses v lower income people claiming tax credits, etc", ">\n\nAlmost all of the little people \"audits\" are just a computer issuing a correspondence \"audit\" because the person misreported something from their W2, didn't report as much 1099 income as was reported to the IRS by others, or separated parents both trying to claim kids for tax credits or something. \n-\nThey don't really pull from the same resources. The rich people audits require human beings. Little people \"audits\" aren't really audits and a computer can do it. So if we want to audit more rich people, they need actual budget for human beings. The little people are going to be caught anyways because a computer can do it.", ">\n\nI interned at the IRS during the summer of 2012 when Lois Lerner made batshit crazy commrnts that they were targetting conservative groups", ">\n\nI say this every time it gets brought up. This is by design. I used to work in auditing and also used to do tax stuff. It’s super easy to find tax fraud on someone who only has a simple W-2 and no other income. You could find those people through a basic algorithm. Meanwhile, auditing a multi millionaire is expensive, time consuming, and often fruitless. If I was in charge of an underfunded, understaffed IRS I would tell my staff to go for the easy wins too.", ">\n\nUnpopular opinion - More funding won't resolve this. \nThe IRS will keep doing this. Unless rules & regulations forbid or disincentivize this practice, the IRS will keep this stupid practice", ">\n\nI make $40,000 a year and the IRS froze my bank accounts until I paid them $1000 in taxes I owed them because of an error I made filling my taxes. They froze my bank accounts for $1000. I was fucked for a month. I had to borrow cash from people just for food and gas money to get to work to get paid money that I couldn’t access. It was a scary time for me. Meanwhile millionaires are purposely avoiding taxes worth more than what I make in a year and nothing happens to them.", ">\n\nThe IRS sends no less than a dozen letters to a taxpayer prior to leaving a bank account. Why didn't you just put it into a repayment plan? Takes about ten minutes online.", ">\n\nDon't you just hate autocorrect?", ">\n\nIf true, its a holdover from jrbush who slashed IRS staff and budget and told them to spend more time auditing tip jars and busboys than millionaires because the millionaires had better lawyers than the IRS and service workers were unlikely to have any lawyers at all.", ">\n\nFox News solution: remove the IRS", ">\n\nAbsolutely. They’ll NEVER target the rich, adding more agents just made them a lot more capable to target all the lower class.", ">\n\nWhat people don't realize..Those 87K \"Agents\" aren't that. It's 87K employees over 25 years. Clerks etc. People are so fucking stupid when they just believe these clowns.", ">\n\nThose numbers also count it as an \"audit\" when a person misreports a number from a W2, 1099s, etc and the irs number matching software sends an automatically generated correspondence letter that basically says \"we actually show this number, this is what your tax return would have been if you reported that number correctly\". \nThe IRS isn't wasting time doing random \"audits\" as people think of them for low to middle income people. It would be a complete waste of their time. The computer just catches obvious verifiable mistakes and it counts as an audit in those numbers.", ">\n\n“those in the lowest income bracket hit 12.7 per 1,000….. The odds of a millionaire facing an audit were around 1.1%.”\nSo they’re saying 1.27% vs 1.1%!!! And acting like that’s a scandal 🙄", ">\n\nWhich means millionaires REALLY don't want more IRS auditors which means when our new resident house fascist fires five thousand auditors, said fascist (McCarthy) is making sure those millionaires aren't going to get audited. \nCha CHING !!! Go the \"donations\" into house rat republican's pockets. \nThe grift will be in full swing shortly.\nAnd with putin whispering in their ears and telling them EXACTLY how break the law - how can they lose?", ">\n\n💯 Exactly why theres a Fox link here pushing for that same reason.", ">\n\nTwo things. First of all, this is from a far right-wing propaganda outlet which should immediately raise red flags. They're trying to scare you into allowing a republican-initiated movement to entirely remove all remaining power from the IRS by making it seem like they're coming after you.\nSecond, the reason the IRS is already already virtually powerless against the rich is because the republicans have already eviscerated them in the past several decades, largely through defunding them leading to not only staffing cuts, but the inability to pursue the wealthiest people who have the resources for endless litigation. So as a result, the FBI can only really afford to go after people who cannot financially defend themselves.", ">\n\nThird, you might as well throw in that the aiming low guidance was under a Trump appointee who is no longer in that position.", ">\n\nThe GOP intentionally defunded the IRS so that it could not audit the wealthy. It takes a great deal more money upfront to audit them but the payback is far greater.", ">\n\nI'm not sure why dems voted against an amendment that would have mandated the giant infusion of cash into the IRS couldn't be used to audit folks making >$400k.", ">\n\nHrm this is pretty fucked I'd like to hear about why the Dems voted nay.", ">\n\nBecause they work for the same people as Republicans. \nThey are different but only when their owners allow them to be. \nI don't know how many times we are going to have to learn this lesson before it sticks.", ">\n\nDemocrats are responsible for this", ">\n\nThe rich returns are just too hard, enough lower class errors you can leave the rich alone. Love to see it… sigh", ">\n\nIt takes money to police the wealthy. Can't have that can we?!", ">\n\nr/noshitsherlock", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised?\nI’m not even American and this seemed obvious to me. All you have to do is look at how the poor live and compare that to the news about someone like Elon musk or Donald trump.", ">\n\nThis is why the IRS needs to go.", ">\n\nFox News helped make that happen.", ">\n\nThey'll never change,all the time when the guys in charge benefit from doing the same shit.", ">\n\nAnd yet the republicans dont submit or pass legislations to change the rules to favor targeting rich people. Curious.", ">\n\nThen 78,000 new, armed tax collectors should be able to extract even more money from the poor, middle-class and small business owners.", ">\n\nWhy did they focus on the Poorest? The thought of 87,000 more of them will actually do what? If the existing can’t focus on the wealthy! Then what makes anybody think more can?", ">\n\nMillionaires and billionaires make the government more money by creating lobbying loopholes and exploiting the economy to bilk the 99%. It's really cheap to go after the poorest who are struggling to pay day to day obligations and don't have loopholes or government sanctioned exploitation to take advantage of.", ">\n\nI could have told you this would happen. You think millionaires get $600 Venmo transactions?", ">\n\nThat's a move democrats should not make. That's one month of rent for me. What of folks worse-off?", ">\n\nHonestly it’s like squeezing blood from the stone over here anyway.", ">\n\nDuh lmfao theyve already stated it costs too much to tax weathy people previously and its most cost effective to audit the poor due to many factors...", ">\n\nI mean 99% of us are poor compared to the other 1%", ">\n\nColor me surprised", ">\n\nWe need some laws for equitable auditing.", ">\n\nYou are an Army commander about to attack the enemy. Do you prefer to attack where they have experienced career solders backed up by artillery, tanks, and airplanes, or do you attack where there are poorly armed and equipped untrained conscripts?", ">\n\nThey must be upset someone replaced their sign with a card from Cards Against Humanity", ">\n\nMay it ever be so…. Don’t reproduce if you only consume and can’t accumulate or help a Dow Jones winter water witch. Like snow, weathermen.", ">\n\nIt’s weirdly fitting how much their building sign in the photo looks like a cards against humanity card.", ">\n\nTypical", ">\n\nWow? How unusual.", ">\n\nI’d support double the number of IRS agents", ">\n\nI was low income and won about 3,000 gambling, the irs went after me", ">\n\nThe IRS came after me hard for 8$", ">\n\nAudit frequency should correlate to income, someone with a million in income should be audited 10x those with 100k income", ">\n\nSomeone should explain Pareto charts to the IRS.", ">\n\nI've been audited three times. First when I was 27, did some consulting and didn't do the 1099 prepayments. Ended up owing $17k. Second audit was after moving across country for a job. The tax preparer we hired made a mistake with the move expense deductions, owed a few thousand. Third audit was another tax preparer mistake, but this time we overpaid and were owed money we credited to the next year. \nIf you assume for discussion that the average audit on an ordinary tax payer returns $10,000, it would take 100,000,000 audits to make $1 trillion. By just doing the easy work, the IRS is leaving the real money on the table.", ">\n\nRepublicans are famous for giving rich breaks while middle class etc close the gaps", ">\n\nThe last line, \"The Inflation Reduction Act provides the IRS with $80 billion in future funding to ramp up its audits and potentially target the wealthiest taxpayers.\"", ">\n\nThe cure is not the root cause, but the middle class and the poor will eventually bear the burden after the capital operation", ">\n\nIt’s like they timed the “research” and the drop of the article with the speech. Sad man.", ">\n\nWatch Madoff. The wealthy skate and steal billions. The poor are in prison over thousands.", ">\n\nWhy does their sign look like a Card Against Humanity", ">\n\nFucking Trump, still at it.", ">\n\nOh you mean the thing people said would happen once they got massive funding actually happened? Checks out", ">\n\nOf course they did, because millionaires will lawyer up.", ">\n\nBecause the poor can't afford to fight back.", ">\n\nIt's so unfair the poor and the middle class taxpayers suffer so much while the millionaries got away with not paying the taxes It's really hurting the poor. The middle class is fading", ">\n\nAll of this can be fixed if we just use no-exemption graduated income", ">\n\nYeah we know", ">\n\nShow of hands for all surprised.\ncrickets\nHmm. Seems like Reddit suffers from a plague of double amputees...", ">\n\nWhat the actual fuck", ">\n\nAnd 2021, 2020, 2019, …", ">\n\nSounds about right.", ">\n\nOf course. Poor people can’t afford attorneys.", ">\n\nI made a mistake on my forms while I was overseas and ticked “self-employed” instead of “employed”. I was on a student visa and had two children and was making less than 10k a year. They hounded me for years. By the time I figured out what had happened I could not amend the forms and had paid thousands in penalties and interest.\nMeanwhile I knew lots of people who were there fully employed not reporting their income.\nFuck them.", ">\n\nYep! During the pandemic, even while I wasn't working didn't come after me the entire time that I was working but the minute that I wasn't nobody was cuz we were in lockdown they started popping up", ">\n\nI just now realized that the Cards Against Humanity box looks like the IRS sign", ">\n\nWhy is the sign a Cards Against Humanity question?", ">\n\nI am shocked and appalled. clutches pearls", ">\n\nRich should be taxed more than the average not right at all. Or at least there is a tier system based on pay only makes sense. Come on now", ">\n\nSounds about right, make the rich richer again.", ">\n\nWho are we going to vote for in the future ,all of them are decayed , corrupted and useless , the “most rich country in the world , governed by the most ignorant an corrupted. What a contrast .", ">\n\nGod bless America", ">\n\nno way. wait until you see those people responds. Those people are chipping away.", ">\n\nSounds about right", ">\n\nWe know.", ">\n\nI find it rather comical that Fox news is reporting on this since they are all about pushing the Republican agenda and that is all about pushing everyone else down that isn't rich and keeping them there. Not to mention they had no problem with Trump not paying taxes for years.", ">\n\nCan fucking confirm.", ">\n\nYeah, they (millionaires) have accountants who generally do things right and due to their millions being in investments it's not like it's taxable all the time. \nThen there's the ability to sell any stocks when they're down to build up losses on paper can reinvest them at a loss that can carry over across multiple years.", ">\n\nsounds about right. i don’t have a pot to piss in but they’re all over me for someone stealing my identity and filing a double tax return one year.", ">\n\nDuh", ">\n\nThere’s a reason why FOX is posting this article. The less people at the IRS, the more likely they come after folks who can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nIn order to pursue wealthy tax cheats, the IRS needs more resources and personnel. Otherwise it’s business as usual, picking on the low hanging fruit that earns under 6 figures.", ">\n\nSo wrong ....people need to be fired", ">\n\nIt’s because they can’t afford to take them to court", ">\n\nOf course it is about protecting the rich like Trump who lies ,lies , and about his tax returns . No wonder he did not want them released .", ">\n\nEasy prey bc most ppl can not lawyer up. Pretty heart breaking system we have at times.", ">\n\nWhy does the irs sign look like it's from cards against humanity?", ">\n\nCurrently getting audited over \\~$1500, which they owe me, when the rich get away with murder. Fucking unbelievably and unnecessarily stressful for me.", ">\n\nHas t this been know for a while?", ">\n\nyep and they are the same people getting tax cuts while everyone else does it tough ....\nAny one with too much money is your enemy .... not a hero of democracy", ">\n\nGet rid of taxes and the gov’t should just do stuff for free, or what ever.", ">\n\nYou have to be careful when you get one of those CP2000 notices from the IRS. The way they are written is a trap.\nIf you dispute it you are supposed to indicate that you disagree and send it back with documents supporting your dispute.\nYou are only supposed to sign it if you agree with them and when you sign it you are signing away your rights to dispute the back taxes and penalties they are demanding.\nMere worker bees like us can expect to be getting a lot of those from this years tax returns considering how the threshold for 1099k forms has been dropped to $600.\nGuys like Trump? The IRS doesn't even know where to begin.", ">\n\nThanks Biden", ">\n\nI presume those lower-income bracket filers might be more likely to reach out to 1-800-infomercial [quickie settlement/long-term penalties most favorable to gov/proprietor] than retain proper legal counsel?\nRegardless it’s got to be a lot less work for IRS agent to go after under-represented citizen(s), rather than someone who can afford to appeal, properly negotiate on their own terms?", ">\n\nLmfao Dems tax and spend. But I have to admit there Republicans that tax and spend to. Where do these Politicians get off taxing me or business and give to people who don't work what do you cause d the inflation. You can not print money \nI am Conservative not a Republican. To much money is wasted and put in pockets of people ot don't belong.\nBut all dems know how to tax tax tax. \nIts all great and good until you run out if other peoples money. \nMillionaire just like Berny he hated Millionaires until he became one now he hates Trillionaires. Funny how the gold post changes. And good old Nancy her I side stock trading. So I think you need to rethink.", ">\n\nThe IRS is only doing as directed by whomever controls the White House.", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised by this? Really?", ">\n\nThe sign in the thumbnail looks like a Cards Against Humanity card.", ">\n\nWhile this is mostly true, don’t believe everything you read. I’m no more an accountant than I am a ladies man, but someone (said they’re an accountant) posted a few days ago about this. They explained that the most likely people getting audited are trying to, fraudulently or mistakenly, claim the EITC. \nYES, it’s super easy to “bust” these people for an easy “mistake”. This is who the IRS is cracking down on. \nDo I think it’s better to bust poor people for claiming a few thousand in tax credits vs billionaires who avoid taxes altogether? Of course not, but don’t think they’re actively targeting people who fudge their mileage deductions or miss a decimal point in their calculations as small business owners. It’s simply not happening. \nAnd the reported “87,000 new IRS agents” are replacing the 10’s of 1,000’s of employees set to retire or quit over the next 10 years which doesn’t even begin to fill the gaps we’ve been growing for decades by not hiring and training more willing workers. Not to mention they’re not even close to all employees who will actively audit tax payers. They’re people who answer phones, file papers, assist others, etc… They’re mostly just average people with average jobs so of course the GOP wants to end this. They hate upward mobility and job creation unless that means tax breaks for their billionaire friends.", ">\n\nI wish everyone wasn’t a sheep and would understand this.", ">\n\nI can see the Media doing their best to turn the public against the IRS.", ">\n\nPicking on the week and helpless. That’s what we humans do. We suck. I’m waiting for that big meteor reset button.", ">\n\nAnd Fox news loves this.", ">\n\nLove it, Faux 'News' taking the piss, for 4 years under Dear Leader they campaigned for tax breaks for the rich, now they're pretending to care about the poor !", ">\n\nEvery millionaire should be audited yearly. Period.", ">\n\nAND now the gqp cult promises to rescind the money Biden set aside to aid the IRS to recover taxes from mega millionaire tax cheats like benedict donald, who paid less taxes than most working Americans.", ">\n\nRepublicans want to stop the IRS and Congress from taxing rich people, making the burden of maintaining civilization fall more heavily on poorer people. This is why Republicans vote for tax cuts for the rich and against funding for the IRS.\nAnd since Republican beliefs are based on wishful thinking, Republicans can screw over poor, rural Republicans while simultaneously taking credit for doing it to make Republicans happy about it and blaming it on Democrats to make those same Republicans resentful against Democrats for it. And what else would we expect from a Republican Party that blames Democrats for tricking them into attacking the Capitol to make Trump look bad and justifies and approves of assaulting Capitol police while brandishing their \"thin blue line\" flags.", ">\n\nThe IRS is like any other law enforcement agency, they prefer pursuing the poor because they don't have the resources to protect themselves.", ">\n\nThe IRS building sign looks like its from cards against humanity.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nNot a reliable news source.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nThat picture looks like the worst cards against humanity card too get.", ">\n\nScrew the Murdoch media empire and their failed trickle down ideologies.", ">\n\nOf course, the poorest haven’t paid over 400+ billion for decades. Not sure about the rich, we haven’t checked.", ">\n\nThis is not a surprise. With the recent inflation reduction act, the IRS an additional $80B over 10 years or $8B per year. The IRS budget for 2021 was $13.7B. The additional $8B over the year would be an increase of 58% to their budget. They will be looking to get a lot more money from taxpayers, due to this very large increase in their budget.", ">\n\nFox reported this? I'm in shock", ">\n\nAll propagandists publish clickbaity stuff that makes them sound like maybe they've let up on the evil. Unfortunately it works, since people just upvote headlines.", ">\n\nIt’s only going to get worse in 2023. Those 87k new IRS agents will not be going after the wealthy.", ">\n\nWhy?\nThat’s literally why they were being added. The IRS goes after the poorer taxpayers because they are low-hanging fruit and don’t have the lawyers and accountants to protect them. \nThe additional IRS employees were to give the personnel staffing sufficient to go after the wealthy.", ">\n\nIt doesn’t matter how many IRS agents there are. It will always be easier and more profitable for the IRS to nickel and dime the average taxpayer rather than go after the wealthy, who have the resources to lawyer up with the best lawyers and challenge the IRS in court.", ">\n\nEasier? Yes. More profitable? Doubtful.", ">\n\nIf Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nBut in 2022 ( when Biden was president and the House belonged to the Dems) they didn’t did they.", ">\n\nIt takes time to refactor an organization. It’s still full of Trump appointees.", ">\n\n2020 was a long time ago", ">\n\nNot on organizational time scales. It takes several months to safely restructure an organization as big as the federal government, and when it is the federal government it takes years. Congress gets a say in every political appointment, budget change, and organization change. It’s designed to be slow to assure continuity. \nThere is a saying that every president gets credited and blamed for what the prior administration put in motion. There is a lot of truth to that, and this organizational inertia is a big reason why. There are similar long lags in changing laws, re-writing policies, modifying rules, and so on. It’s a “feature” of having checks and balances.", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time" ]
> When my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.	[ "If Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nAnd when Barry was president they targeted conservative groups. I think phone calls can be made to tell them to back off of the little guy.", ">\n\n\nthey targeted conservative groups.\n\nNo. They went after specifically anti-tax tea party groups. The groups who openly flaunted tax laws", ">\n\nThey also went after progressive, left leaning groups - how do you explain that ? it was political", ">\n\nWait, did they target conservatives or progressives? Lol", ">\n\nBoth- it was quite clear they were involving themselves in politics - that’s what the IG found", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.", ">\n\nYep!\nAlso this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious.\nThe real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade.", ">\n\nThanks for the informative reply.\nYou make great points which I don't doubt. But there are times when I think it's important to consider both the letter and spirit of law at times.\nEven though it is perfectly by the letter of the law that people should be checked, it also seems against the intended spirit of said law that only a certain group of people are checked.\nI am not familiar with US law, but I think most of us can feel some degree of injustice with how things currently are.", ">\n\nThe point is to automate more checking of income common to wealthier people, and devote more resources to auditing those people. The Fox News article is disingenuous in how it describes the automated checking that goes on. It’s not great that rich people aren’t really audited, but there’s no reason to stop the automated checking of income where it’s already being done and essentially free to continue.\nIf you feel differently, explain yourself.", ">\n\nNo, we are in alignment concerning this.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nFUCK FOX NEWS\nFox is pretending to care about us poors. \nDon't reward these fascist fucks with upvotes for a disingenuous clickbait headline. They still hate us for not voting gop.", ">\n\nThey want people to hate the IRS and help defund it so they don’t go after the rich, which was the purpose of the additional funding", ">\n\nThey want people to link this to “87000” new agents, which is obviously happening on social media posts, but it’s not even a thing.", ">\n\nArticle is trash. The author is including correspondence audits (which means the IRS asked for some documentation by mail) for low income filers but not for millionaires when comparing their audit rates. Here are actual numbers according to their own source:\nAudit rates including correspondence audits\nlow income 1.27%\nmillionaires 2.38% \nAudit rates excluding correspondence audits\nlow income 0.0376%\nmillionaires 1.24%\n.\nFor low income filers, nearly all their audits were correspondence audits.", ">\n\nIt's hilarious when Fox News and the GOP pretend they care about poor people.\nNo amount of hypocrisy is too much to try to make democrats look bad.", ">\n\nIts unfortunately far easier to prove married couples who live together filed HoH for extra earned income credit than it is to prove complicated returns were incorrect.", ">\n\nIt's also trivially easy to prove the same child was claimed by two parents which is a lot of correspondence audits.", ">\n\nSo can my back taxes please just get forgiven already. 20% income being taxed is not livable", ">\n\nRepublican love flat rate taxes, you should talk to them.", ">\n\nThey’re required to audit the president and vice president, and that didn’t happen either.", ">\n\nThis isn't new, it's been been having for the last 5 - 6 years.", ">\n\nHopefully some wake up and realize its all just preparing us for the inevitable destruction of our economy. I imagine its almost too late to realize this. If we all realized this wed sell our 401Ks and not lean on money and use it to help our neighbors.", ">\n\nK bro.", ">\n\nMy wife and I are on social security. She works part time to keep us afloat. All in, we earned $50K in 2022. iRS wants $4500 from us. Really? 5X what Trump paid? Don't know if anyone is paying attention but $50k ain't rich. Oh, and out of that comes almost $4k in Medicare premiums. A program we paid into for 40+ years.\nEveryone of these arrogant, unqualified,, spoon fed assholes in Congress should be made to live on SSI or welfare, with no medical coverage, for a year. Then tell me I am acting entitled.\nSelf serving bastards.", ">\n\nDon't upvote this crap.\nDo you really think Fox cares about the working class??\nThis is just right wing propaganda, timed to coincide with McCarthy's promise to get rid of the new IRS agents who make it possible to audit the rich.\nDon't be used.", ">\n\nWhatever happened to \"dont shoot the messenger?\"", ">\n\nIRS understaffing would naturally trend to go after low-lying fruit. Easy pickings. Too many man hours to go after super complex cases. These moneyed fuckers and their bullshit. It's outrageous.", ">\n\nThe vast majority of these audits are automatically generated correspondence audits that have to be issued. We can't just turn off the program that raises a red flag when two people claim the same child as a dependent because we don't have enough forensic accountants. If you mistype your W2 you'll get an \"audit\" showing the correct info from the copy your boss sent them and telling you they'll correct it unless you tell them otherwise and you don't have to do anything if the info they have is correct.", ">\n\nYeah, all the nonsense about the IRS \"going after\" low income people is so stupid. Low income people make money in a way that their reporting is easily verifiable by a computer. They're also most likely to mess up and claim child tax credits incorrectly, etc - all of which is verifiable and issued a letter by a computer. \n-\nOther than actually being able to get someone on the phone when you call the IRS, and increased budget isn't going to impact the average person in any way.", ">\n\nMy thing is even assuming the 87k don't successfully get more money out of the rich, that's still 87k jobs. That's a net positive. I just don't understand the conservative logic here. Do they think these 87k new jobs are specifically for being insidiously predatory toward the poor? Where's the logic here? (I know I'll get hyperbolic answers, but I genuinely would like to know)", ">\n\nIt's 87,000 jobs over 10 years, the majority of which are replacement during that period. It's just a budget supplemental to stop hemorrhaging agents as they retire or cycle out into other jobs.", ">\n\nso.. this is on fox, which I assume support republican efforts to ensure that this is the permanent state of affairs. I don't really get anything anymore.", ">\n\nAnd that is the way the GOP wants it.", ">\n\n💯 Exactly what this Fox article is trying to do.", ">\n\nIt's who can afford a lawyer", ">\n\nAs the article hints at, the IRS does not do a lot of actual auditing. What it does is computer matching, which automatically generates material for a correspondence audit. Most correspondence audits occur because som poor working Joe didn't know he/her was supposed to include or exclude something, and the IRS caught it in its matching. Of course, the problem is that we have a complex code and little help in actually helping people through the various forms, rules, and so on. But millionaires don't have these issues, so they can escape most of the traps that lead to a correspondence audit. If a lot of these 87,000 were in taxpayer service (which I expect) it would lead to fewer audits at the low end, more robust audits for large corporations, wealthy individuals, and those who actively use tax avoidance strategies. But of course that is not the dialogue that gets promoted when the 87,000 agents are discussed.", ">\n\nThis is exactly why Fox News needs to be dismantled and thrown in the garbage. Ugh, \"look poors! They're coming for yoU!!!\". Scare tactics. And guess what? It sadly works. Every time.\nThey're lower than scum.", ">\n\nExactly. It's when someone misreports a number from their W2, didn't report 1099s they received, both separated parents claim a tax credit for the same kid, etc. All stuff that's easily checked by a computer. The IRS isn't \"auditing\" random low to middle income people. That would be a complete waste of their time.", ">\n\nlooks at Trump You don't say.", ">\n\nThe poor can't defend themselves, it's easier to take a little bit of money from people that won't fight back than a lot of money from people that will.", ">\n\nThe mega rich seem like they’re on a mission to destroy America, as we know it.", ">\n\nHiring 87,000 new IRS agents makes it possible to audit billionaires. So they pay their share. Those audits require an actual person or team that knows what they are doing. But Kevin McCarthy's first item of business was to announce legislation to overturn the hiring of 87,000 IRS agents. Meaning only the little guy (who can be audited by computer software) pays taxes.\nSSDD", ">\n\nThe \"87,000\" agents budget is over a ten year period. It's not for 87,000 new positions.", ">\n\nThe title is so misleading. Im surprised fox even put the juicy bit in the article about how (this stat is due to there not being enough IRS workers because) these \"audits\" on low earners are just automated letters asking for more info.\nYet again, this is just millionairs paid by billionairs to mislead the masses into blaming the poor for crimes committed by said billionairs.", ">\n\nWhich is why the IRS needs more manpower and budget, so they can go after the big fish.\nFuck Fox News and their Republican propaganda pieces. This article coincides with McCarthy saying they’ll cut the IRS budget and that the IRS is coming for you.\nFuck off Republican propaganda rag!\nStop upvoting any Fox News story. Fox should not be on the white list.", ">\n\nThis is a terrible article. It seems to include questions about tax returns as audits. If a low income filer makes a mistake it should be corrected. Is that an audit? If anyone makes a mistake and is contacted, is that an audit? Also there is no reason to go after low income as they rarely pay tax or are required to. The money requested would also pay for people to answer a phone. Those against increasing funding lie when they say all of it goes to audits. If you tell the truth, who cares if you are audited? Are y’all aware you can track your personal return online? However a business cannot. Businesses have to rely on humans that can’t be reached. I’ve waited a year for a refund. Didn’t know if IRS received the return. Didn’t know if there was an issue. Didn’t know if it was mailed or lost. I’m getting tired of Republicans pushing their crap on people.", ">\n\nwho keeps upvoting this right wing propaganda", ">\n\nWhy would the GOP want to give the agency the power to go after their donors.", ">\n\nAnd it was trumps guy that mandated it while Biden replaced him", ">\n\nApparently the mere use of an accounting firm somehow protected corps and the rich from the IRS who still (mistakenly) believe the accounting firms are trustworthy. How naive.", ">\n\nThe \"audits\" talked about are mostly form letters requesting more info about specific items.", ">\n\nThe poor can't pay for top flight attorneys.", ">\n\nYep keep the IRS underfunded so they can only go after the poors at the same time telling all the poors that the IRS is bad cause it goes after them but leave out the fact that they do that cause the poors are low hanging fruit.\nRepublicans are evil.", ">\n\nWell the GOP wants to cut funding to the IRS for new agents, so I’m sure the poor folk will continue to get screwed. I say toss the 50,000+ page tax code out and replace with a percentage based on total revenue/income made. Took a loss? No write-offs. Oh well, better luck next year. It’ll never happen because the wealthy don’t want it to.", ">\n\nWhere did you get this info? I know GOPers have been slashing IRS budgets and staffing for years but can't find reliable sources for what this has done to the actual audits - like who gets audited.", ">\n\nTheir link is Fox. This is a bad faith post.", ">\n\nThis says a lot coming from fox “news”", ">\n\nTo paraphrase Gilbert K. Chesterton, \"The Poor have sometimes objected to being taxed too heavily; The Rich have always objected to being taxed at all.\"", ">\n\ndon't post Fox news here....", ">\n\nCorporations and millionaires have the means to hire accountants and attorneys. Our tax code is gray in several areas. It’s easy to go after the poor that do not have the resources and will have no choice but to pay anything the IRS says. The additional agents will continue to target the poor and middle class because they are easy, It’s happened before, it will continue to happen.", ">\n\nI think it's funny/sad that a poor person can win the lottery and they get taxed at a higher rate than any billionaire has ever been taxed at. The system is built to keep the rich - rich and the poor - poor.", ">\n\nThe poorest can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nThe current system cannot be sustained. We are hurtling towards disaster.", ">\n\nThe only reason the bastards have the majority is because the corrupt SCOTUS allowed illegal gerrymanders to stand while they were fought in the courts.", ">\n\nThe I.R.S. goes after the poorer people because it's easier. They can't afford lawyers and accountants. So the poor can do nothing but roll over and take it up the rump. The Inflation Reduction Act that Biden signed into law in August is supposed to give $80 Billion to the I.R.S. so they can go after the millionaires. But we know that won't happen. More poor people are going to get screwed.", ">\n\nI'm confused. For decades, Faux news and the conservatives have been saying that millionaires deserve to keep more of their money than we do. That was a huge part of the 2017 tax scam that Trump signed. Now Faux is saying it's a problem? And they are rightly detailing that Republicans are the cause, along with Biden trying to fix the same issue that Fox has helped create?", ">\n\nFox News", ">\n\nHey IRS, don't forget to crawl up my ass this year because I sold some old stuff on eBay for a loss but make sure you put a few man hours into figuring out if it is legit or not.", ">\n\nlol, and the people opposed to IRS funding will say they are anti-establishment.", ">\n\nImagine how much they could squeeze the middle class with 87,000 more agents! But really, it’ll be good to see if the increase in officers actually increases tax revenue without changing the underlying laws.", ">\n\nSo, this is the newest Republican boogeyman, the IRS.\nWell, better than Drag Queens I guess.", ">\n\nOh hey just like last year, and the year before that, I think there might be a pattern", ">\n\nThank you republicans, always sticking up in the back on the small guys…", ">\n\nFox News saying this like it’s not something Rupert Murdoch’s network supports is pretty funny.", ">\n\nFox News. Ignore it.", ">\n\nFox News is still allowed in here?", ">\n\nFake news. This is Republican propaganda coming from Fox News.", ">\n\nFox News is NOT news", ">\n\nHmm sounds like it was underfunded then. Good thing now we helped ease that problem. Thanks Biden", ">\n\nIt's simply laziness by the IRS. Lower-income households have less complicated returns and easier to process. I'm sure IRS runs a non-effective but management-pleasing metric like \"how many returns were corrected\" opposed to how much money was recouped.", ">\n\nWe know. They don't have the resources to do anything. That was the point of increasing the staffing at the IRS so they had even the slightest hope of going after the big offenders with their armies or lawyers.", ">\n\nThere's less millionaires and billionaires than there are us. I'm not sure that answer fits the accuracy on hiring more workers but I'll go ahead and amuse that", ">\n\nIt's not a game of tax guy vs rich guy. The rich literally have armies of lawyers. You need the staff to overcome all the paper and challenges they'll throw at you. \nIf you throw one person to audit a millionaire, their lawyers can make it so it'll take a year to review a week of operations. Investigations will never finish unless there's sufficient staff to overcome their obstruction.", ">\n\nTo this day I do not understand why the IRS can demand our documents every year without a warrant. The 16th amendment does not alter the 4th, and the 4th does not apply only to criminal actions (as the 5th explicitly does). Yet no one seems to care about this annual violations.", ">\n\nReminder, Fox News is not news. It's entertainment, and should be regarded as such.", ">\n\nNo shit, poor ppl tend to file their own taxes and screw up where as millionaires hire expensive accountants to exploit all the legal loopholes without getting their clients in trouble.\nI don't think it's an intentional targeting as the article may be implying.", ">\n\nOne might imagine the resources of agents would be better put to use by focusing on returns that might produce more revenue, however it may be just a lot easier to collect a few bucks from easier targets.", ">\n\nThey are short staffed and accountants make it so difficult to find wrongdoing, if there is even wrongdoing to be found, that it would take a decent chunk of their workforce just to tackle it. It's like trying to find needle in a haystack but you don't know if there's a needle or not.", ">\n\nSo true....", ">\n\nShocked pikachu face.", ">\n\nYeah I’d believe this if it weren’t Fox News. They could give a fuck about the poor and middle class.", ">\n\nI would literally rather the IRS spend its time auditing 5 extraordinarily rich people or a single business than anyone who makes less than 100k per year\nETA: I’m aware that this article represents part of the Republican agenda to just gut the IRS and welfare spending generally. And I understand the difficulties in auditing the rich/businesses v lower income people claiming tax credits, etc", ">\n\nAlmost all of the little people \"audits\" are just a computer issuing a correspondence \"audit\" because the person misreported something from their W2, didn't report as much 1099 income as was reported to the IRS by others, or separated parents both trying to claim kids for tax credits or something. \n-\nThey don't really pull from the same resources. The rich people audits require human beings. Little people \"audits\" aren't really audits and a computer can do it. So if we want to audit more rich people, they need actual budget for human beings. The little people are going to be caught anyways because a computer can do it.", ">\n\nI interned at the IRS during the summer of 2012 when Lois Lerner made batshit crazy commrnts that they were targetting conservative groups", ">\n\nI say this every time it gets brought up. This is by design. I used to work in auditing and also used to do tax stuff. It’s super easy to find tax fraud on someone who only has a simple W-2 and no other income. You could find those people through a basic algorithm. Meanwhile, auditing a multi millionaire is expensive, time consuming, and often fruitless. If I was in charge of an underfunded, understaffed IRS I would tell my staff to go for the easy wins too.", ">\n\nUnpopular opinion - More funding won't resolve this. \nThe IRS will keep doing this. Unless rules & regulations forbid or disincentivize this practice, the IRS will keep this stupid practice", ">\n\nI make $40,000 a year and the IRS froze my bank accounts until I paid them $1000 in taxes I owed them because of an error I made filling my taxes. They froze my bank accounts for $1000. I was fucked for a month. I had to borrow cash from people just for food and gas money to get to work to get paid money that I couldn’t access. It was a scary time for me. Meanwhile millionaires are purposely avoiding taxes worth more than what I make in a year and nothing happens to them.", ">\n\nThe IRS sends no less than a dozen letters to a taxpayer prior to leaving a bank account. Why didn't you just put it into a repayment plan? Takes about ten minutes online.", ">\n\nDon't you just hate autocorrect?", ">\n\nIf true, its a holdover from jrbush who slashed IRS staff and budget and told them to spend more time auditing tip jars and busboys than millionaires because the millionaires had better lawyers than the IRS and service workers were unlikely to have any lawyers at all.", ">\n\nFox News solution: remove the IRS", ">\n\nAbsolutely. They’ll NEVER target the rich, adding more agents just made them a lot more capable to target all the lower class.", ">\n\nWhat people don't realize..Those 87K \"Agents\" aren't that. It's 87K employees over 25 years. Clerks etc. People are so fucking stupid when they just believe these clowns.", ">\n\nThose numbers also count it as an \"audit\" when a person misreports a number from a W2, 1099s, etc and the irs number matching software sends an automatically generated correspondence letter that basically says \"we actually show this number, this is what your tax return would have been if you reported that number correctly\". \nThe IRS isn't wasting time doing random \"audits\" as people think of them for low to middle income people. It would be a complete waste of their time. The computer just catches obvious verifiable mistakes and it counts as an audit in those numbers.", ">\n\n“those in the lowest income bracket hit 12.7 per 1,000….. The odds of a millionaire facing an audit were around 1.1%.”\nSo they’re saying 1.27% vs 1.1%!!! And acting like that’s a scandal 🙄", ">\n\nWhich means millionaires REALLY don't want more IRS auditors which means when our new resident house fascist fires five thousand auditors, said fascist (McCarthy) is making sure those millionaires aren't going to get audited. \nCha CHING !!! Go the \"donations\" into house rat republican's pockets. \nThe grift will be in full swing shortly.\nAnd with putin whispering in their ears and telling them EXACTLY how break the law - how can they lose?", ">\n\n💯 Exactly why theres a Fox link here pushing for that same reason.", ">\n\nTwo things. First of all, this is from a far right-wing propaganda outlet which should immediately raise red flags. They're trying to scare you into allowing a republican-initiated movement to entirely remove all remaining power from the IRS by making it seem like they're coming after you.\nSecond, the reason the IRS is already already virtually powerless against the rich is because the republicans have already eviscerated them in the past several decades, largely through defunding them leading to not only staffing cuts, but the inability to pursue the wealthiest people who have the resources for endless litigation. So as a result, the FBI can only really afford to go after people who cannot financially defend themselves.", ">\n\nThird, you might as well throw in that the aiming low guidance was under a Trump appointee who is no longer in that position.", ">\n\nThe GOP intentionally defunded the IRS so that it could not audit the wealthy. It takes a great deal more money upfront to audit them but the payback is far greater.", ">\n\nI'm not sure why dems voted against an amendment that would have mandated the giant infusion of cash into the IRS couldn't be used to audit folks making >$400k.", ">\n\nHrm this is pretty fucked I'd like to hear about why the Dems voted nay.", ">\n\nBecause they work for the same people as Republicans. \nThey are different but only when their owners allow them to be. \nI don't know how many times we are going to have to learn this lesson before it sticks.", ">\n\nDemocrats are responsible for this", ">\n\nThe rich returns are just too hard, enough lower class errors you can leave the rich alone. Love to see it… sigh", ">\n\nIt takes money to police the wealthy. Can't have that can we?!", ">\n\nr/noshitsherlock", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised?\nI’m not even American and this seemed obvious to me. All you have to do is look at how the poor live and compare that to the news about someone like Elon musk or Donald trump.", ">\n\nThis is why the IRS needs to go.", ">\n\nFox News helped make that happen.", ">\n\nThey'll never change,all the time when the guys in charge benefit from doing the same shit.", ">\n\nAnd yet the republicans dont submit or pass legislations to change the rules to favor targeting rich people. Curious.", ">\n\nThen 78,000 new, armed tax collectors should be able to extract even more money from the poor, middle-class and small business owners.", ">\n\nWhy did they focus on the Poorest? The thought of 87,000 more of them will actually do what? If the existing can’t focus on the wealthy! Then what makes anybody think more can?", ">\n\nMillionaires and billionaires make the government more money by creating lobbying loopholes and exploiting the economy to bilk the 99%. It's really cheap to go after the poorest who are struggling to pay day to day obligations and don't have loopholes or government sanctioned exploitation to take advantage of.", ">\n\nI could have told you this would happen. You think millionaires get $600 Venmo transactions?", ">\n\nThat's a move democrats should not make. That's one month of rent for me. What of folks worse-off?", ">\n\nHonestly it’s like squeezing blood from the stone over here anyway.", ">\n\nDuh lmfao theyve already stated it costs too much to tax weathy people previously and its most cost effective to audit the poor due to many factors...", ">\n\nI mean 99% of us are poor compared to the other 1%", ">\n\nColor me surprised", ">\n\nWe need some laws for equitable auditing.", ">\n\nYou are an Army commander about to attack the enemy. Do you prefer to attack where they have experienced career solders backed up by artillery, tanks, and airplanes, or do you attack where there are poorly armed and equipped untrained conscripts?", ">\n\nThey must be upset someone replaced their sign with a card from Cards Against Humanity", ">\n\nMay it ever be so…. Don’t reproduce if you only consume and can’t accumulate or help a Dow Jones winter water witch. Like snow, weathermen.", ">\n\nIt’s weirdly fitting how much their building sign in the photo looks like a cards against humanity card.", ">\n\nTypical", ">\n\nWow? How unusual.", ">\n\nI’d support double the number of IRS agents", ">\n\nI was low income and won about 3,000 gambling, the irs went after me", ">\n\nThe IRS came after me hard for 8$", ">\n\nAudit frequency should correlate to income, someone with a million in income should be audited 10x those with 100k income", ">\n\nSomeone should explain Pareto charts to the IRS.", ">\n\nI've been audited three times. First when I was 27, did some consulting and didn't do the 1099 prepayments. Ended up owing $17k. Second audit was after moving across country for a job. The tax preparer we hired made a mistake with the move expense deductions, owed a few thousand. Third audit was another tax preparer mistake, but this time we overpaid and were owed money we credited to the next year. \nIf you assume for discussion that the average audit on an ordinary tax payer returns $10,000, it would take 100,000,000 audits to make $1 trillion. By just doing the easy work, the IRS is leaving the real money on the table.", ">\n\nRepublicans are famous for giving rich breaks while middle class etc close the gaps", ">\n\nThe last line, \"The Inflation Reduction Act provides the IRS with $80 billion in future funding to ramp up its audits and potentially target the wealthiest taxpayers.\"", ">\n\nThe cure is not the root cause, but the middle class and the poor will eventually bear the burden after the capital operation", ">\n\nIt’s like they timed the “research” and the drop of the article with the speech. Sad man.", ">\n\nWatch Madoff. The wealthy skate and steal billions. The poor are in prison over thousands.", ">\n\nWhy does their sign look like a Card Against Humanity", ">\n\nFucking Trump, still at it.", ">\n\nOh you mean the thing people said would happen once they got massive funding actually happened? Checks out", ">\n\nOf course they did, because millionaires will lawyer up.", ">\n\nBecause the poor can't afford to fight back.", ">\n\nIt's so unfair the poor and the middle class taxpayers suffer so much while the millionaries got away with not paying the taxes It's really hurting the poor. The middle class is fading", ">\n\nAll of this can be fixed if we just use no-exemption graduated income", ">\n\nYeah we know", ">\n\nShow of hands for all surprised.\ncrickets\nHmm. Seems like Reddit suffers from a plague of double amputees...", ">\n\nWhat the actual fuck", ">\n\nAnd 2021, 2020, 2019, …", ">\n\nSounds about right.", ">\n\nOf course. Poor people can’t afford attorneys.", ">\n\nI made a mistake on my forms while I was overseas and ticked “self-employed” instead of “employed”. I was on a student visa and had two children and was making less than 10k a year. They hounded me for years. By the time I figured out what had happened I could not amend the forms and had paid thousands in penalties and interest.\nMeanwhile I knew lots of people who were there fully employed not reporting their income.\nFuck them.", ">\n\nYep! During the pandemic, even while I wasn't working didn't come after me the entire time that I was working but the minute that I wasn't nobody was cuz we were in lockdown they started popping up", ">\n\nI just now realized that the Cards Against Humanity box looks like the IRS sign", ">\n\nWhy is the sign a Cards Against Humanity question?", ">\n\nI am shocked and appalled. clutches pearls", ">\n\nRich should be taxed more than the average not right at all. Or at least there is a tier system based on pay only makes sense. Come on now", ">\n\nSounds about right, make the rich richer again.", ">\n\nWho are we going to vote for in the future ,all of them are decayed , corrupted and useless , the “most rich country in the world , governed by the most ignorant an corrupted. What a contrast .", ">\n\nGod bless America", ">\n\nno way. wait until you see those people responds. Those people are chipping away.", ">\n\nSounds about right", ">\n\nWe know.", ">\n\nI find it rather comical that Fox news is reporting on this since they are all about pushing the Republican agenda and that is all about pushing everyone else down that isn't rich and keeping them there. Not to mention they had no problem with Trump not paying taxes for years.", ">\n\nCan fucking confirm.", ">\n\nYeah, they (millionaires) have accountants who generally do things right and due to their millions being in investments it's not like it's taxable all the time. \nThen there's the ability to sell any stocks when they're down to build up losses on paper can reinvest them at a loss that can carry over across multiple years.", ">\n\nsounds about right. i don’t have a pot to piss in but they’re all over me for someone stealing my identity and filing a double tax return one year.", ">\n\nDuh", ">\n\nThere’s a reason why FOX is posting this article. The less people at the IRS, the more likely they come after folks who can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nIn order to pursue wealthy tax cheats, the IRS needs more resources and personnel. Otherwise it’s business as usual, picking on the low hanging fruit that earns under 6 figures.", ">\n\nSo wrong ....people need to be fired", ">\n\nIt’s because they can’t afford to take them to court", ">\n\nOf course it is about protecting the rich like Trump who lies ,lies , and about his tax returns . No wonder he did not want them released .", ">\n\nEasy prey bc most ppl can not lawyer up. Pretty heart breaking system we have at times.", ">\n\nWhy does the irs sign look like it's from cards against humanity?", ">\n\nCurrently getting audited over \\~$1500, which they owe me, when the rich get away with murder. Fucking unbelievably and unnecessarily stressful for me.", ">\n\nHas t this been know for a while?", ">\n\nyep and they are the same people getting tax cuts while everyone else does it tough ....\nAny one with too much money is your enemy .... not a hero of democracy", ">\n\nGet rid of taxes and the gov’t should just do stuff for free, or what ever.", ">\n\nYou have to be careful when you get one of those CP2000 notices from the IRS. The way they are written is a trap.\nIf you dispute it you are supposed to indicate that you disagree and send it back with documents supporting your dispute.\nYou are only supposed to sign it if you agree with them and when you sign it you are signing away your rights to dispute the back taxes and penalties they are demanding.\nMere worker bees like us can expect to be getting a lot of those from this years tax returns considering how the threshold for 1099k forms has been dropped to $600.\nGuys like Trump? The IRS doesn't even know where to begin.", ">\n\nThanks Biden", ">\n\nI presume those lower-income bracket filers might be more likely to reach out to 1-800-infomercial [quickie settlement/long-term penalties most favorable to gov/proprietor] than retain proper legal counsel?\nRegardless it’s got to be a lot less work for IRS agent to go after under-represented citizen(s), rather than someone who can afford to appeal, properly negotiate on their own terms?", ">\n\nLmfao Dems tax and spend. But I have to admit there Republicans that tax and spend to. Where do these Politicians get off taxing me or business and give to people who don't work what do you cause d the inflation. You can not print money \nI am Conservative not a Republican. To much money is wasted and put in pockets of people ot don't belong.\nBut all dems know how to tax tax tax. \nIts all great and good until you run out if other peoples money. \nMillionaire just like Berny he hated Millionaires until he became one now he hates Trillionaires. Funny how the gold post changes. And good old Nancy her I side stock trading. So I think you need to rethink.", ">\n\nThe IRS is only doing as directed by whomever controls the White House.", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised by this? Really?", ">\n\nThe sign in the thumbnail looks like a Cards Against Humanity card.", ">\n\nWhile this is mostly true, don’t believe everything you read. I’m no more an accountant than I am a ladies man, but someone (said they’re an accountant) posted a few days ago about this. They explained that the most likely people getting audited are trying to, fraudulently or mistakenly, claim the EITC. \nYES, it’s super easy to “bust” these people for an easy “mistake”. This is who the IRS is cracking down on. \nDo I think it’s better to bust poor people for claiming a few thousand in tax credits vs billionaires who avoid taxes altogether? Of course not, but don’t think they’re actively targeting people who fudge their mileage deductions or miss a decimal point in their calculations as small business owners. It’s simply not happening. \nAnd the reported “87,000 new IRS agents” are replacing the 10’s of 1,000’s of employees set to retire or quit over the next 10 years which doesn’t even begin to fill the gaps we’ve been growing for decades by not hiring and training more willing workers. Not to mention they’re not even close to all employees who will actively audit tax payers. They’re people who answer phones, file papers, assist others, etc… They’re mostly just average people with average jobs so of course the GOP wants to end this. They hate upward mobility and job creation unless that means tax breaks for their billionaire friends.", ">\n\nI wish everyone wasn’t a sheep and would understand this.", ">\n\nI can see the Media doing their best to turn the public against the IRS.", ">\n\nPicking on the week and helpless. That’s what we humans do. We suck. I’m waiting for that big meteor reset button.", ">\n\nAnd Fox news loves this.", ">\n\nLove it, Faux 'News' taking the piss, for 4 years under Dear Leader they campaigned for tax breaks for the rich, now they're pretending to care about the poor !", ">\n\nEvery millionaire should be audited yearly. Period.", ">\n\nAND now the gqp cult promises to rescind the money Biden set aside to aid the IRS to recover taxes from mega millionaire tax cheats like benedict donald, who paid less taxes than most working Americans.", ">\n\nRepublicans want to stop the IRS and Congress from taxing rich people, making the burden of maintaining civilization fall more heavily on poorer people. This is why Republicans vote for tax cuts for the rich and against funding for the IRS.\nAnd since Republican beliefs are based on wishful thinking, Republicans can screw over poor, rural Republicans while simultaneously taking credit for doing it to make Republicans happy about it and blaming it on Democrats to make those same Republicans resentful against Democrats for it. And what else would we expect from a Republican Party that blames Democrats for tricking them into attacking the Capitol to make Trump look bad and justifies and approves of assaulting Capitol police while brandishing their \"thin blue line\" flags.", ">\n\nThe IRS is like any other law enforcement agency, they prefer pursuing the poor because they don't have the resources to protect themselves.", ">\n\nThe IRS building sign looks like its from cards against humanity.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nNot a reliable news source.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nThat picture looks like the worst cards against humanity card too get.", ">\n\nScrew the Murdoch media empire and their failed trickle down ideologies.", ">\n\nOf course, the poorest haven’t paid over 400+ billion for decades. Not sure about the rich, we haven’t checked.", ">\n\nThis is not a surprise. With the recent inflation reduction act, the IRS an additional $80B over 10 years or $8B per year. The IRS budget for 2021 was $13.7B. The additional $8B over the year would be an increase of 58% to their budget. They will be looking to get a lot more money from taxpayers, due to this very large increase in their budget.", ">\n\nFox reported this? I'm in shock", ">\n\nAll propagandists publish clickbaity stuff that makes them sound like maybe they've let up on the evil. Unfortunately it works, since people just upvote headlines.", ">\n\nIt’s only going to get worse in 2023. Those 87k new IRS agents will not be going after the wealthy.", ">\n\nWhy?\nThat’s literally why they were being added. The IRS goes after the poorer taxpayers because they are low-hanging fruit and don’t have the lawyers and accountants to protect them. \nThe additional IRS employees were to give the personnel staffing sufficient to go after the wealthy.", ">\n\nIt doesn’t matter how many IRS agents there are. It will always be easier and more profitable for the IRS to nickel and dime the average taxpayer rather than go after the wealthy, who have the resources to lawyer up with the best lawyers and challenge the IRS in court.", ">\n\nEasier? Yes. More profitable? Doubtful.", ">\n\nIf Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nBut in 2022 ( when Biden was president and the House belonged to the Dems) they didn’t did they.", ">\n\nIt takes time to refactor an organization. It’s still full of Trump appointees.", ">\n\n2020 was a long time ago", ">\n\nNot on organizational time scales. It takes several months to safely restructure an organization as big as the federal government, and when it is the federal government it takes years. Congress gets a say in every political appointment, budget change, and organization change. It’s designed to be slow to assure continuity. \nThere is a saying that every president gets credited and blamed for what the prior administration put in motion. There is a lot of truth to that, and this organizational inertia is a big reason why. There are similar long lags in changing laws, re-writing policies, modifying rules, and so on. It’s a “feature” of having checks and balances.", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli" ]
> This isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. It was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.	[ "If Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nAnd when Barry was president they targeted conservative groups. I think phone calls can be made to tell them to back off of the little guy.", ">\n\n\nthey targeted conservative groups.\n\nNo. They went after specifically anti-tax tea party groups. The groups who openly flaunted tax laws", ">\n\nThey also went after progressive, left leaning groups - how do you explain that ? it was political", ">\n\nWait, did they target conservatives or progressives? Lol", ">\n\nBoth- it was quite clear they were involving themselves in politics - that’s what the IG found", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.", ">\n\nYep!\nAlso this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious.\nThe real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade.", ">\n\nThanks for the informative reply.\nYou make great points which I don't doubt. But there are times when I think it's important to consider both the letter and spirit of law at times.\nEven though it is perfectly by the letter of the law that people should be checked, it also seems against the intended spirit of said law that only a certain group of people are checked.\nI am not familiar with US law, but I think most of us can feel some degree of injustice with how things currently are.", ">\n\nThe point is to automate more checking of income common to wealthier people, and devote more resources to auditing those people. The Fox News article is disingenuous in how it describes the automated checking that goes on. It’s not great that rich people aren’t really audited, but there’s no reason to stop the automated checking of income where it’s already being done and essentially free to continue.\nIf you feel differently, explain yourself.", ">\n\nNo, we are in alignment concerning this.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nFUCK FOX NEWS\nFox is pretending to care about us poors. \nDon't reward these fascist fucks with upvotes for a disingenuous clickbait headline. They still hate us for not voting gop.", ">\n\nThey want people to hate the IRS and help defund it so they don’t go after the rich, which was the purpose of the additional funding", ">\n\nThey want people to link this to “87000” new agents, which is obviously happening on social media posts, but it’s not even a thing.", ">\n\nArticle is trash. The author is including correspondence audits (which means the IRS asked for some documentation by mail) for low income filers but not for millionaires when comparing their audit rates. Here are actual numbers according to their own source:\nAudit rates including correspondence audits\nlow income 1.27%\nmillionaires 2.38% \nAudit rates excluding correspondence audits\nlow income 0.0376%\nmillionaires 1.24%\n.\nFor low income filers, nearly all their audits were correspondence audits.", ">\n\nIt's hilarious when Fox News and the GOP pretend they care about poor people.\nNo amount of hypocrisy is too much to try to make democrats look bad.", ">\n\nIts unfortunately far easier to prove married couples who live together filed HoH for extra earned income credit than it is to prove complicated returns were incorrect.", ">\n\nIt's also trivially easy to prove the same child was claimed by two parents which is a lot of correspondence audits.", ">\n\nSo can my back taxes please just get forgiven already. 20% income being taxed is not livable", ">\n\nRepublican love flat rate taxes, you should talk to them.", ">\n\nThey’re required to audit the president and vice president, and that didn’t happen either.", ">\n\nThis isn't new, it's been been having for the last 5 - 6 years.", ">\n\nHopefully some wake up and realize its all just preparing us for the inevitable destruction of our economy. I imagine its almost too late to realize this. If we all realized this wed sell our 401Ks and not lean on money and use it to help our neighbors.", ">\n\nK bro.", ">\n\nMy wife and I are on social security. She works part time to keep us afloat. All in, we earned $50K in 2022. iRS wants $4500 from us. Really? 5X what Trump paid? Don't know if anyone is paying attention but $50k ain't rich. Oh, and out of that comes almost $4k in Medicare premiums. A program we paid into for 40+ years.\nEveryone of these arrogant, unqualified,, spoon fed assholes in Congress should be made to live on SSI or welfare, with no medical coverage, for a year. Then tell me I am acting entitled.\nSelf serving bastards.", ">\n\nDon't upvote this crap.\nDo you really think Fox cares about the working class??\nThis is just right wing propaganda, timed to coincide with McCarthy's promise to get rid of the new IRS agents who make it possible to audit the rich.\nDon't be used.", ">\n\nWhatever happened to \"dont shoot the messenger?\"", ">\n\nIRS understaffing would naturally trend to go after low-lying fruit. Easy pickings. Too many man hours to go after super complex cases. These moneyed fuckers and their bullshit. It's outrageous.", ">\n\nThe vast majority of these audits are automatically generated correspondence audits that have to be issued. We can't just turn off the program that raises a red flag when two people claim the same child as a dependent because we don't have enough forensic accountants. If you mistype your W2 you'll get an \"audit\" showing the correct info from the copy your boss sent them and telling you they'll correct it unless you tell them otherwise and you don't have to do anything if the info they have is correct.", ">\n\nYeah, all the nonsense about the IRS \"going after\" low income people is so stupid. Low income people make money in a way that their reporting is easily verifiable by a computer. They're also most likely to mess up and claim child tax credits incorrectly, etc - all of which is verifiable and issued a letter by a computer. \n-\nOther than actually being able to get someone on the phone when you call the IRS, and increased budget isn't going to impact the average person in any way.", ">\n\nMy thing is even assuming the 87k don't successfully get more money out of the rich, that's still 87k jobs. That's a net positive. I just don't understand the conservative logic here. Do they think these 87k new jobs are specifically for being insidiously predatory toward the poor? Where's the logic here? (I know I'll get hyperbolic answers, but I genuinely would like to know)", ">\n\nIt's 87,000 jobs over 10 years, the majority of which are replacement during that period. It's just a budget supplemental to stop hemorrhaging agents as they retire or cycle out into other jobs.", ">\n\nso.. this is on fox, which I assume support republican efforts to ensure that this is the permanent state of affairs. I don't really get anything anymore.", ">\n\nAnd that is the way the GOP wants it.", ">\n\n💯 Exactly what this Fox article is trying to do.", ">\n\nIt's who can afford a lawyer", ">\n\nAs the article hints at, the IRS does not do a lot of actual auditing. What it does is computer matching, which automatically generates material for a correspondence audit. Most correspondence audits occur because som poor working Joe didn't know he/her was supposed to include or exclude something, and the IRS caught it in its matching. Of course, the problem is that we have a complex code and little help in actually helping people through the various forms, rules, and so on. But millionaires don't have these issues, so they can escape most of the traps that lead to a correspondence audit. If a lot of these 87,000 were in taxpayer service (which I expect) it would lead to fewer audits at the low end, more robust audits for large corporations, wealthy individuals, and those who actively use tax avoidance strategies. But of course that is not the dialogue that gets promoted when the 87,000 agents are discussed.", ">\n\nThis is exactly why Fox News needs to be dismantled and thrown in the garbage. Ugh, \"look poors! They're coming for yoU!!!\". Scare tactics. And guess what? It sadly works. Every time.\nThey're lower than scum.", ">\n\nExactly. It's when someone misreports a number from their W2, didn't report 1099s they received, both separated parents claim a tax credit for the same kid, etc. All stuff that's easily checked by a computer. The IRS isn't \"auditing\" random low to middle income people. That would be a complete waste of their time.", ">\n\nlooks at Trump You don't say.", ">\n\nThe poor can't defend themselves, it's easier to take a little bit of money from people that won't fight back than a lot of money from people that will.", ">\n\nThe mega rich seem like they’re on a mission to destroy America, as we know it.", ">\n\nHiring 87,000 new IRS agents makes it possible to audit billionaires. So they pay their share. Those audits require an actual person or team that knows what they are doing. But Kevin McCarthy's first item of business was to announce legislation to overturn the hiring of 87,000 IRS agents. Meaning only the little guy (who can be audited by computer software) pays taxes.\nSSDD", ">\n\nThe \"87,000\" agents budget is over a ten year period. It's not for 87,000 new positions.", ">\n\nThe title is so misleading. Im surprised fox even put the juicy bit in the article about how (this stat is due to there not being enough IRS workers because) these \"audits\" on low earners are just automated letters asking for more info.\nYet again, this is just millionairs paid by billionairs to mislead the masses into blaming the poor for crimes committed by said billionairs.", ">\n\nWhich is why the IRS needs more manpower and budget, so they can go after the big fish.\nFuck Fox News and their Republican propaganda pieces. This article coincides with McCarthy saying they’ll cut the IRS budget and that the IRS is coming for you.\nFuck off Republican propaganda rag!\nStop upvoting any Fox News story. Fox should not be on the white list.", ">\n\nThis is a terrible article. It seems to include questions about tax returns as audits. If a low income filer makes a mistake it should be corrected. Is that an audit? If anyone makes a mistake and is contacted, is that an audit? Also there is no reason to go after low income as they rarely pay tax or are required to. The money requested would also pay for people to answer a phone. Those against increasing funding lie when they say all of it goes to audits. If you tell the truth, who cares if you are audited? Are y’all aware you can track your personal return online? However a business cannot. Businesses have to rely on humans that can’t be reached. I’ve waited a year for a refund. Didn’t know if IRS received the return. Didn’t know if there was an issue. Didn’t know if it was mailed or lost. I’m getting tired of Republicans pushing their crap on people.", ">\n\nwho keeps upvoting this right wing propaganda", ">\n\nWhy would the GOP want to give the agency the power to go after their donors.", ">\n\nAnd it was trumps guy that mandated it while Biden replaced him", ">\n\nApparently the mere use of an accounting firm somehow protected corps and the rich from the IRS who still (mistakenly) believe the accounting firms are trustworthy. How naive.", ">\n\nThe \"audits\" talked about are mostly form letters requesting more info about specific items.", ">\n\nThe poor can't pay for top flight attorneys.", ">\n\nYep keep the IRS underfunded so they can only go after the poors at the same time telling all the poors that the IRS is bad cause it goes after them but leave out the fact that they do that cause the poors are low hanging fruit.\nRepublicans are evil.", ">\n\nWell the GOP wants to cut funding to the IRS for new agents, so I’m sure the poor folk will continue to get screwed. I say toss the 50,000+ page tax code out and replace with a percentage based on total revenue/income made. Took a loss? No write-offs. Oh well, better luck next year. It’ll never happen because the wealthy don’t want it to.", ">\n\nWhere did you get this info? I know GOPers have been slashing IRS budgets and staffing for years but can't find reliable sources for what this has done to the actual audits - like who gets audited.", ">\n\nTheir link is Fox. This is a bad faith post.", ">\n\nThis says a lot coming from fox “news”", ">\n\nTo paraphrase Gilbert K. Chesterton, \"The Poor have sometimes objected to being taxed too heavily; The Rich have always objected to being taxed at all.\"", ">\n\ndon't post Fox news here....", ">\n\nCorporations and millionaires have the means to hire accountants and attorneys. Our tax code is gray in several areas. It’s easy to go after the poor that do not have the resources and will have no choice but to pay anything the IRS says. The additional agents will continue to target the poor and middle class because they are easy, It’s happened before, it will continue to happen.", ">\n\nI think it's funny/sad that a poor person can win the lottery and they get taxed at a higher rate than any billionaire has ever been taxed at. The system is built to keep the rich - rich and the poor - poor.", ">\n\nThe poorest can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nThe current system cannot be sustained. We are hurtling towards disaster.", ">\n\nThe only reason the bastards have the majority is because the corrupt SCOTUS allowed illegal gerrymanders to stand while they were fought in the courts.", ">\n\nThe I.R.S. goes after the poorer people because it's easier. They can't afford lawyers and accountants. So the poor can do nothing but roll over and take it up the rump. The Inflation Reduction Act that Biden signed into law in August is supposed to give $80 Billion to the I.R.S. so they can go after the millionaires. But we know that won't happen. More poor people are going to get screwed.", ">\n\nI'm confused. For decades, Faux news and the conservatives have been saying that millionaires deserve to keep more of their money than we do. That was a huge part of the 2017 tax scam that Trump signed. Now Faux is saying it's a problem? And they are rightly detailing that Republicans are the cause, along with Biden trying to fix the same issue that Fox has helped create?", ">\n\nFox News", ">\n\nHey IRS, don't forget to crawl up my ass this year because I sold some old stuff on eBay for a loss but make sure you put a few man hours into figuring out if it is legit or not.", ">\n\nlol, and the people opposed to IRS funding will say they are anti-establishment.", ">\n\nImagine how much they could squeeze the middle class with 87,000 more agents! But really, it’ll be good to see if the increase in officers actually increases tax revenue without changing the underlying laws.", ">\n\nSo, this is the newest Republican boogeyman, the IRS.\nWell, better than Drag Queens I guess.", ">\n\nOh hey just like last year, and the year before that, I think there might be a pattern", ">\n\nThank you republicans, always sticking up in the back on the small guys…", ">\n\nFox News saying this like it’s not something Rupert Murdoch’s network supports is pretty funny.", ">\n\nFox News. Ignore it.", ">\n\nFox News is still allowed in here?", ">\n\nFake news. This is Republican propaganda coming from Fox News.", ">\n\nFox News is NOT news", ">\n\nHmm sounds like it was underfunded then. Good thing now we helped ease that problem. Thanks Biden", ">\n\nIt's simply laziness by the IRS. Lower-income households have less complicated returns and easier to process. I'm sure IRS runs a non-effective but management-pleasing metric like \"how many returns were corrected\" opposed to how much money was recouped.", ">\n\nWe know. They don't have the resources to do anything. That was the point of increasing the staffing at the IRS so they had even the slightest hope of going after the big offenders with their armies or lawyers.", ">\n\nThere's less millionaires and billionaires than there are us. I'm not sure that answer fits the accuracy on hiring more workers but I'll go ahead and amuse that", ">\n\nIt's not a game of tax guy vs rich guy. The rich literally have armies of lawyers. You need the staff to overcome all the paper and challenges they'll throw at you. \nIf you throw one person to audit a millionaire, their lawyers can make it so it'll take a year to review a week of operations. Investigations will never finish unless there's sufficient staff to overcome their obstruction.", ">\n\nTo this day I do not understand why the IRS can demand our documents every year without a warrant. The 16th amendment does not alter the 4th, and the 4th does not apply only to criminal actions (as the 5th explicitly does). Yet no one seems to care about this annual violations.", ">\n\nReminder, Fox News is not news. It's entertainment, and should be regarded as such.", ">\n\nNo shit, poor ppl tend to file their own taxes and screw up where as millionaires hire expensive accountants to exploit all the legal loopholes without getting their clients in trouble.\nI don't think it's an intentional targeting as the article may be implying.", ">\n\nOne might imagine the resources of agents would be better put to use by focusing on returns that might produce more revenue, however it may be just a lot easier to collect a few bucks from easier targets.", ">\n\nThey are short staffed and accountants make it so difficult to find wrongdoing, if there is even wrongdoing to be found, that it would take a decent chunk of their workforce just to tackle it. It's like trying to find needle in a haystack but you don't know if there's a needle or not.", ">\n\nSo true....", ">\n\nShocked pikachu face.", ">\n\nYeah I’d believe this if it weren’t Fox News. They could give a fuck about the poor and middle class.", ">\n\nI would literally rather the IRS spend its time auditing 5 extraordinarily rich people or a single business than anyone who makes less than 100k per year\nETA: I’m aware that this article represents part of the Republican agenda to just gut the IRS and welfare spending generally. And I understand the difficulties in auditing the rich/businesses v lower income people claiming tax credits, etc", ">\n\nAlmost all of the little people \"audits\" are just a computer issuing a correspondence \"audit\" because the person misreported something from their W2, didn't report as much 1099 income as was reported to the IRS by others, or separated parents both trying to claim kids for tax credits or something. \n-\nThey don't really pull from the same resources. The rich people audits require human beings. Little people \"audits\" aren't really audits and a computer can do it. So if we want to audit more rich people, they need actual budget for human beings. The little people are going to be caught anyways because a computer can do it.", ">\n\nI interned at the IRS during the summer of 2012 when Lois Lerner made batshit crazy commrnts that they were targetting conservative groups", ">\n\nI say this every time it gets brought up. This is by design. I used to work in auditing and also used to do tax stuff. It’s super easy to find tax fraud on someone who only has a simple W-2 and no other income. You could find those people through a basic algorithm. Meanwhile, auditing a multi millionaire is expensive, time consuming, and often fruitless. If I was in charge of an underfunded, understaffed IRS I would tell my staff to go for the easy wins too.", ">\n\nUnpopular opinion - More funding won't resolve this. \nThe IRS will keep doing this. Unless rules & regulations forbid or disincentivize this practice, the IRS will keep this stupid practice", ">\n\nI make $40,000 a year and the IRS froze my bank accounts until I paid them $1000 in taxes I owed them because of an error I made filling my taxes. They froze my bank accounts for $1000. I was fucked for a month. I had to borrow cash from people just for food and gas money to get to work to get paid money that I couldn’t access. It was a scary time for me. Meanwhile millionaires are purposely avoiding taxes worth more than what I make in a year and nothing happens to them.", ">\n\nThe IRS sends no less than a dozen letters to a taxpayer prior to leaving a bank account. Why didn't you just put it into a repayment plan? Takes about ten minutes online.", ">\n\nDon't you just hate autocorrect?", ">\n\nIf true, its a holdover from jrbush who slashed IRS staff and budget and told them to spend more time auditing tip jars and busboys than millionaires because the millionaires had better lawyers than the IRS and service workers were unlikely to have any lawyers at all.", ">\n\nFox News solution: remove the IRS", ">\n\nAbsolutely. They’ll NEVER target the rich, adding more agents just made them a lot more capable to target all the lower class.", ">\n\nWhat people don't realize..Those 87K \"Agents\" aren't that. It's 87K employees over 25 years. Clerks etc. People are so fucking stupid when they just believe these clowns.", ">\n\nThose numbers also count it as an \"audit\" when a person misreports a number from a W2, 1099s, etc and the irs number matching software sends an automatically generated correspondence letter that basically says \"we actually show this number, this is what your tax return would have been if you reported that number correctly\". \nThe IRS isn't wasting time doing random \"audits\" as people think of them for low to middle income people. It would be a complete waste of their time. The computer just catches obvious verifiable mistakes and it counts as an audit in those numbers.", ">\n\n“those in the lowest income bracket hit 12.7 per 1,000….. The odds of a millionaire facing an audit were around 1.1%.”\nSo they’re saying 1.27% vs 1.1%!!! And acting like that’s a scandal 🙄", ">\n\nWhich means millionaires REALLY don't want more IRS auditors which means when our new resident house fascist fires five thousand auditors, said fascist (McCarthy) is making sure those millionaires aren't going to get audited. \nCha CHING !!! Go the \"donations\" into house rat republican's pockets. \nThe grift will be in full swing shortly.\nAnd with putin whispering in their ears and telling them EXACTLY how break the law - how can they lose?", ">\n\n💯 Exactly why theres a Fox link here pushing for that same reason.", ">\n\nTwo things. First of all, this is from a far right-wing propaganda outlet which should immediately raise red flags. They're trying to scare you into allowing a republican-initiated movement to entirely remove all remaining power from the IRS by making it seem like they're coming after you.\nSecond, the reason the IRS is already already virtually powerless against the rich is because the republicans have already eviscerated them in the past several decades, largely through defunding them leading to not only staffing cuts, but the inability to pursue the wealthiest people who have the resources for endless litigation. So as a result, the FBI can only really afford to go after people who cannot financially defend themselves.", ">\n\nThird, you might as well throw in that the aiming low guidance was under a Trump appointee who is no longer in that position.", ">\n\nThe GOP intentionally defunded the IRS so that it could not audit the wealthy. It takes a great deal more money upfront to audit them but the payback is far greater.", ">\n\nI'm not sure why dems voted against an amendment that would have mandated the giant infusion of cash into the IRS couldn't be used to audit folks making >$400k.", ">\n\nHrm this is pretty fucked I'd like to hear about why the Dems voted nay.", ">\n\nBecause they work for the same people as Republicans. \nThey are different but only when their owners allow them to be. \nI don't know how many times we are going to have to learn this lesson before it sticks.", ">\n\nDemocrats are responsible for this", ">\n\nThe rich returns are just too hard, enough lower class errors you can leave the rich alone. Love to see it… sigh", ">\n\nIt takes money to police the wealthy. Can't have that can we?!", ">\n\nr/noshitsherlock", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised?\nI’m not even American and this seemed obvious to me. All you have to do is look at how the poor live and compare that to the news about someone like Elon musk or Donald trump.", ">\n\nThis is why the IRS needs to go.", ">\n\nFox News helped make that happen.", ">\n\nThey'll never change,all the time when the guys in charge benefit from doing the same shit.", ">\n\nAnd yet the republicans dont submit or pass legislations to change the rules to favor targeting rich people. Curious.", ">\n\nThen 78,000 new, armed tax collectors should be able to extract even more money from the poor, middle-class and small business owners.", ">\n\nWhy did they focus on the Poorest? The thought of 87,000 more of them will actually do what? If the existing can’t focus on the wealthy! Then what makes anybody think more can?", ">\n\nMillionaires and billionaires make the government more money by creating lobbying loopholes and exploiting the economy to bilk the 99%. It's really cheap to go after the poorest who are struggling to pay day to day obligations and don't have loopholes or government sanctioned exploitation to take advantage of.", ">\n\nI could have told you this would happen. You think millionaires get $600 Venmo transactions?", ">\n\nThat's a move democrats should not make. That's one month of rent for me. What of folks worse-off?", ">\n\nHonestly it’s like squeezing blood from the stone over here anyway.", ">\n\nDuh lmfao theyve already stated it costs too much to tax weathy people previously and its most cost effective to audit the poor due to many factors...", ">\n\nI mean 99% of us are poor compared to the other 1%", ">\n\nColor me surprised", ">\n\nWe need some laws for equitable auditing.", ">\n\nYou are an Army commander about to attack the enemy. Do you prefer to attack where they have experienced career solders backed up by artillery, tanks, and airplanes, or do you attack where there are poorly armed and equipped untrained conscripts?", ">\n\nThey must be upset someone replaced their sign with a card from Cards Against Humanity", ">\n\nMay it ever be so…. Don’t reproduce if you only consume and can’t accumulate or help a Dow Jones winter water witch. Like snow, weathermen.", ">\n\nIt’s weirdly fitting how much their building sign in the photo looks like a cards against humanity card.", ">\n\nTypical", ">\n\nWow? How unusual.", ">\n\nI’d support double the number of IRS agents", ">\n\nI was low income and won about 3,000 gambling, the irs went after me", ">\n\nThe IRS came after me hard for 8$", ">\n\nAudit frequency should correlate to income, someone with a million in income should be audited 10x those with 100k income", ">\n\nSomeone should explain Pareto charts to the IRS.", ">\n\nI've been audited three times. First when I was 27, did some consulting and didn't do the 1099 prepayments. Ended up owing $17k. Second audit was after moving across country for a job. The tax preparer we hired made a mistake with the move expense deductions, owed a few thousand. Third audit was another tax preparer mistake, but this time we overpaid and were owed money we credited to the next year. \nIf you assume for discussion that the average audit on an ordinary tax payer returns $10,000, it would take 100,000,000 audits to make $1 trillion. By just doing the easy work, the IRS is leaving the real money on the table.", ">\n\nRepublicans are famous for giving rich breaks while middle class etc close the gaps", ">\n\nThe last line, \"The Inflation Reduction Act provides the IRS with $80 billion in future funding to ramp up its audits and potentially target the wealthiest taxpayers.\"", ">\n\nThe cure is not the root cause, but the middle class and the poor will eventually bear the burden after the capital operation", ">\n\nIt’s like they timed the “research” and the drop of the article with the speech. Sad man.", ">\n\nWatch Madoff. The wealthy skate and steal billions. The poor are in prison over thousands.", ">\n\nWhy does their sign look like a Card Against Humanity", ">\n\nFucking Trump, still at it.", ">\n\nOh you mean the thing people said would happen once they got massive funding actually happened? Checks out", ">\n\nOf course they did, because millionaires will lawyer up.", ">\n\nBecause the poor can't afford to fight back.", ">\n\nIt's so unfair the poor and the middle class taxpayers suffer so much while the millionaries got away with not paying the taxes It's really hurting the poor. The middle class is fading", ">\n\nAll of this can be fixed if we just use no-exemption graduated income", ">\n\nYeah we know", ">\n\nShow of hands for all surprised.\ncrickets\nHmm. Seems like Reddit suffers from a plague of double amputees...", ">\n\nWhat the actual fuck", ">\n\nAnd 2021, 2020, 2019, …", ">\n\nSounds about right.", ">\n\nOf course. Poor people can’t afford attorneys.", ">\n\nI made a mistake on my forms while I was overseas and ticked “self-employed” instead of “employed”. I was on a student visa and had two children and was making less than 10k a year. They hounded me for years. By the time I figured out what had happened I could not amend the forms and had paid thousands in penalties and interest.\nMeanwhile I knew lots of people who were there fully employed not reporting their income.\nFuck them.", ">\n\nYep! During the pandemic, even while I wasn't working didn't come after me the entire time that I was working but the minute that I wasn't nobody was cuz we were in lockdown they started popping up", ">\n\nI just now realized that the Cards Against Humanity box looks like the IRS sign", ">\n\nWhy is the sign a Cards Against Humanity question?", ">\n\nI am shocked and appalled. clutches pearls", ">\n\nRich should be taxed more than the average not right at all. Or at least there is a tier system based on pay only makes sense. Come on now", ">\n\nSounds about right, make the rich richer again.", ">\n\nWho are we going to vote for in the future ,all of them are decayed , corrupted and useless , the “most rich country in the world , governed by the most ignorant an corrupted. What a contrast .", ">\n\nGod bless America", ">\n\nno way. wait until you see those people responds. Those people are chipping away.", ">\n\nSounds about right", ">\n\nWe know.", ">\n\nI find it rather comical that Fox news is reporting on this since they are all about pushing the Republican agenda and that is all about pushing everyone else down that isn't rich and keeping them there. Not to mention they had no problem with Trump not paying taxes for years.", ">\n\nCan fucking confirm.", ">\n\nYeah, they (millionaires) have accountants who generally do things right and due to their millions being in investments it's not like it's taxable all the time. \nThen there's the ability to sell any stocks when they're down to build up losses on paper can reinvest them at a loss that can carry over across multiple years.", ">\n\nsounds about right. i don’t have a pot to piss in but they’re all over me for someone stealing my identity and filing a double tax return one year.", ">\n\nDuh", ">\n\nThere’s a reason why FOX is posting this article. The less people at the IRS, the more likely they come after folks who can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nIn order to pursue wealthy tax cheats, the IRS needs more resources and personnel. Otherwise it’s business as usual, picking on the low hanging fruit that earns under 6 figures.", ">\n\nSo wrong ....people need to be fired", ">\n\nIt’s because they can’t afford to take them to court", ">\n\nOf course it is about protecting the rich like Trump who lies ,lies , and about his tax returns . No wonder he did not want them released .", ">\n\nEasy prey bc most ppl can not lawyer up. Pretty heart breaking system we have at times.", ">\n\nWhy does the irs sign look like it's from cards against humanity?", ">\n\nCurrently getting audited over \\~$1500, which they owe me, when the rich get away with murder. Fucking unbelievably and unnecessarily stressful for me.", ">\n\nHas t this been know for a while?", ">\n\nyep and they are the same people getting tax cuts while everyone else does it tough ....\nAny one with too much money is your enemy .... not a hero of democracy", ">\n\nGet rid of taxes and the gov’t should just do stuff for free, or what ever.", ">\n\nYou have to be careful when you get one of those CP2000 notices from the IRS. The way they are written is a trap.\nIf you dispute it you are supposed to indicate that you disagree and send it back with documents supporting your dispute.\nYou are only supposed to sign it if you agree with them and when you sign it you are signing away your rights to dispute the back taxes and penalties they are demanding.\nMere worker bees like us can expect to be getting a lot of those from this years tax returns considering how the threshold for 1099k forms has been dropped to $600.\nGuys like Trump? The IRS doesn't even know where to begin.", ">\n\nThanks Biden", ">\n\nI presume those lower-income bracket filers might be more likely to reach out to 1-800-infomercial [quickie settlement/long-term penalties most favorable to gov/proprietor] than retain proper legal counsel?\nRegardless it’s got to be a lot less work for IRS agent to go after under-represented citizen(s), rather than someone who can afford to appeal, properly negotiate on their own terms?", ">\n\nLmfao Dems tax and spend. But I have to admit there Republicans that tax and spend to. Where do these Politicians get off taxing me or business and give to people who don't work what do you cause d the inflation. You can not print money \nI am Conservative not a Republican. To much money is wasted and put in pockets of people ot don't belong.\nBut all dems know how to tax tax tax. \nIts all great and good until you run out if other peoples money. \nMillionaire just like Berny he hated Millionaires until he became one now he hates Trillionaires. Funny how the gold post changes. And good old Nancy her I side stock trading. So I think you need to rethink.", ">\n\nThe IRS is only doing as directed by whomever controls the White House.", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised by this? Really?", ">\n\nThe sign in the thumbnail looks like a Cards Against Humanity card.", ">\n\nWhile this is mostly true, don’t believe everything you read. I’m no more an accountant than I am a ladies man, but someone (said they’re an accountant) posted a few days ago about this. They explained that the most likely people getting audited are trying to, fraudulently or mistakenly, claim the EITC. \nYES, it’s super easy to “bust” these people for an easy “mistake”. This is who the IRS is cracking down on. \nDo I think it’s better to bust poor people for claiming a few thousand in tax credits vs billionaires who avoid taxes altogether? Of course not, but don’t think they’re actively targeting people who fudge their mileage deductions or miss a decimal point in their calculations as small business owners. It’s simply not happening. \nAnd the reported “87,000 new IRS agents” are replacing the 10’s of 1,000’s of employees set to retire or quit over the next 10 years which doesn’t even begin to fill the gaps we’ve been growing for decades by not hiring and training more willing workers. Not to mention they’re not even close to all employees who will actively audit tax payers. They’re people who answer phones, file papers, assist others, etc… They’re mostly just average people with average jobs so of course the GOP wants to end this. They hate upward mobility and job creation unless that means tax breaks for their billionaire friends.", ">\n\nI wish everyone wasn’t a sheep and would understand this.", ">\n\nI can see the Media doing their best to turn the public against the IRS.", ">\n\nPicking on the week and helpless. That’s what we humans do. We suck. I’m waiting for that big meteor reset button.", ">\n\nAnd Fox news loves this.", ">\n\nLove it, Faux 'News' taking the piss, for 4 years under Dear Leader they campaigned for tax breaks for the rich, now they're pretending to care about the poor !", ">\n\nEvery millionaire should be audited yearly. Period.", ">\n\nAND now the gqp cult promises to rescind the money Biden set aside to aid the IRS to recover taxes from mega millionaire tax cheats like benedict donald, who paid less taxes than most working Americans.", ">\n\nRepublicans want to stop the IRS and Congress from taxing rich people, making the burden of maintaining civilization fall more heavily on poorer people. This is why Republicans vote for tax cuts for the rich and against funding for the IRS.\nAnd since Republican beliefs are based on wishful thinking, Republicans can screw over poor, rural Republicans while simultaneously taking credit for doing it to make Republicans happy about it and blaming it on Democrats to make those same Republicans resentful against Democrats for it. And what else would we expect from a Republican Party that blames Democrats for tricking them into attacking the Capitol to make Trump look bad and justifies and approves of assaulting Capitol police while brandishing their \"thin blue line\" flags.", ">\n\nThe IRS is like any other law enforcement agency, they prefer pursuing the poor because they don't have the resources to protect themselves.", ">\n\nThe IRS building sign looks like its from cards against humanity.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nNot a reliable news source.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nThat picture looks like the worst cards against humanity card too get.", ">\n\nScrew the Murdoch media empire and their failed trickle down ideologies.", ">\n\nOf course, the poorest haven’t paid over 400+ billion for decades. Not sure about the rich, we haven’t checked.", ">\n\nThis is not a surprise. With the recent inflation reduction act, the IRS an additional $80B over 10 years or $8B per year. The IRS budget for 2021 was $13.7B. The additional $8B over the year would be an increase of 58% to their budget. They will be looking to get a lot more money from taxpayers, due to this very large increase in their budget.", ">\n\nFox reported this? I'm in shock", ">\n\nAll propagandists publish clickbaity stuff that makes them sound like maybe they've let up on the evil. Unfortunately it works, since people just upvote headlines.", ">\n\nIt’s only going to get worse in 2023. Those 87k new IRS agents will not be going after the wealthy.", ">\n\nWhy?\nThat’s literally why they were being added. The IRS goes after the poorer taxpayers because they are low-hanging fruit and don’t have the lawyers and accountants to protect them. \nThe additional IRS employees were to give the personnel staffing sufficient to go after the wealthy.", ">\n\nIt doesn’t matter how many IRS agents there are. It will always be easier and more profitable for the IRS to nickel and dime the average taxpayer rather than go after the wealthy, who have the resources to lawyer up with the best lawyers and challenge the IRS in court.", ">\n\nEasier? Yes. More profitable? Doubtful.", ">\n\nIf Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nBut in 2022 ( when Biden was president and the House belonged to the Dems) they didn’t did they.", ">\n\nIt takes time to refactor an organization. It’s still full of Trump appointees.", ">\n\n2020 was a long time ago", ">\n\nNot on organizational time scales. It takes several months to safely restructure an organization as big as the federal government, and when it is the federal government it takes years. Congress gets a say in every political appointment, budget change, and organization change. It’s designed to be slow to assure continuity. \nThere is a saying that every president gets credited and blamed for what the prior administration put in motion. There is a lot of truth to that, and this organizational inertia is a big reason why. There are similar long lags in changing laws, re-writing policies, modifying rules, and so on. It’s a “feature” of having checks and balances.", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions." ]
> Yet Fox news takes the "side" of the wealthy, at every turn	[ "If Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nAnd when Barry was president they targeted conservative groups. I think phone calls can be made to tell them to back off of the little guy.", ">\n\n\nthey targeted conservative groups.\n\nNo. They went after specifically anti-tax tea party groups. The groups who openly flaunted tax laws", ">\n\nThey also went after progressive, left leaning groups - how do you explain that ? it was political", ">\n\nWait, did they target conservatives or progressives? Lol", ">\n\nBoth- it was quite clear they were involving themselves in politics - that’s what the IG found", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.", ">\n\nYep!\nAlso this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious.\nThe real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade.", ">\n\nThanks for the informative reply.\nYou make great points which I don't doubt. But there are times when I think it's important to consider both the letter and spirit of law at times.\nEven though it is perfectly by the letter of the law that people should be checked, it also seems against the intended spirit of said law that only a certain group of people are checked.\nI am not familiar with US law, but I think most of us can feel some degree of injustice with how things currently are.", ">\n\nThe point is to automate more checking of income common to wealthier people, and devote more resources to auditing those people. The Fox News article is disingenuous in how it describes the automated checking that goes on. It’s not great that rich people aren’t really audited, but there’s no reason to stop the automated checking of income where it’s already being done and essentially free to continue.\nIf you feel differently, explain yourself.", ">\n\nNo, we are in alignment concerning this.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nFUCK FOX NEWS\nFox is pretending to care about us poors. \nDon't reward these fascist fucks with upvotes for a disingenuous clickbait headline. They still hate us for not voting gop.", ">\n\nThey want people to hate the IRS and help defund it so they don’t go after the rich, which was the purpose of the additional funding", ">\n\nThey want people to link this to “87000” new agents, which is obviously happening on social media posts, but it’s not even a thing.", ">\n\nArticle is trash. The author is including correspondence audits (which means the IRS asked for some documentation by mail) for low income filers but not for millionaires when comparing their audit rates. Here are actual numbers according to their own source:\nAudit rates including correspondence audits\nlow income 1.27%\nmillionaires 2.38% \nAudit rates excluding correspondence audits\nlow income 0.0376%\nmillionaires 1.24%\n.\nFor low income filers, nearly all their audits were correspondence audits.", ">\n\nIt's hilarious when Fox News and the GOP pretend they care about poor people.\nNo amount of hypocrisy is too much to try to make democrats look bad.", ">\n\nIts unfortunately far easier to prove married couples who live together filed HoH for extra earned income credit than it is to prove complicated returns were incorrect.", ">\n\nIt's also trivially easy to prove the same child was claimed by two parents which is a lot of correspondence audits.", ">\n\nSo can my back taxes please just get forgiven already. 20% income being taxed is not livable", ">\n\nRepublican love flat rate taxes, you should talk to them.", ">\n\nThey’re required to audit the president and vice president, and that didn’t happen either.", ">\n\nThis isn't new, it's been been having for the last 5 - 6 years.", ">\n\nHopefully some wake up and realize its all just preparing us for the inevitable destruction of our economy. I imagine its almost too late to realize this. If we all realized this wed sell our 401Ks and not lean on money and use it to help our neighbors.", ">\n\nK bro.", ">\n\nMy wife and I are on social security. She works part time to keep us afloat. All in, we earned $50K in 2022. iRS wants $4500 from us. Really? 5X what Trump paid? Don't know if anyone is paying attention but $50k ain't rich. Oh, and out of that comes almost $4k in Medicare premiums. A program we paid into for 40+ years.\nEveryone of these arrogant, unqualified,, spoon fed assholes in Congress should be made to live on SSI or welfare, with no medical coverage, for a year. Then tell me I am acting entitled.\nSelf serving bastards.", ">\n\nDon't upvote this crap.\nDo you really think Fox cares about the working class??\nThis is just right wing propaganda, timed to coincide with McCarthy's promise to get rid of the new IRS agents who make it possible to audit the rich.\nDon't be used.", ">\n\nWhatever happened to \"dont shoot the messenger?\"", ">\n\nIRS understaffing would naturally trend to go after low-lying fruit. Easy pickings. Too many man hours to go after super complex cases. These moneyed fuckers and their bullshit. It's outrageous.", ">\n\nThe vast majority of these audits are automatically generated correspondence audits that have to be issued. We can't just turn off the program that raises a red flag when two people claim the same child as a dependent because we don't have enough forensic accountants. If you mistype your W2 you'll get an \"audit\" showing the correct info from the copy your boss sent them and telling you they'll correct it unless you tell them otherwise and you don't have to do anything if the info they have is correct.", ">\n\nYeah, all the nonsense about the IRS \"going after\" low income people is so stupid. Low income people make money in a way that their reporting is easily verifiable by a computer. They're also most likely to mess up and claim child tax credits incorrectly, etc - all of which is verifiable and issued a letter by a computer. \n-\nOther than actually being able to get someone on the phone when you call the IRS, and increased budget isn't going to impact the average person in any way.", ">\n\nMy thing is even assuming the 87k don't successfully get more money out of the rich, that's still 87k jobs. That's a net positive. I just don't understand the conservative logic here. Do they think these 87k new jobs are specifically for being insidiously predatory toward the poor? Where's the logic here? (I know I'll get hyperbolic answers, but I genuinely would like to know)", ">\n\nIt's 87,000 jobs over 10 years, the majority of which are replacement during that period. It's just a budget supplemental to stop hemorrhaging agents as they retire or cycle out into other jobs.", ">\n\nso.. this is on fox, which I assume support republican efforts to ensure that this is the permanent state of affairs. I don't really get anything anymore.", ">\n\nAnd that is the way the GOP wants it.", ">\n\n💯 Exactly what this Fox article is trying to do.", ">\n\nIt's who can afford a lawyer", ">\n\nAs the article hints at, the IRS does not do a lot of actual auditing. What it does is computer matching, which automatically generates material for a correspondence audit. Most correspondence audits occur because som poor working Joe didn't know he/her was supposed to include or exclude something, and the IRS caught it in its matching. Of course, the problem is that we have a complex code and little help in actually helping people through the various forms, rules, and so on. But millionaires don't have these issues, so they can escape most of the traps that lead to a correspondence audit. If a lot of these 87,000 were in taxpayer service (which I expect) it would lead to fewer audits at the low end, more robust audits for large corporations, wealthy individuals, and those who actively use tax avoidance strategies. But of course that is not the dialogue that gets promoted when the 87,000 agents are discussed.", ">\n\nThis is exactly why Fox News needs to be dismantled and thrown in the garbage. Ugh, \"look poors! They're coming for yoU!!!\". Scare tactics. And guess what? It sadly works. Every time.\nThey're lower than scum.", ">\n\nExactly. It's when someone misreports a number from their W2, didn't report 1099s they received, both separated parents claim a tax credit for the same kid, etc. All stuff that's easily checked by a computer. The IRS isn't \"auditing\" random low to middle income people. That would be a complete waste of their time.", ">\n\nlooks at Trump You don't say.", ">\n\nThe poor can't defend themselves, it's easier to take a little bit of money from people that won't fight back than a lot of money from people that will.", ">\n\nThe mega rich seem like they’re on a mission to destroy America, as we know it.", ">\n\nHiring 87,000 new IRS agents makes it possible to audit billionaires. So they pay their share. Those audits require an actual person or team that knows what they are doing. But Kevin McCarthy's first item of business was to announce legislation to overturn the hiring of 87,000 IRS agents. Meaning only the little guy (who can be audited by computer software) pays taxes.\nSSDD", ">\n\nThe \"87,000\" agents budget is over a ten year period. It's not for 87,000 new positions.", ">\n\nThe title is so misleading. Im surprised fox even put the juicy bit in the article about how (this stat is due to there not being enough IRS workers because) these \"audits\" on low earners are just automated letters asking for more info.\nYet again, this is just millionairs paid by billionairs to mislead the masses into blaming the poor for crimes committed by said billionairs.", ">\n\nWhich is why the IRS needs more manpower and budget, so they can go after the big fish.\nFuck Fox News and their Republican propaganda pieces. This article coincides with McCarthy saying they’ll cut the IRS budget and that the IRS is coming for you.\nFuck off Republican propaganda rag!\nStop upvoting any Fox News story. Fox should not be on the white list.", ">\n\nThis is a terrible article. It seems to include questions about tax returns as audits. If a low income filer makes a mistake it should be corrected. Is that an audit? If anyone makes a mistake and is contacted, is that an audit? Also there is no reason to go after low income as they rarely pay tax or are required to. The money requested would also pay for people to answer a phone. Those against increasing funding lie when they say all of it goes to audits. If you tell the truth, who cares if you are audited? Are y’all aware you can track your personal return online? However a business cannot. Businesses have to rely on humans that can’t be reached. I’ve waited a year for a refund. Didn’t know if IRS received the return. Didn’t know if there was an issue. Didn’t know if it was mailed or lost. I’m getting tired of Republicans pushing their crap on people.", ">\n\nwho keeps upvoting this right wing propaganda", ">\n\nWhy would the GOP want to give the agency the power to go after their donors.", ">\n\nAnd it was trumps guy that mandated it while Biden replaced him", ">\n\nApparently the mere use of an accounting firm somehow protected corps and the rich from the IRS who still (mistakenly) believe the accounting firms are trustworthy. How naive.", ">\n\nThe \"audits\" talked about are mostly form letters requesting more info about specific items.", ">\n\nThe poor can't pay for top flight attorneys.", ">\n\nYep keep the IRS underfunded so they can only go after the poors at the same time telling all the poors that the IRS is bad cause it goes after them but leave out the fact that they do that cause the poors are low hanging fruit.\nRepublicans are evil.", ">\n\nWell the GOP wants to cut funding to the IRS for new agents, so I’m sure the poor folk will continue to get screwed. I say toss the 50,000+ page tax code out and replace with a percentage based on total revenue/income made. Took a loss? No write-offs. Oh well, better luck next year. It’ll never happen because the wealthy don’t want it to.", ">\n\nWhere did you get this info? I know GOPers have been slashing IRS budgets and staffing for years but can't find reliable sources for what this has done to the actual audits - like who gets audited.", ">\n\nTheir link is Fox. This is a bad faith post.", ">\n\nThis says a lot coming from fox “news”", ">\n\nTo paraphrase Gilbert K. Chesterton, \"The Poor have sometimes objected to being taxed too heavily; The Rich have always objected to being taxed at all.\"", ">\n\ndon't post Fox news here....", ">\n\nCorporations and millionaires have the means to hire accountants and attorneys. Our tax code is gray in several areas. It’s easy to go after the poor that do not have the resources and will have no choice but to pay anything the IRS says. The additional agents will continue to target the poor and middle class because they are easy, It’s happened before, it will continue to happen.", ">\n\nI think it's funny/sad that a poor person can win the lottery and they get taxed at a higher rate than any billionaire has ever been taxed at. The system is built to keep the rich - rich and the poor - poor.", ">\n\nThe poorest can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nThe current system cannot be sustained. We are hurtling towards disaster.", ">\n\nThe only reason the bastards have the majority is because the corrupt SCOTUS allowed illegal gerrymanders to stand while they were fought in the courts.", ">\n\nThe I.R.S. goes after the poorer people because it's easier. They can't afford lawyers and accountants. So the poor can do nothing but roll over and take it up the rump. The Inflation Reduction Act that Biden signed into law in August is supposed to give $80 Billion to the I.R.S. so they can go after the millionaires. But we know that won't happen. More poor people are going to get screwed.", ">\n\nI'm confused. For decades, Faux news and the conservatives have been saying that millionaires deserve to keep more of their money than we do. That was a huge part of the 2017 tax scam that Trump signed. Now Faux is saying it's a problem? And they are rightly detailing that Republicans are the cause, along with Biden trying to fix the same issue that Fox has helped create?", ">\n\nFox News", ">\n\nHey IRS, don't forget to crawl up my ass this year because I sold some old stuff on eBay for a loss but make sure you put a few man hours into figuring out if it is legit or not.", ">\n\nlol, and the people opposed to IRS funding will say they are anti-establishment.", ">\n\nImagine how much they could squeeze the middle class with 87,000 more agents! But really, it’ll be good to see if the increase in officers actually increases tax revenue without changing the underlying laws.", ">\n\nSo, this is the newest Republican boogeyman, the IRS.\nWell, better than Drag Queens I guess.", ">\n\nOh hey just like last year, and the year before that, I think there might be a pattern", ">\n\nThank you republicans, always sticking up in the back on the small guys…", ">\n\nFox News saying this like it’s not something Rupert Murdoch’s network supports is pretty funny.", ">\n\nFox News. Ignore it.", ">\n\nFox News is still allowed in here?", ">\n\nFake news. This is Republican propaganda coming from Fox News.", ">\n\nFox News is NOT news", ">\n\nHmm sounds like it was underfunded then. Good thing now we helped ease that problem. Thanks Biden", ">\n\nIt's simply laziness by the IRS. Lower-income households have less complicated returns and easier to process. I'm sure IRS runs a non-effective but management-pleasing metric like \"how many returns were corrected\" opposed to how much money was recouped.", ">\n\nWe know. They don't have the resources to do anything. That was the point of increasing the staffing at the IRS so they had even the slightest hope of going after the big offenders with their armies or lawyers.", ">\n\nThere's less millionaires and billionaires than there are us. I'm not sure that answer fits the accuracy on hiring more workers but I'll go ahead and amuse that", ">\n\nIt's not a game of tax guy vs rich guy. The rich literally have armies of lawyers. You need the staff to overcome all the paper and challenges they'll throw at you. \nIf you throw one person to audit a millionaire, their lawyers can make it so it'll take a year to review a week of operations. Investigations will never finish unless there's sufficient staff to overcome their obstruction.", ">\n\nTo this day I do not understand why the IRS can demand our documents every year without a warrant. The 16th amendment does not alter the 4th, and the 4th does not apply only to criminal actions (as the 5th explicitly does). Yet no one seems to care about this annual violations.", ">\n\nReminder, Fox News is not news. It's entertainment, and should be regarded as such.", ">\n\nNo shit, poor ppl tend to file their own taxes and screw up where as millionaires hire expensive accountants to exploit all the legal loopholes without getting their clients in trouble.\nI don't think it's an intentional targeting as the article may be implying.", ">\n\nOne might imagine the resources of agents would be better put to use by focusing on returns that might produce more revenue, however it may be just a lot easier to collect a few bucks from easier targets.", ">\n\nThey are short staffed and accountants make it so difficult to find wrongdoing, if there is even wrongdoing to be found, that it would take a decent chunk of their workforce just to tackle it. It's like trying to find needle in a haystack but you don't know if there's a needle or not.", ">\n\nSo true....", ">\n\nShocked pikachu face.", ">\n\nYeah I’d believe this if it weren’t Fox News. They could give a fuck about the poor and middle class.", ">\n\nI would literally rather the IRS spend its time auditing 5 extraordinarily rich people or a single business than anyone who makes less than 100k per year\nETA: I’m aware that this article represents part of the Republican agenda to just gut the IRS and welfare spending generally. And I understand the difficulties in auditing the rich/businesses v lower income people claiming tax credits, etc", ">\n\nAlmost all of the little people \"audits\" are just a computer issuing a correspondence \"audit\" because the person misreported something from their W2, didn't report as much 1099 income as was reported to the IRS by others, or separated parents both trying to claim kids for tax credits or something. \n-\nThey don't really pull from the same resources. The rich people audits require human beings. Little people \"audits\" aren't really audits and a computer can do it. So if we want to audit more rich people, they need actual budget for human beings. The little people are going to be caught anyways because a computer can do it.", ">\n\nI interned at the IRS during the summer of 2012 when Lois Lerner made batshit crazy commrnts that they were targetting conservative groups", ">\n\nI say this every time it gets brought up. This is by design. I used to work in auditing and also used to do tax stuff. It’s super easy to find tax fraud on someone who only has a simple W-2 and no other income. You could find those people through a basic algorithm. Meanwhile, auditing a multi millionaire is expensive, time consuming, and often fruitless. If I was in charge of an underfunded, understaffed IRS I would tell my staff to go for the easy wins too.", ">\n\nUnpopular opinion - More funding won't resolve this. \nThe IRS will keep doing this. Unless rules & regulations forbid or disincentivize this practice, the IRS will keep this stupid practice", ">\n\nI make $40,000 a year and the IRS froze my bank accounts until I paid them $1000 in taxes I owed them because of an error I made filling my taxes. They froze my bank accounts for $1000. I was fucked for a month. I had to borrow cash from people just for food and gas money to get to work to get paid money that I couldn’t access. It was a scary time for me. Meanwhile millionaires are purposely avoiding taxes worth more than what I make in a year and nothing happens to them.", ">\n\nThe IRS sends no less than a dozen letters to a taxpayer prior to leaving a bank account. Why didn't you just put it into a repayment plan? Takes about ten minutes online.", ">\n\nDon't you just hate autocorrect?", ">\n\nIf true, its a holdover from jrbush who slashed IRS staff and budget and told them to spend more time auditing tip jars and busboys than millionaires because the millionaires had better lawyers than the IRS and service workers were unlikely to have any lawyers at all.", ">\n\nFox News solution: remove the IRS", ">\n\nAbsolutely. They’ll NEVER target the rich, adding more agents just made them a lot more capable to target all the lower class.", ">\n\nWhat people don't realize..Those 87K \"Agents\" aren't that. It's 87K employees over 25 years. Clerks etc. People are so fucking stupid when they just believe these clowns.", ">\n\nThose numbers also count it as an \"audit\" when a person misreports a number from a W2, 1099s, etc and the irs number matching software sends an automatically generated correspondence letter that basically says \"we actually show this number, this is what your tax return would have been if you reported that number correctly\". \nThe IRS isn't wasting time doing random \"audits\" as people think of them for low to middle income people. It would be a complete waste of their time. The computer just catches obvious verifiable mistakes and it counts as an audit in those numbers.", ">\n\n“those in the lowest income bracket hit 12.7 per 1,000….. The odds of a millionaire facing an audit were around 1.1%.”\nSo they’re saying 1.27% vs 1.1%!!! And acting like that’s a scandal 🙄", ">\n\nWhich means millionaires REALLY don't want more IRS auditors which means when our new resident house fascist fires five thousand auditors, said fascist (McCarthy) is making sure those millionaires aren't going to get audited. \nCha CHING !!! Go the \"donations\" into house rat republican's pockets. \nThe grift will be in full swing shortly.\nAnd with putin whispering in their ears and telling them EXACTLY how break the law - how can they lose?", ">\n\n💯 Exactly why theres a Fox link here pushing for that same reason.", ">\n\nTwo things. First of all, this is from a far right-wing propaganda outlet which should immediately raise red flags. They're trying to scare you into allowing a republican-initiated movement to entirely remove all remaining power from the IRS by making it seem like they're coming after you.\nSecond, the reason the IRS is already already virtually powerless against the rich is because the republicans have already eviscerated them in the past several decades, largely through defunding them leading to not only staffing cuts, but the inability to pursue the wealthiest people who have the resources for endless litigation. So as a result, the FBI can only really afford to go after people who cannot financially defend themselves.", ">\n\nThird, you might as well throw in that the aiming low guidance was under a Trump appointee who is no longer in that position.", ">\n\nThe GOP intentionally defunded the IRS so that it could not audit the wealthy. It takes a great deal more money upfront to audit them but the payback is far greater.", ">\n\nI'm not sure why dems voted against an amendment that would have mandated the giant infusion of cash into the IRS couldn't be used to audit folks making >$400k.", ">\n\nHrm this is pretty fucked I'd like to hear about why the Dems voted nay.", ">\n\nBecause they work for the same people as Republicans. \nThey are different but only when their owners allow them to be. \nI don't know how many times we are going to have to learn this lesson before it sticks.", ">\n\nDemocrats are responsible for this", ">\n\nThe rich returns are just too hard, enough lower class errors you can leave the rich alone. Love to see it… sigh", ">\n\nIt takes money to police the wealthy. Can't have that can we?!", ">\n\nr/noshitsherlock", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised?\nI’m not even American and this seemed obvious to me. All you have to do is look at how the poor live and compare that to the news about someone like Elon musk or Donald trump.", ">\n\nThis is why the IRS needs to go.", ">\n\nFox News helped make that happen.", ">\n\nThey'll never change,all the time when the guys in charge benefit from doing the same shit.", ">\n\nAnd yet the republicans dont submit or pass legislations to change the rules to favor targeting rich people. Curious.", ">\n\nThen 78,000 new, armed tax collectors should be able to extract even more money from the poor, middle-class and small business owners.", ">\n\nWhy did they focus on the Poorest? The thought of 87,000 more of them will actually do what? If the existing can’t focus on the wealthy! Then what makes anybody think more can?", ">\n\nMillionaires and billionaires make the government more money by creating lobbying loopholes and exploiting the economy to bilk the 99%. It's really cheap to go after the poorest who are struggling to pay day to day obligations and don't have loopholes or government sanctioned exploitation to take advantage of.", ">\n\nI could have told you this would happen. You think millionaires get $600 Venmo transactions?", ">\n\nThat's a move democrats should not make. That's one month of rent for me. What of folks worse-off?", ">\n\nHonestly it’s like squeezing blood from the stone over here anyway.", ">\n\nDuh lmfao theyve already stated it costs too much to tax weathy people previously and its most cost effective to audit the poor due to many factors...", ">\n\nI mean 99% of us are poor compared to the other 1%", ">\n\nColor me surprised", ">\n\nWe need some laws for equitable auditing.", ">\n\nYou are an Army commander about to attack the enemy. Do you prefer to attack where they have experienced career solders backed up by artillery, tanks, and airplanes, or do you attack where there are poorly armed and equipped untrained conscripts?", ">\n\nThey must be upset someone replaced their sign with a card from Cards Against Humanity", ">\n\nMay it ever be so…. Don’t reproduce if you only consume and can’t accumulate or help a Dow Jones winter water witch. Like snow, weathermen.", ">\n\nIt’s weirdly fitting how much their building sign in the photo looks like a cards against humanity card.", ">\n\nTypical", ">\n\nWow? How unusual.", ">\n\nI’d support double the number of IRS agents", ">\n\nI was low income and won about 3,000 gambling, the irs went after me", ">\n\nThe IRS came after me hard for 8$", ">\n\nAudit frequency should correlate to income, someone with a million in income should be audited 10x those with 100k income", ">\n\nSomeone should explain Pareto charts to the IRS.", ">\n\nI've been audited three times. First when I was 27, did some consulting and didn't do the 1099 prepayments. Ended up owing $17k. Second audit was after moving across country for a job. The tax preparer we hired made a mistake with the move expense deductions, owed a few thousand. Third audit was another tax preparer mistake, but this time we overpaid and were owed money we credited to the next year. \nIf you assume for discussion that the average audit on an ordinary tax payer returns $10,000, it would take 100,000,000 audits to make $1 trillion. By just doing the easy work, the IRS is leaving the real money on the table.", ">\n\nRepublicans are famous for giving rich breaks while middle class etc close the gaps", ">\n\nThe last line, \"The Inflation Reduction Act provides the IRS with $80 billion in future funding to ramp up its audits and potentially target the wealthiest taxpayers.\"", ">\n\nThe cure is not the root cause, but the middle class and the poor will eventually bear the burden after the capital operation", ">\n\nIt’s like they timed the “research” and the drop of the article with the speech. Sad man.", ">\n\nWatch Madoff. The wealthy skate and steal billions. The poor are in prison over thousands.", ">\n\nWhy does their sign look like a Card Against Humanity", ">\n\nFucking Trump, still at it.", ">\n\nOh you mean the thing people said would happen once they got massive funding actually happened? Checks out", ">\n\nOf course they did, because millionaires will lawyer up.", ">\n\nBecause the poor can't afford to fight back.", ">\n\nIt's so unfair the poor and the middle class taxpayers suffer so much while the millionaries got away with not paying the taxes It's really hurting the poor. The middle class is fading", ">\n\nAll of this can be fixed if we just use no-exemption graduated income", ">\n\nYeah we know", ">\n\nShow of hands for all surprised.\ncrickets\nHmm. Seems like Reddit suffers from a plague of double amputees...", ">\n\nWhat the actual fuck", ">\n\nAnd 2021, 2020, 2019, …", ">\n\nSounds about right.", ">\n\nOf course. Poor people can’t afford attorneys.", ">\n\nI made a mistake on my forms while I was overseas and ticked “self-employed” instead of “employed”. I was on a student visa and had two children and was making less than 10k a year. They hounded me for years. By the time I figured out what had happened I could not amend the forms and had paid thousands in penalties and interest.\nMeanwhile I knew lots of people who were there fully employed not reporting their income.\nFuck them.", ">\n\nYep! During the pandemic, even while I wasn't working didn't come after me the entire time that I was working but the minute that I wasn't nobody was cuz we were in lockdown they started popping up", ">\n\nI just now realized that the Cards Against Humanity box looks like the IRS sign", ">\n\nWhy is the sign a Cards Against Humanity question?", ">\n\nI am shocked and appalled. clutches pearls", ">\n\nRich should be taxed more than the average not right at all. Or at least there is a tier system based on pay only makes sense. Come on now", ">\n\nSounds about right, make the rich richer again.", ">\n\nWho are we going to vote for in the future ,all of them are decayed , corrupted and useless , the “most rich country in the world , governed by the most ignorant an corrupted. What a contrast .", ">\n\nGod bless America", ">\n\nno way. wait until you see those people responds. Those people are chipping away.", ">\n\nSounds about right", ">\n\nWe know.", ">\n\nI find it rather comical that Fox news is reporting on this since they are all about pushing the Republican agenda and that is all about pushing everyone else down that isn't rich and keeping them there. Not to mention they had no problem with Trump not paying taxes for years.", ">\n\nCan fucking confirm.", ">\n\nYeah, they (millionaires) have accountants who generally do things right and due to their millions being in investments it's not like it's taxable all the time. \nThen there's the ability to sell any stocks when they're down to build up losses on paper can reinvest them at a loss that can carry over across multiple years.", ">\n\nsounds about right. i don’t have a pot to piss in but they’re all over me for someone stealing my identity and filing a double tax return one year.", ">\n\nDuh", ">\n\nThere’s a reason why FOX is posting this article. The less people at the IRS, the more likely they come after folks who can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nIn order to pursue wealthy tax cheats, the IRS needs more resources and personnel. Otherwise it’s business as usual, picking on the low hanging fruit that earns under 6 figures.", ">\n\nSo wrong ....people need to be fired", ">\n\nIt’s because they can’t afford to take them to court", ">\n\nOf course it is about protecting the rich like Trump who lies ,lies , and about his tax returns . No wonder he did not want them released .", ">\n\nEasy prey bc most ppl can not lawyer up. Pretty heart breaking system we have at times.", ">\n\nWhy does the irs sign look like it's from cards against humanity?", ">\n\nCurrently getting audited over \\~$1500, which they owe me, when the rich get away with murder. Fucking unbelievably and unnecessarily stressful for me.", ">\n\nHas t this been know for a while?", ">\n\nyep and they are the same people getting tax cuts while everyone else does it tough ....\nAny one with too much money is your enemy .... not a hero of democracy", ">\n\nGet rid of taxes and the gov’t should just do stuff for free, or what ever.", ">\n\nYou have to be careful when you get one of those CP2000 notices from the IRS. The way they are written is a trap.\nIf you dispute it you are supposed to indicate that you disagree and send it back with documents supporting your dispute.\nYou are only supposed to sign it if you agree with them and when you sign it you are signing away your rights to dispute the back taxes and penalties they are demanding.\nMere worker bees like us can expect to be getting a lot of those from this years tax returns considering how the threshold for 1099k forms has been dropped to $600.\nGuys like Trump? The IRS doesn't even know where to begin.", ">\n\nThanks Biden", ">\n\nI presume those lower-income bracket filers might be more likely to reach out to 1-800-infomercial [quickie settlement/long-term penalties most favorable to gov/proprietor] than retain proper legal counsel?\nRegardless it’s got to be a lot less work for IRS agent to go after under-represented citizen(s), rather than someone who can afford to appeal, properly negotiate on their own terms?", ">\n\nLmfao Dems tax and spend. But I have to admit there Republicans that tax and spend to. Where do these Politicians get off taxing me or business and give to people who don't work what do you cause d the inflation. You can not print money \nI am Conservative not a Republican. To much money is wasted and put in pockets of people ot don't belong.\nBut all dems know how to tax tax tax. \nIts all great and good until you run out if other peoples money. \nMillionaire just like Berny he hated Millionaires until he became one now he hates Trillionaires. Funny how the gold post changes. And good old Nancy her I side stock trading. So I think you need to rethink.", ">\n\nThe IRS is only doing as directed by whomever controls the White House.", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised by this? Really?", ">\n\nThe sign in the thumbnail looks like a Cards Against Humanity card.", ">\n\nWhile this is mostly true, don’t believe everything you read. I’m no more an accountant than I am a ladies man, but someone (said they’re an accountant) posted a few days ago about this. They explained that the most likely people getting audited are trying to, fraudulently or mistakenly, claim the EITC. \nYES, it’s super easy to “bust” these people for an easy “mistake”. This is who the IRS is cracking down on. \nDo I think it’s better to bust poor people for claiming a few thousand in tax credits vs billionaires who avoid taxes altogether? Of course not, but don’t think they’re actively targeting people who fudge their mileage deductions or miss a decimal point in their calculations as small business owners. It’s simply not happening. \nAnd the reported “87,000 new IRS agents” are replacing the 10’s of 1,000’s of employees set to retire or quit over the next 10 years which doesn’t even begin to fill the gaps we’ve been growing for decades by not hiring and training more willing workers. Not to mention they’re not even close to all employees who will actively audit tax payers. They’re people who answer phones, file papers, assist others, etc… They’re mostly just average people with average jobs so of course the GOP wants to end this. They hate upward mobility and job creation unless that means tax breaks for their billionaire friends.", ">\n\nI wish everyone wasn’t a sheep and would understand this.", ">\n\nI can see the Media doing their best to turn the public against the IRS.", ">\n\nPicking on the week and helpless. That’s what we humans do. We suck. I’m waiting for that big meteor reset button.", ">\n\nAnd Fox news loves this.", ">\n\nLove it, Faux 'News' taking the piss, for 4 years under Dear Leader they campaigned for tax breaks for the rich, now they're pretending to care about the poor !", ">\n\nEvery millionaire should be audited yearly. Period.", ">\n\nAND now the gqp cult promises to rescind the money Biden set aside to aid the IRS to recover taxes from mega millionaire tax cheats like benedict donald, who paid less taxes than most working Americans.", ">\n\nRepublicans want to stop the IRS and Congress from taxing rich people, making the burden of maintaining civilization fall more heavily on poorer people. This is why Republicans vote for tax cuts for the rich and against funding for the IRS.\nAnd since Republican beliefs are based on wishful thinking, Republicans can screw over poor, rural Republicans while simultaneously taking credit for doing it to make Republicans happy about it and blaming it on Democrats to make those same Republicans resentful against Democrats for it. And what else would we expect from a Republican Party that blames Democrats for tricking them into attacking the Capitol to make Trump look bad and justifies and approves of assaulting Capitol police while brandishing their \"thin blue line\" flags.", ">\n\nThe IRS is like any other law enforcement agency, they prefer pursuing the poor because they don't have the resources to protect themselves.", ">\n\nThe IRS building sign looks like its from cards against humanity.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nNot a reliable news source.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nThat picture looks like the worst cards against humanity card too get.", ">\n\nScrew the Murdoch media empire and their failed trickle down ideologies.", ">\n\nOf course, the poorest haven’t paid over 400+ billion for decades. Not sure about the rich, we haven’t checked.", ">\n\nThis is not a surprise. With the recent inflation reduction act, the IRS an additional $80B over 10 years or $8B per year. The IRS budget for 2021 was $13.7B. The additional $8B over the year would be an increase of 58% to their budget. They will be looking to get a lot more money from taxpayers, due to this very large increase in their budget.", ">\n\nFox reported this? I'm in shock", ">\n\nAll propagandists publish clickbaity stuff that makes them sound like maybe they've let up on the evil. Unfortunately it works, since people just upvote headlines.", ">\n\nIt’s only going to get worse in 2023. Those 87k new IRS agents will not be going after the wealthy.", ">\n\nWhy?\nThat’s literally why they were being added. The IRS goes after the poorer taxpayers because they are low-hanging fruit and don’t have the lawyers and accountants to protect them. \nThe additional IRS employees were to give the personnel staffing sufficient to go after the wealthy.", ">\n\nIt doesn’t matter how many IRS agents there are. It will always be easier and more profitable for the IRS to nickel and dime the average taxpayer rather than go after the wealthy, who have the resources to lawyer up with the best lawyers and challenge the IRS in court.", ">\n\nEasier? Yes. More profitable? Doubtful.", ">\n\nIf Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nBut in 2022 ( when Biden was president and the House belonged to the Dems) they didn’t did they.", ">\n\nIt takes time to refactor an organization. It’s still full of Trump appointees.", ">\n\n2020 was a long time ago", ">\n\nNot on organizational time scales. It takes several months to safely restructure an organization as big as the federal government, and when it is the federal government it takes years. Congress gets a say in every political appointment, budget change, and organization change. It’s designed to be slow to assure continuity. \nThere is a saying that every president gets credited and blamed for what the prior administration put in motion. There is a lot of truth to that, and this organizational inertia is a big reason why. There are similar long lags in changing laws, re-writing policies, modifying rules, and so on. It’s a “feature” of having checks and balances.", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”." ]
> Fox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”	[ "If Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nAnd when Barry was president they targeted conservative groups. I think phone calls can be made to tell them to back off of the little guy.", ">\n\n\nthey targeted conservative groups.\n\nNo. They went after specifically anti-tax tea party groups. The groups who openly flaunted tax laws", ">\n\nThey also went after progressive, left leaning groups - how do you explain that ? it was political", ">\n\nWait, did they target conservatives or progressives? Lol", ">\n\nBoth- it was quite clear they were involving themselves in politics - that’s what the IG found", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.", ">\n\nYep!\nAlso this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious.\nThe real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade.", ">\n\nThanks for the informative reply.\nYou make great points which I don't doubt. But there are times when I think it's important to consider both the letter and spirit of law at times.\nEven though it is perfectly by the letter of the law that people should be checked, it also seems against the intended spirit of said law that only a certain group of people are checked.\nI am not familiar with US law, but I think most of us can feel some degree of injustice with how things currently are.", ">\n\nThe point is to automate more checking of income common to wealthier people, and devote more resources to auditing those people. The Fox News article is disingenuous in how it describes the automated checking that goes on. It’s not great that rich people aren’t really audited, but there’s no reason to stop the automated checking of income where it’s already being done and essentially free to continue.\nIf you feel differently, explain yourself.", ">\n\nNo, we are in alignment concerning this.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nFUCK FOX NEWS\nFox is pretending to care about us poors. \nDon't reward these fascist fucks with upvotes for a disingenuous clickbait headline. They still hate us for not voting gop.", ">\n\nThey want people to hate the IRS and help defund it so they don’t go after the rich, which was the purpose of the additional funding", ">\n\nThey want people to link this to “87000” new agents, which is obviously happening on social media posts, but it’s not even a thing.", ">\n\nArticle is trash. The author is including correspondence audits (which means the IRS asked for some documentation by mail) for low income filers but not for millionaires when comparing their audit rates. Here are actual numbers according to their own source:\nAudit rates including correspondence audits\nlow income 1.27%\nmillionaires 2.38% \nAudit rates excluding correspondence audits\nlow income 0.0376%\nmillionaires 1.24%\n.\nFor low income filers, nearly all their audits were correspondence audits.", ">\n\nIt's hilarious when Fox News and the GOP pretend they care about poor people.\nNo amount of hypocrisy is too much to try to make democrats look bad.", ">\n\nIts unfortunately far easier to prove married couples who live together filed HoH for extra earned income credit than it is to prove complicated returns were incorrect.", ">\n\nIt's also trivially easy to prove the same child was claimed by two parents which is a lot of correspondence audits.", ">\n\nSo can my back taxes please just get forgiven already. 20% income being taxed is not livable", ">\n\nRepublican love flat rate taxes, you should talk to them.", ">\n\nThey’re required to audit the president and vice president, and that didn’t happen either.", ">\n\nThis isn't new, it's been been having for the last 5 - 6 years.", ">\n\nHopefully some wake up and realize its all just preparing us for the inevitable destruction of our economy. I imagine its almost too late to realize this. If we all realized this wed sell our 401Ks and not lean on money and use it to help our neighbors.", ">\n\nK bro.", ">\n\nMy wife and I are on social security. She works part time to keep us afloat. All in, we earned $50K in 2022. iRS wants $4500 from us. Really? 5X what Trump paid? Don't know if anyone is paying attention but $50k ain't rich. Oh, and out of that comes almost $4k in Medicare premiums. A program we paid into for 40+ years.\nEveryone of these arrogant, unqualified,, spoon fed assholes in Congress should be made to live on SSI or welfare, with no medical coverage, for a year. Then tell me I am acting entitled.\nSelf serving bastards.", ">\n\nDon't upvote this crap.\nDo you really think Fox cares about the working class??\nThis is just right wing propaganda, timed to coincide with McCarthy's promise to get rid of the new IRS agents who make it possible to audit the rich.\nDon't be used.", ">\n\nWhatever happened to \"dont shoot the messenger?\"", ">\n\nIRS understaffing would naturally trend to go after low-lying fruit. Easy pickings. Too many man hours to go after super complex cases. These moneyed fuckers and their bullshit. It's outrageous.", ">\n\nThe vast majority of these audits are automatically generated correspondence audits that have to be issued. We can't just turn off the program that raises a red flag when two people claim the same child as a dependent because we don't have enough forensic accountants. If you mistype your W2 you'll get an \"audit\" showing the correct info from the copy your boss sent them and telling you they'll correct it unless you tell them otherwise and you don't have to do anything if the info they have is correct.", ">\n\nYeah, all the nonsense about the IRS \"going after\" low income people is so stupid. Low income people make money in a way that their reporting is easily verifiable by a computer. They're also most likely to mess up and claim child tax credits incorrectly, etc - all of which is verifiable and issued a letter by a computer. \n-\nOther than actually being able to get someone on the phone when you call the IRS, and increased budget isn't going to impact the average person in any way.", ">\n\nMy thing is even assuming the 87k don't successfully get more money out of the rich, that's still 87k jobs. That's a net positive. I just don't understand the conservative logic here. Do they think these 87k new jobs are specifically for being insidiously predatory toward the poor? Where's the logic here? (I know I'll get hyperbolic answers, but I genuinely would like to know)", ">\n\nIt's 87,000 jobs over 10 years, the majority of which are replacement during that period. It's just a budget supplemental to stop hemorrhaging agents as they retire or cycle out into other jobs.", ">\n\nso.. this is on fox, which I assume support republican efforts to ensure that this is the permanent state of affairs. I don't really get anything anymore.", ">\n\nAnd that is the way the GOP wants it.", ">\n\n💯 Exactly what this Fox article is trying to do.", ">\n\nIt's who can afford a lawyer", ">\n\nAs the article hints at, the IRS does not do a lot of actual auditing. What it does is computer matching, which automatically generates material for a correspondence audit. Most correspondence audits occur because som poor working Joe didn't know he/her was supposed to include or exclude something, and the IRS caught it in its matching. Of course, the problem is that we have a complex code and little help in actually helping people through the various forms, rules, and so on. But millionaires don't have these issues, so they can escape most of the traps that lead to a correspondence audit. If a lot of these 87,000 were in taxpayer service (which I expect) it would lead to fewer audits at the low end, more robust audits for large corporations, wealthy individuals, and those who actively use tax avoidance strategies. But of course that is not the dialogue that gets promoted when the 87,000 agents are discussed.", ">\n\nThis is exactly why Fox News needs to be dismantled and thrown in the garbage. Ugh, \"look poors! They're coming for yoU!!!\". Scare tactics. And guess what? It sadly works. Every time.\nThey're lower than scum.", ">\n\nExactly. It's when someone misreports a number from their W2, didn't report 1099s they received, both separated parents claim a tax credit for the same kid, etc. All stuff that's easily checked by a computer. The IRS isn't \"auditing\" random low to middle income people. That would be a complete waste of their time.", ">\n\nlooks at Trump You don't say.", ">\n\nThe poor can't defend themselves, it's easier to take a little bit of money from people that won't fight back than a lot of money from people that will.", ">\n\nThe mega rich seem like they’re on a mission to destroy America, as we know it.", ">\n\nHiring 87,000 new IRS agents makes it possible to audit billionaires. So they pay their share. Those audits require an actual person or team that knows what they are doing. But Kevin McCarthy's first item of business was to announce legislation to overturn the hiring of 87,000 IRS agents. Meaning only the little guy (who can be audited by computer software) pays taxes.\nSSDD", ">\n\nThe \"87,000\" agents budget is over a ten year period. It's not for 87,000 new positions.", ">\n\nThe title is so misleading. Im surprised fox even put the juicy bit in the article about how (this stat is due to there not being enough IRS workers because) these \"audits\" on low earners are just automated letters asking for more info.\nYet again, this is just millionairs paid by billionairs to mislead the masses into blaming the poor for crimes committed by said billionairs.", ">\n\nWhich is why the IRS needs more manpower and budget, so they can go after the big fish.\nFuck Fox News and their Republican propaganda pieces. This article coincides with McCarthy saying they’ll cut the IRS budget and that the IRS is coming for you.\nFuck off Republican propaganda rag!\nStop upvoting any Fox News story. Fox should not be on the white list.", ">\n\nThis is a terrible article. It seems to include questions about tax returns as audits. If a low income filer makes a mistake it should be corrected. Is that an audit? If anyone makes a mistake and is contacted, is that an audit? Also there is no reason to go after low income as they rarely pay tax or are required to. The money requested would also pay for people to answer a phone. Those against increasing funding lie when they say all of it goes to audits. If you tell the truth, who cares if you are audited? Are y’all aware you can track your personal return online? However a business cannot. Businesses have to rely on humans that can’t be reached. I’ve waited a year for a refund. Didn’t know if IRS received the return. Didn’t know if there was an issue. Didn’t know if it was mailed or lost. I’m getting tired of Republicans pushing their crap on people.", ">\n\nwho keeps upvoting this right wing propaganda", ">\n\nWhy would the GOP want to give the agency the power to go after their donors.", ">\n\nAnd it was trumps guy that mandated it while Biden replaced him", ">\n\nApparently the mere use of an accounting firm somehow protected corps and the rich from the IRS who still (mistakenly) believe the accounting firms are trustworthy. How naive.", ">\n\nThe \"audits\" talked about are mostly form letters requesting more info about specific items.", ">\n\nThe poor can't pay for top flight attorneys.", ">\n\nYep keep the IRS underfunded so they can only go after the poors at the same time telling all the poors that the IRS is bad cause it goes after them but leave out the fact that they do that cause the poors are low hanging fruit.\nRepublicans are evil.", ">\n\nWell the GOP wants to cut funding to the IRS for new agents, so I’m sure the poor folk will continue to get screwed. I say toss the 50,000+ page tax code out and replace with a percentage based on total revenue/income made. Took a loss? No write-offs. Oh well, better luck next year. It’ll never happen because the wealthy don’t want it to.", ">\n\nWhere did you get this info? I know GOPers have been slashing IRS budgets and staffing for years but can't find reliable sources for what this has done to the actual audits - like who gets audited.", ">\n\nTheir link is Fox. This is a bad faith post.", ">\n\nThis says a lot coming from fox “news”", ">\n\nTo paraphrase Gilbert K. Chesterton, \"The Poor have sometimes objected to being taxed too heavily; The Rich have always objected to being taxed at all.\"", ">\n\ndon't post Fox news here....", ">\n\nCorporations and millionaires have the means to hire accountants and attorneys. Our tax code is gray in several areas. It’s easy to go after the poor that do not have the resources and will have no choice but to pay anything the IRS says. The additional agents will continue to target the poor and middle class because they are easy, It’s happened before, it will continue to happen.", ">\n\nI think it's funny/sad that a poor person can win the lottery and they get taxed at a higher rate than any billionaire has ever been taxed at. The system is built to keep the rich - rich and the poor - poor.", ">\n\nThe poorest can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nThe current system cannot be sustained. We are hurtling towards disaster.", ">\n\nThe only reason the bastards have the majority is because the corrupt SCOTUS allowed illegal gerrymanders to stand while they were fought in the courts.", ">\n\nThe I.R.S. goes after the poorer people because it's easier. They can't afford lawyers and accountants. So the poor can do nothing but roll over and take it up the rump. The Inflation Reduction Act that Biden signed into law in August is supposed to give $80 Billion to the I.R.S. so they can go after the millionaires. But we know that won't happen. More poor people are going to get screwed.", ">\n\nI'm confused. For decades, Faux news and the conservatives have been saying that millionaires deserve to keep more of their money than we do. That was a huge part of the 2017 tax scam that Trump signed. Now Faux is saying it's a problem? And they are rightly detailing that Republicans are the cause, along with Biden trying to fix the same issue that Fox has helped create?", ">\n\nFox News", ">\n\nHey IRS, don't forget to crawl up my ass this year because I sold some old stuff on eBay for a loss but make sure you put a few man hours into figuring out if it is legit or not.", ">\n\nlol, and the people opposed to IRS funding will say they are anti-establishment.", ">\n\nImagine how much they could squeeze the middle class with 87,000 more agents! But really, it’ll be good to see if the increase in officers actually increases tax revenue without changing the underlying laws.", ">\n\nSo, this is the newest Republican boogeyman, the IRS.\nWell, better than Drag Queens I guess.", ">\n\nOh hey just like last year, and the year before that, I think there might be a pattern", ">\n\nThank you republicans, always sticking up in the back on the small guys…", ">\n\nFox News saying this like it’s not something Rupert Murdoch’s network supports is pretty funny.", ">\n\nFox News. Ignore it.", ">\n\nFox News is still allowed in here?", ">\n\nFake news. This is Republican propaganda coming from Fox News.", ">\n\nFox News is NOT news", ">\n\nHmm sounds like it was underfunded then. Good thing now we helped ease that problem. Thanks Biden", ">\n\nIt's simply laziness by the IRS. Lower-income households have less complicated returns and easier to process. I'm sure IRS runs a non-effective but management-pleasing metric like \"how many returns were corrected\" opposed to how much money was recouped.", ">\n\nWe know. They don't have the resources to do anything. That was the point of increasing the staffing at the IRS so they had even the slightest hope of going after the big offenders with their armies or lawyers.", ">\n\nThere's less millionaires and billionaires than there are us. I'm not sure that answer fits the accuracy on hiring more workers but I'll go ahead and amuse that", ">\n\nIt's not a game of tax guy vs rich guy. The rich literally have armies of lawyers. You need the staff to overcome all the paper and challenges they'll throw at you. \nIf you throw one person to audit a millionaire, their lawyers can make it so it'll take a year to review a week of operations. Investigations will never finish unless there's sufficient staff to overcome their obstruction.", ">\n\nTo this day I do not understand why the IRS can demand our documents every year without a warrant. The 16th amendment does not alter the 4th, and the 4th does not apply only to criminal actions (as the 5th explicitly does). Yet no one seems to care about this annual violations.", ">\n\nReminder, Fox News is not news. It's entertainment, and should be regarded as such.", ">\n\nNo shit, poor ppl tend to file their own taxes and screw up where as millionaires hire expensive accountants to exploit all the legal loopholes without getting their clients in trouble.\nI don't think it's an intentional targeting as the article may be implying.", ">\n\nOne might imagine the resources of agents would be better put to use by focusing on returns that might produce more revenue, however it may be just a lot easier to collect a few bucks from easier targets.", ">\n\nThey are short staffed and accountants make it so difficult to find wrongdoing, if there is even wrongdoing to be found, that it would take a decent chunk of their workforce just to tackle it. It's like trying to find needle in a haystack but you don't know if there's a needle or not.", ">\n\nSo true....", ">\n\nShocked pikachu face.", ">\n\nYeah I’d believe this if it weren’t Fox News. They could give a fuck about the poor and middle class.", ">\n\nI would literally rather the IRS spend its time auditing 5 extraordinarily rich people or a single business than anyone who makes less than 100k per year\nETA: I’m aware that this article represents part of the Republican agenda to just gut the IRS and welfare spending generally. And I understand the difficulties in auditing the rich/businesses v lower income people claiming tax credits, etc", ">\n\nAlmost all of the little people \"audits\" are just a computer issuing a correspondence \"audit\" because the person misreported something from their W2, didn't report as much 1099 income as was reported to the IRS by others, or separated parents both trying to claim kids for tax credits or something. \n-\nThey don't really pull from the same resources. The rich people audits require human beings. Little people \"audits\" aren't really audits and a computer can do it. So if we want to audit more rich people, they need actual budget for human beings. The little people are going to be caught anyways because a computer can do it.", ">\n\nI interned at the IRS during the summer of 2012 when Lois Lerner made batshit crazy commrnts that they were targetting conservative groups", ">\n\nI say this every time it gets brought up. This is by design. I used to work in auditing and also used to do tax stuff. It’s super easy to find tax fraud on someone who only has a simple W-2 and no other income. You could find those people through a basic algorithm. Meanwhile, auditing a multi millionaire is expensive, time consuming, and often fruitless. If I was in charge of an underfunded, understaffed IRS I would tell my staff to go for the easy wins too.", ">\n\nUnpopular opinion - More funding won't resolve this. \nThe IRS will keep doing this. Unless rules & regulations forbid or disincentivize this practice, the IRS will keep this stupid practice", ">\n\nI make $40,000 a year and the IRS froze my bank accounts until I paid them $1000 in taxes I owed them because of an error I made filling my taxes. They froze my bank accounts for $1000. I was fucked for a month. I had to borrow cash from people just for food and gas money to get to work to get paid money that I couldn’t access. It was a scary time for me. Meanwhile millionaires are purposely avoiding taxes worth more than what I make in a year and nothing happens to them.", ">\n\nThe IRS sends no less than a dozen letters to a taxpayer prior to leaving a bank account. Why didn't you just put it into a repayment plan? Takes about ten minutes online.", ">\n\nDon't you just hate autocorrect?", ">\n\nIf true, its a holdover from jrbush who slashed IRS staff and budget and told them to spend more time auditing tip jars and busboys than millionaires because the millionaires had better lawyers than the IRS and service workers were unlikely to have any lawyers at all.", ">\n\nFox News solution: remove the IRS", ">\n\nAbsolutely. They’ll NEVER target the rich, adding more agents just made them a lot more capable to target all the lower class.", ">\n\nWhat people don't realize..Those 87K \"Agents\" aren't that. It's 87K employees over 25 years. Clerks etc. People are so fucking stupid when they just believe these clowns.", ">\n\nThose numbers also count it as an \"audit\" when a person misreports a number from a W2, 1099s, etc and the irs number matching software sends an automatically generated correspondence letter that basically says \"we actually show this number, this is what your tax return would have been if you reported that number correctly\". \nThe IRS isn't wasting time doing random \"audits\" as people think of them for low to middle income people. It would be a complete waste of their time. The computer just catches obvious verifiable mistakes and it counts as an audit in those numbers.", ">\n\n“those in the lowest income bracket hit 12.7 per 1,000….. The odds of a millionaire facing an audit were around 1.1%.”\nSo they’re saying 1.27% vs 1.1%!!! And acting like that’s a scandal 🙄", ">\n\nWhich means millionaires REALLY don't want more IRS auditors which means when our new resident house fascist fires five thousand auditors, said fascist (McCarthy) is making sure those millionaires aren't going to get audited. \nCha CHING !!! Go the \"donations\" into house rat republican's pockets. \nThe grift will be in full swing shortly.\nAnd with putin whispering in their ears and telling them EXACTLY how break the law - how can they lose?", ">\n\n💯 Exactly why theres a Fox link here pushing for that same reason.", ">\n\nTwo things. First of all, this is from a far right-wing propaganda outlet which should immediately raise red flags. They're trying to scare you into allowing a republican-initiated movement to entirely remove all remaining power from the IRS by making it seem like they're coming after you.\nSecond, the reason the IRS is already already virtually powerless against the rich is because the republicans have already eviscerated them in the past several decades, largely through defunding them leading to not only staffing cuts, but the inability to pursue the wealthiest people who have the resources for endless litigation. So as a result, the FBI can only really afford to go after people who cannot financially defend themselves.", ">\n\nThird, you might as well throw in that the aiming low guidance was under a Trump appointee who is no longer in that position.", ">\n\nThe GOP intentionally defunded the IRS so that it could not audit the wealthy. It takes a great deal more money upfront to audit them but the payback is far greater.", ">\n\nI'm not sure why dems voted against an amendment that would have mandated the giant infusion of cash into the IRS couldn't be used to audit folks making >$400k.", ">\n\nHrm this is pretty fucked I'd like to hear about why the Dems voted nay.", ">\n\nBecause they work for the same people as Republicans. \nThey are different but only when their owners allow them to be. \nI don't know how many times we are going to have to learn this lesson before it sticks.", ">\n\nDemocrats are responsible for this", ">\n\nThe rich returns are just too hard, enough lower class errors you can leave the rich alone. Love to see it… sigh", ">\n\nIt takes money to police the wealthy. Can't have that can we?!", ">\n\nr/noshitsherlock", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised?\nI’m not even American and this seemed obvious to me. All you have to do is look at how the poor live and compare that to the news about someone like Elon musk or Donald trump.", ">\n\nThis is why the IRS needs to go.", ">\n\nFox News helped make that happen.", ">\n\nThey'll never change,all the time when the guys in charge benefit from doing the same shit.", ">\n\nAnd yet the republicans dont submit or pass legislations to change the rules to favor targeting rich people. Curious.", ">\n\nThen 78,000 new, armed tax collectors should be able to extract even more money from the poor, middle-class and small business owners.", ">\n\nWhy did they focus on the Poorest? The thought of 87,000 more of them will actually do what? If the existing can’t focus on the wealthy! Then what makes anybody think more can?", ">\n\nMillionaires and billionaires make the government more money by creating lobbying loopholes and exploiting the economy to bilk the 99%. It's really cheap to go after the poorest who are struggling to pay day to day obligations and don't have loopholes or government sanctioned exploitation to take advantage of.", ">\n\nI could have told you this would happen. You think millionaires get $600 Venmo transactions?", ">\n\nThat's a move democrats should not make. That's one month of rent for me. What of folks worse-off?", ">\n\nHonestly it’s like squeezing blood from the stone over here anyway.", ">\n\nDuh lmfao theyve already stated it costs too much to tax weathy people previously and its most cost effective to audit the poor due to many factors...", ">\n\nI mean 99% of us are poor compared to the other 1%", ">\n\nColor me surprised", ">\n\nWe need some laws for equitable auditing.", ">\n\nYou are an Army commander about to attack the enemy. Do you prefer to attack where they have experienced career solders backed up by artillery, tanks, and airplanes, or do you attack where there are poorly armed and equipped untrained conscripts?", ">\n\nThey must be upset someone replaced their sign with a card from Cards Against Humanity", ">\n\nMay it ever be so…. Don’t reproduce if you only consume and can’t accumulate or help a Dow Jones winter water witch. Like snow, weathermen.", ">\n\nIt’s weirdly fitting how much their building sign in the photo looks like a cards against humanity card.", ">\n\nTypical", ">\n\nWow? How unusual.", ">\n\nI’d support double the number of IRS agents", ">\n\nI was low income and won about 3,000 gambling, the irs went after me", ">\n\nThe IRS came after me hard for 8$", ">\n\nAudit frequency should correlate to income, someone with a million in income should be audited 10x those with 100k income", ">\n\nSomeone should explain Pareto charts to the IRS.", ">\n\nI've been audited three times. First when I was 27, did some consulting and didn't do the 1099 prepayments. Ended up owing $17k. Second audit was after moving across country for a job. The tax preparer we hired made a mistake with the move expense deductions, owed a few thousand. Third audit was another tax preparer mistake, but this time we overpaid and were owed money we credited to the next year. \nIf you assume for discussion that the average audit on an ordinary tax payer returns $10,000, it would take 100,000,000 audits to make $1 trillion. By just doing the easy work, the IRS is leaving the real money on the table.", ">\n\nRepublicans are famous for giving rich breaks while middle class etc close the gaps", ">\n\nThe last line, \"The Inflation Reduction Act provides the IRS with $80 billion in future funding to ramp up its audits and potentially target the wealthiest taxpayers.\"", ">\n\nThe cure is not the root cause, but the middle class and the poor will eventually bear the burden after the capital operation", ">\n\nIt’s like they timed the “research” and the drop of the article with the speech. Sad man.", ">\n\nWatch Madoff. The wealthy skate and steal billions. The poor are in prison over thousands.", ">\n\nWhy does their sign look like a Card Against Humanity", ">\n\nFucking Trump, still at it.", ">\n\nOh you mean the thing people said would happen once they got massive funding actually happened? Checks out", ">\n\nOf course they did, because millionaires will lawyer up.", ">\n\nBecause the poor can't afford to fight back.", ">\n\nIt's so unfair the poor and the middle class taxpayers suffer so much while the millionaries got away with not paying the taxes It's really hurting the poor. The middle class is fading", ">\n\nAll of this can be fixed if we just use no-exemption graduated income", ">\n\nYeah we know", ">\n\nShow of hands for all surprised.\ncrickets\nHmm. Seems like Reddit suffers from a plague of double amputees...", ">\n\nWhat the actual fuck", ">\n\nAnd 2021, 2020, 2019, …", ">\n\nSounds about right.", ">\n\nOf course. Poor people can’t afford attorneys.", ">\n\nI made a mistake on my forms while I was overseas and ticked “self-employed” instead of “employed”. I was on a student visa and had two children and was making less than 10k a year. They hounded me for years. By the time I figured out what had happened I could not amend the forms and had paid thousands in penalties and interest.\nMeanwhile I knew lots of people who were there fully employed not reporting their income.\nFuck them.", ">\n\nYep! During the pandemic, even while I wasn't working didn't come after me the entire time that I was working but the minute that I wasn't nobody was cuz we were in lockdown they started popping up", ">\n\nI just now realized that the Cards Against Humanity box looks like the IRS sign", ">\n\nWhy is the sign a Cards Against Humanity question?", ">\n\nI am shocked and appalled. clutches pearls", ">\n\nRich should be taxed more than the average not right at all. Or at least there is a tier system based on pay only makes sense. Come on now", ">\n\nSounds about right, make the rich richer again.", ">\n\nWho are we going to vote for in the future ,all of them are decayed , corrupted and useless , the “most rich country in the world , governed by the most ignorant an corrupted. What a contrast .", ">\n\nGod bless America", ">\n\nno way. wait until you see those people responds. Those people are chipping away.", ">\n\nSounds about right", ">\n\nWe know.", ">\n\nI find it rather comical that Fox news is reporting on this since they are all about pushing the Republican agenda and that is all about pushing everyone else down that isn't rich and keeping them there. Not to mention they had no problem with Trump not paying taxes for years.", ">\n\nCan fucking confirm.", ">\n\nYeah, they (millionaires) have accountants who generally do things right and due to their millions being in investments it's not like it's taxable all the time. \nThen there's the ability to sell any stocks when they're down to build up losses on paper can reinvest them at a loss that can carry over across multiple years.", ">\n\nsounds about right. i don’t have a pot to piss in but they’re all over me for someone stealing my identity and filing a double tax return one year.", ">\n\nDuh", ">\n\nThere’s a reason why FOX is posting this article. The less people at the IRS, the more likely they come after folks who can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nIn order to pursue wealthy tax cheats, the IRS needs more resources and personnel. Otherwise it’s business as usual, picking on the low hanging fruit that earns under 6 figures.", ">\n\nSo wrong ....people need to be fired", ">\n\nIt’s because they can’t afford to take them to court", ">\n\nOf course it is about protecting the rich like Trump who lies ,lies , and about his tax returns . No wonder he did not want them released .", ">\n\nEasy prey bc most ppl can not lawyer up. Pretty heart breaking system we have at times.", ">\n\nWhy does the irs sign look like it's from cards against humanity?", ">\n\nCurrently getting audited over \\~$1500, which they owe me, when the rich get away with murder. Fucking unbelievably and unnecessarily stressful for me.", ">\n\nHas t this been know for a while?", ">\n\nyep and they are the same people getting tax cuts while everyone else does it tough ....\nAny one with too much money is your enemy .... not a hero of democracy", ">\n\nGet rid of taxes and the gov’t should just do stuff for free, or what ever.", ">\n\nYou have to be careful when you get one of those CP2000 notices from the IRS. The way they are written is a trap.\nIf you dispute it you are supposed to indicate that you disagree and send it back with documents supporting your dispute.\nYou are only supposed to sign it if you agree with them and when you sign it you are signing away your rights to dispute the back taxes and penalties they are demanding.\nMere worker bees like us can expect to be getting a lot of those from this years tax returns considering how the threshold for 1099k forms has been dropped to $600.\nGuys like Trump? The IRS doesn't even know where to begin.", ">\n\nThanks Biden", ">\n\nI presume those lower-income bracket filers might be more likely to reach out to 1-800-infomercial [quickie settlement/long-term penalties most favorable to gov/proprietor] than retain proper legal counsel?\nRegardless it’s got to be a lot less work for IRS agent to go after under-represented citizen(s), rather than someone who can afford to appeal, properly negotiate on their own terms?", ">\n\nLmfao Dems tax and spend. But I have to admit there Republicans that tax and spend to. Where do these Politicians get off taxing me or business and give to people who don't work what do you cause d the inflation. You can not print money \nI am Conservative not a Republican. To much money is wasted and put in pockets of people ot don't belong.\nBut all dems know how to tax tax tax. \nIts all great and good until you run out if other peoples money. \nMillionaire just like Berny he hated Millionaires until he became one now he hates Trillionaires. Funny how the gold post changes. And good old Nancy her I side stock trading. So I think you need to rethink.", ">\n\nThe IRS is only doing as directed by whomever controls the White House.", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised by this? Really?", ">\n\nThe sign in the thumbnail looks like a Cards Against Humanity card.", ">\n\nWhile this is mostly true, don’t believe everything you read. I’m no more an accountant than I am a ladies man, but someone (said they’re an accountant) posted a few days ago about this. They explained that the most likely people getting audited are trying to, fraudulently or mistakenly, claim the EITC. \nYES, it’s super easy to “bust” these people for an easy “mistake”. This is who the IRS is cracking down on. \nDo I think it’s better to bust poor people for claiming a few thousand in tax credits vs billionaires who avoid taxes altogether? Of course not, but don’t think they’re actively targeting people who fudge their mileage deductions or miss a decimal point in their calculations as small business owners. It’s simply not happening. \nAnd the reported “87,000 new IRS agents” are replacing the 10’s of 1,000’s of employees set to retire or quit over the next 10 years which doesn’t even begin to fill the gaps we’ve been growing for decades by not hiring and training more willing workers. Not to mention they’re not even close to all employees who will actively audit tax payers. They’re people who answer phones, file papers, assist others, etc… They’re mostly just average people with average jobs so of course the GOP wants to end this. They hate upward mobility and job creation unless that means tax breaks for their billionaire friends.", ">\n\nI wish everyone wasn’t a sheep and would understand this.", ">\n\nI can see the Media doing their best to turn the public against the IRS.", ">\n\nPicking on the week and helpless. That’s what we humans do. We suck. I’m waiting for that big meteor reset button.", ">\n\nAnd Fox news loves this.", ">\n\nLove it, Faux 'News' taking the piss, for 4 years under Dear Leader they campaigned for tax breaks for the rich, now they're pretending to care about the poor !", ">\n\nEvery millionaire should be audited yearly. Period.", ">\n\nAND now the gqp cult promises to rescind the money Biden set aside to aid the IRS to recover taxes from mega millionaire tax cheats like benedict donald, who paid less taxes than most working Americans.", ">\n\nRepublicans want to stop the IRS and Congress from taxing rich people, making the burden of maintaining civilization fall more heavily on poorer people. This is why Republicans vote for tax cuts for the rich and against funding for the IRS.\nAnd since Republican beliefs are based on wishful thinking, Republicans can screw over poor, rural Republicans while simultaneously taking credit for doing it to make Republicans happy about it and blaming it on Democrats to make those same Republicans resentful against Democrats for it. And what else would we expect from a Republican Party that blames Democrats for tricking them into attacking the Capitol to make Trump look bad and justifies and approves of assaulting Capitol police while brandishing their \"thin blue line\" flags.", ">\n\nThe IRS is like any other law enforcement agency, they prefer pursuing the poor because they don't have the resources to protect themselves.", ">\n\nThe IRS building sign looks like its from cards against humanity.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nNot a reliable news source.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nThat picture looks like the worst cards against humanity card too get.", ">\n\nScrew the Murdoch media empire and their failed trickle down ideologies.", ">\n\nOf course, the poorest haven’t paid over 400+ billion for decades. Not sure about the rich, we haven’t checked.", ">\n\nThis is not a surprise. With the recent inflation reduction act, the IRS an additional $80B over 10 years or $8B per year. The IRS budget for 2021 was $13.7B. The additional $8B over the year would be an increase of 58% to their budget. They will be looking to get a lot more money from taxpayers, due to this very large increase in their budget.", ">\n\nFox reported this? I'm in shock", ">\n\nAll propagandists publish clickbaity stuff that makes them sound like maybe they've let up on the evil. Unfortunately it works, since people just upvote headlines.", ">\n\nIt’s only going to get worse in 2023. Those 87k new IRS agents will not be going after the wealthy.", ">\n\nWhy?\nThat’s literally why they were being added. The IRS goes after the poorer taxpayers because they are low-hanging fruit and don’t have the lawyers and accountants to protect them. \nThe additional IRS employees were to give the personnel staffing sufficient to go after the wealthy.", ">\n\nIt doesn’t matter how many IRS agents there are. It will always be easier and more profitable for the IRS to nickel and dime the average taxpayer rather than go after the wealthy, who have the resources to lawyer up with the best lawyers and challenge the IRS in court.", ">\n\nEasier? Yes. More profitable? Doubtful.", ">\n\nIf Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nBut in 2022 ( when Biden was president and the House belonged to the Dems) they didn’t did they.", ">\n\nIt takes time to refactor an organization. It’s still full of Trump appointees.", ">\n\n2020 was a long time ago", ">\n\nNot on organizational time scales. It takes several months to safely restructure an organization as big as the federal government, and when it is the federal government it takes years. Congress gets a say in every political appointment, budget change, and organization change. It’s designed to be slow to assure continuity. \nThere is a saying that every president gets credited and blamed for what the prior administration put in motion. There is a lot of truth to that, and this organizational inertia is a big reason why. There are similar long lags in changing laws, re-writing policies, modifying rules, and so on. It’s a “feature” of having checks and balances.", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn" ]
> Don't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!	[ "If Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nAnd when Barry was president they targeted conservative groups. I think phone calls can be made to tell them to back off of the little guy.", ">\n\n\nthey targeted conservative groups.\n\nNo. They went after specifically anti-tax tea party groups. The groups who openly flaunted tax laws", ">\n\nThey also went after progressive, left leaning groups - how do you explain that ? it was political", ">\n\nWait, did they target conservatives or progressives? Lol", ">\n\nBoth- it was quite clear they were involving themselves in politics - that’s what the IG found", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.", ">\n\nYep!\nAlso this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious.\nThe real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade.", ">\n\nThanks for the informative reply.\nYou make great points which I don't doubt. But there are times when I think it's important to consider both the letter and spirit of law at times.\nEven though it is perfectly by the letter of the law that people should be checked, it also seems against the intended spirit of said law that only a certain group of people are checked.\nI am not familiar with US law, but I think most of us can feel some degree of injustice with how things currently are.", ">\n\nThe point is to automate more checking of income common to wealthier people, and devote more resources to auditing those people. The Fox News article is disingenuous in how it describes the automated checking that goes on. It’s not great that rich people aren’t really audited, but there’s no reason to stop the automated checking of income where it’s already being done and essentially free to continue.\nIf you feel differently, explain yourself.", ">\n\nNo, we are in alignment concerning this.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nFUCK FOX NEWS\nFox is pretending to care about us poors. \nDon't reward these fascist fucks with upvotes for a disingenuous clickbait headline. They still hate us for not voting gop.", ">\n\nThey want people to hate the IRS and help defund it so they don’t go after the rich, which was the purpose of the additional funding", ">\n\nThey want people to link this to “87000” new agents, which is obviously happening on social media posts, but it’s not even a thing.", ">\n\nArticle is trash. The author is including correspondence audits (which means the IRS asked for some documentation by mail) for low income filers but not for millionaires when comparing their audit rates. Here are actual numbers according to their own source:\nAudit rates including correspondence audits\nlow income 1.27%\nmillionaires 2.38% \nAudit rates excluding correspondence audits\nlow income 0.0376%\nmillionaires 1.24%\n.\nFor low income filers, nearly all their audits were correspondence audits.", ">\n\nIt's hilarious when Fox News and the GOP pretend they care about poor people.\nNo amount of hypocrisy is too much to try to make democrats look bad.", ">\n\nIts unfortunately far easier to prove married couples who live together filed HoH for extra earned income credit than it is to prove complicated returns were incorrect.", ">\n\nIt's also trivially easy to prove the same child was claimed by two parents which is a lot of correspondence audits.", ">\n\nSo can my back taxes please just get forgiven already. 20% income being taxed is not livable", ">\n\nRepublican love flat rate taxes, you should talk to them.", ">\n\nThey’re required to audit the president and vice president, and that didn’t happen either.", ">\n\nThis isn't new, it's been been having for the last 5 - 6 years.", ">\n\nHopefully some wake up and realize its all just preparing us for the inevitable destruction of our economy. I imagine its almost too late to realize this. If we all realized this wed sell our 401Ks and not lean on money and use it to help our neighbors.", ">\n\nK bro.", ">\n\nMy wife and I are on social security. She works part time to keep us afloat. All in, we earned $50K in 2022. iRS wants $4500 from us. Really? 5X what Trump paid? Don't know if anyone is paying attention but $50k ain't rich. Oh, and out of that comes almost $4k in Medicare premiums. A program we paid into for 40+ years.\nEveryone of these arrogant, unqualified,, spoon fed assholes in Congress should be made to live on SSI or welfare, with no medical coverage, for a year. Then tell me I am acting entitled.\nSelf serving bastards.", ">\n\nDon't upvote this crap.\nDo you really think Fox cares about the working class??\nThis is just right wing propaganda, timed to coincide with McCarthy's promise to get rid of the new IRS agents who make it possible to audit the rich.\nDon't be used.", ">\n\nWhatever happened to \"dont shoot the messenger?\"", ">\n\nIRS understaffing would naturally trend to go after low-lying fruit. Easy pickings. Too many man hours to go after super complex cases. These moneyed fuckers and their bullshit. It's outrageous.", ">\n\nThe vast majority of these audits are automatically generated correspondence audits that have to be issued. We can't just turn off the program that raises a red flag when two people claim the same child as a dependent because we don't have enough forensic accountants. If you mistype your W2 you'll get an \"audit\" showing the correct info from the copy your boss sent them and telling you they'll correct it unless you tell them otherwise and you don't have to do anything if the info they have is correct.", ">\n\nYeah, all the nonsense about the IRS \"going after\" low income people is so stupid. Low income people make money in a way that their reporting is easily verifiable by a computer. They're also most likely to mess up and claim child tax credits incorrectly, etc - all of which is verifiable and issued a letter by a computer. \n-\nOther than actually being able to get someone on the phone when you call the IRS, and increased budget isn't going to impact the average person in any way.", ">\n\nMy thing is even assuming the 87k don't successfully get more money out of the rich, that's still 87k jobs. That's a net positive. I just don't understand the conservative logic here. Do they think these 87k new jobs are specifically for being insidiously predatory toward the poor? Where's the logic here? (I know I'll get hyperbolic answers, but I genuinely would like to know)", ">\n\nIt's 87,000 jobs over 10 years, the majority of which are replacement during that period. It's just a budget supplemental to stop hemorrhaging agents as they retire or cycle out into other jobs.", ">\n\nso.. this is on fox, which I assume support republican efforts to ensure that this is the permanent state of affairs. I don't really get anything anymore.", ">\n\nAnd that is the way the GOP wants it.", ">\n\n💯 Exactly what this Fox article is trying to do.", ">\n\nIt's who can afford a lawyer", ">\n\nAs the article hints at, the IRS does not do a lot of actual auditing. What it does is computer matching, which automatically generates material for a correspondence audit. Most correspondence audits occur because som poor working Joe didn't know he/her was supposed to include or exclude something, and the IRS caught it in its matching. Of course, the problem is that we have a complex code and little help in actually helping people through the various forms, rules, and so on. But millionaires don't have these issues, so they can escape most of the traps that lead to a correspondence audit. If a lot of these 87,000 were in taxpayer service (which I expect) it would lead to fewer audits at the low end, more robust audits for large corporations, wealthy individuals, and those who actively use tax avoidance strategies. But of course that is not the dialogue that gets promoted when the 87,000 agents are discussed.", ">\n\nThis is exactly why Fox News needs to be dismantled and thrown in the garbage. Ugh, \"look poors! They're coming for yoU!!!\". Scare tactics. And guess what? It sadly works. Every time.\nThey're lower than scum.", ">\n\nExactly. It's when someone misreports a number from their W2, didn't report 1099s they received, both separated parents claim a tax credit for the same kid, etc. All stuff that's easily checked by a computer. The IRS isn't \"auditing\" random low to middle income people. That would be a complete waste of their time.", ">\n\nlooks at Trump You don't say.", ">\n\nThe poor can't defend themselves, it's easier to take a little bit of money from people that won't fight back than a lot of money from people that will.", ">\n\nThe mega rich seem like they’re on a mission to destroy America, as we know it.", ">\n\nHiring 87,000 new IRS agents makes it possible to audit billionaires. So they pay their share. Those audits require an actual person or team that knows what they are doing. But Kevin McCarthy's first item of business was to announce legislation to overturn the hiring of 87,000 IRS agents. Meaning only the little guy (who can be audited by computer software) pays taxes.\nSSDD", ">\n\nThe \"87,000\" agents budget is over a ten year period. It's not for 87,000 new positions.", ">\n\nThe title is so misleading. Im surprised fox even put the juicy bit in the article about how (this stat is due to there not being enough IRS workers because) these \"audits\" on low earners are just automated letters asking for more info.\nYet again, this is just millionairs paid by billionairs to mislead the masses into blaming the poor for crimes committed by said billionairs.", ">\n\nWhich is why the IRS needs more manpower and budget, so they can go after the big fish.\nFuck Fox News and their Republican propaganda pieces. This article coincides with McCarthy saying they’ll cut the IRS budget and that the IRS is coming for you.\nFuck off Republican propaganda rag!\nStop upvoting any Fox News story. Fox should not be on the white list.", ">\n\nThis is a terrible article. It seems to include questions about tax returns as audits. If a low income filer makes a mistake it should be corrected. Is that an audit? If anyone makes a mistake and is contacted, is that an audit? Also there is no reason to go after low income as they rarely pay tax or are required to. The money requested would also pay for people to answer a phone. Those against increasing funding lie when they say all of it goes to audits. If you tell the truth, who cares if you are audited? Are y’all aware you can track your personal return online? However a business cannot. Businesses have to rely on humans that can’t be reached. I’ve waited a year for a refund. Didn’t know if IRS received the return. Didn’t know if there was an issue. Didn’t know if it was mailed or lost. I’m getting tired of Republicans pushing their crap on people.", ">\n\nwho keeps upvoting this right wing propaganda", ">\n\nWhy would the GOP want to give the agency the power to go after their donors.", ">\n\nAnd it was trumps guy that mandated it while Biden replaced him", ">\n\nApparently the mere use of an accounting firm somehow protected corps and the rich from the IRS who still (mistakenly) believe the accounting firms are trustworthy. How naive.", ">\n\nThe \"audits\" talked about are mostly form letters requesting more info about specific items.", ">\n\nThe poor can't pay for top flight attorneys.", ">\n\nYep keep the IRS underfunded so they can only go after the poors at the same time telling all the poors that the IRS is bad cause it goes after them but leave out the fact that they do that cause the poors are low hanging fruit.\nRepublicans are evil.", ">\n\nWell the GOP wants to cut funding to the IRS for new agents, so I’m sure the poor folk will continue to get screwed. I say toss the 50,000+ page tax code out and replace with a percentage based on total revenue/income made. Took a loss? No write-offs. Oh well, better luck next year. It’ll never happen because the wealthy don’t want it to.", ">\n\nWhere did you get this info? I know GOPers have been slashing IRS budgets and staffing for years but can't find reliable sources for what this has done to the actual audits - like who gets audited.", ">\n\nTheir link is Fox. This is a bad faith post.", ">\n\nThis says a lot coming from fox “news”", ">\n\nTo paraphrase Gilbert K. Chesterton, \"The Poor have sometimes objected to being taxed too heavily; The Rich have always objected to being taxed at all.\"", ">\n\ndon't post Fox news here....", ">\n\nCorporations and millionaires have the means to hire accountants and attorneys. Our tax code is gray in several areas. It’s easy to go after the poor that do not have the resources and will have no choice but to pay anything the IRS says. The additional agents will continue to target the poor and middle class because they are easy, It’s happened before, it will continue to happen.", ">\n\nI think it's funny/sad that a poor person can win the lottery and they get taxed at a higher rate than any billionaire has ever been taxed at. The system is built to keep the rich - rich and the poor - poor.", ">\n\nThe poorest can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nThe current system cannot be sustained. We are hurtling towards disaster.", ">\n\nThe only reason the bastards have the majority is because the corrupt SCOTUS allowed illegal gerrymanders to stand while they were fought in the courts.", ">\n\nThe I.R.S. goes after the poorer people because it's easier. They can't afford lawyers and accountants. So the poor can do nothing but roll over and take it up the rump. The Inflation Reduction Act that Biden signed into law in August is supposed to give $80 Billion to the I.R.S. so they can go after the millionaires. But we know that won't happen. More poor people are going to get screwed.", ">\n\nI'm confused. For decades, Faux news and the conservatives have been saying that millionaires deserve to keep more of their money than we do. That was a huge part of the 2017 tax scam that Trump signed. Now Faux is saying it's a problem? And they are rightly detailing that Republicans are the cause, along with Biden trying to fix the same issue that Fox has helped create?", ">\n\nFox News", ">\n\nHey IRS, don't forget to crawl up my ass this year because I sold some old stuff on eBay for a loss but make sure you put a few man hours into figuring out if it is legit or not.", ">\n\nlol, and the people opposed to IRS funding will say they are anti-establishment.", ">\n\nImagine how much they could squeeze the middle class with 87,000 more agents! But really, it’ll be good to see if the increase in officers actually increases tax revenue without changing the underlying laws.", ">\n\nSo, this is the newest Republican boogeyman, the IRS.\nWell, better than Drag Queens I guess.", ">\n\nOh hey just like last year, and the year before that, I think there might be a pattern", ">\n\nThank you republicans, always sticking up in the back on the small guys…", ">\n\nFox News saying this like it’s not something Rupert Murdoch’s network supports is pretty funny.", ">\n\nFox News. Ignore it.", ">\n\nFox News is still allowed in here?", ">\n\nFake news. This is Republican propaganda coming from Fox News.", ">\n\nFox News is NOT news", ">\n\nHmm sounds like it was underfunded then. Good thing now we helped ease that problem. Thanks Biden", ">\n\nIt's simply laziness by the IRS. Lower-income households have less complicated returns and easier to process. I'm sure IRS runs a non-effective but management-pleasing metric like \"how many returns were corrected\" opposed to how much money was recouped.", ">\n\nWe know. They don't have the resources to do anything. That was the point of increasing the staffing at the IRS so they had even the slightest hope of going after the big offenders with their armies or lawyers.", ">\n\nThere's less millionaires and billionaires than there are us. I'm not sure that answer fits the accuracy on hiring more workers but I'll go ahead and amuse that", ">\n\nIt's not a game of tax guy vs rich guy. The rich literally have armies of lawyers. You need the staff to overcome all the paper and challenges they'll throw at you. \nIf you throw one person to audit a millionaire, their lawyers can make it so it'll take a year to review a week of operations. Investigations will never finish unless there's sufficient staff to overcome their obstruction.", ">\n\nTo this day I do not understand why the IRS can demand our documents every year without a warrant. The 16th amendment does not alter the 4th, and the 4th does not apply only to criminal actions (as the 5th explicitly does). Yet no one seems to care about this annual violations.", ">\n\nReminder, Fox News is not news. It's entertainment, and should be regarded as such.", ">\n\nNo shit, poor ppl tend to file their own taxes and screw up where as millionaires hire expensive accountants to exploit all the legal loopholes without getting their clients in trouble.\nI don't think it's an intentional targeting as the article may be implying.", ">\n\nOne might imagine the resources of agents would be better put to use by focusing on returns that might produce more revenue, however it may be just a lot easier to collect a few bucks from easier targets.", ">\n\nThey are short staffed and accountants make it so difficult to find wrongdoing, if there is even wrongdoing to be found, that it would take a decent chunk of their workforce just to tackle it. It's like trying to find needle in a haystack but you don't know if there's a needle or not.", ">\n\nSo true....", ">\n\nShocked pikachu face.", ">\n\nYeah I’d believe this if it weren’t Fox News. They could give a fuck about the poor and middle class.", ">\n\nI would literally rather the IRS spend its time auditing 5 extraordinarily rich people or a single business than anyone who makes less than 100k per year\nETA: I’m aware that this article represents part of the Republican agenda to just gut the IRS and welfare spending generally. And I understand the difficulties in auditing the rich/businesses v lower income people claiming tax credits, etc", ">\n\nAlmost all of the little people \"audits\" are just a computer issuing a correspondence \"audit\" because the person misreported something from their W2, didn't report as much 1099 income as was reported to the IRS by others, or separated parents both trying to claim kids for tax credits or something. \n-\nThey don't really pull from the same resources. The rich people audits require human beings. Little people \"audits\" aren't really audits and a computer can do it. So if we want to audit more rich people, they need actual budget for human beings. The little people are going to be caught anyways because a computer can do it.", ">\n\nI interned at the IRS during the summer of 2012 when Lois Lerner made batshit crazy commrnts that they were targetting conservative groups", ">\n\nI say this every time it gets brought up. This is by design. I used to work in auditing and also used to do tax stuff. It’s super easy to find tax fraud on someone who only has a simple W-2 and no other income. You could find those people through a basic algorithm. Meanwhile, auditing a multi millionaire is expensive, time consuming, and often fruitless. If I was in charge of an underfunded, understaffed IRS I would tell my staff to go for the easy wins too.", ">\n\nUnpopular opinion - More funding won't resolve this. \nThe IRS will keep doing this. Unless rules & regulations forbid or disincentivize this practice, the IRS will keep this stupid practice", ">\n\nI make $40,000 a year and the IRS froze my bank accounts until I paid them $1000 in taxes I owed them because of an error I made filling my taxes. They froze my bank accounts for $1000. I was fucked for a month. I had to borrow cash from people just for food and gas money to get to work to get paid money that I couldn’t access. It was a scary time for me. Meanwhile millionaires are purposely avoiding taxes worth more than what I make in a year and nothing happens to them.", ">\n\nThe IRS sends no less than a dozen letters to a taxpayer prior to leaving a bank account. Why didn't you just put it into a repayment plan? Takes about ten minutes online.", ">\n\nDon't you just hate autocorrect?", ">\n\nIf true, its a holdover from jrbush who slashed IRS staff and budget and told them to spend more time auditing tip jars and busboys than millionaires because the millionaires had better lawyers than the IRS and service workers were unlikely to have any lawyers at all.", ">\n\nFox News solution: remove the IRS", ">\n\nAbsolutely. They’ll NEVER target the rich, adding more agents just made them a lot more capable to target all the lower class.", ">\n\nWhat people don't realize..Those 87K \"Agents\" aren't that. It's 87K employees over 25 years. Clerks etc. People are so fucking stupid when they just believe these clowns.", ">\n\nThose numbers also count it as an \"audit\" when a person misreports a number from a W2, 1099s, etc and the irs number matching software sends an automatically generated correspondence letter that basically says \"we actually show this number, this is what your tax return would have been if you reported that number correctly\". \nThe IRS isn't wasting time doing random \"audits\" as people think of them for low to middle income people. It would be a complete waste of their time. The computer just catches obvious verifiable mistakes and it counts as an audit in those numbers.", ">\n\n“those in the lowest income bracket hit 12.7 per 1,000….. The odds of a millionaire facing an audit were around 1.1%.”\nSo they’re saying 1.27% vs 1.1%!!! And acting like that’s a scandal 🙄", ">\n\nWhich means millionaires REALLY don't want more IRS auditors which means when our new resident house fascist fires five thousand auditors, said fascist (McCarthy) is making sure those millionaires aren't going to get audited. \nCha CHING !!! Go the \"donations\" into house rat republican's pockets. \nThe grift will be in full swing shortly.\nAnd with putin whispering in their ears and telling them EXACTLY how break the law - how can they lose?", ">\n\n💯 Exactly why theres a Fox link here pushing for that same reason.", ">\n\nTwo things. First of all, this is from a far right-wing propaganda outlet which should immediately raise red flags. They're trying to scare you into allowing a republican-initiated movement to entirely remove all remaining power from the IRS by making it seem like they're coming after you.\nSecond, the reason the IRS is already already virtually powerless against the rich is because the republicans have already eviscerated them in the past several decades, largely through defunding them leading to not only staffing cuts, but the inability to pursue the wealthiest people who have the resources for endless litigation. So as a result, the FBI can only really afford to go after people who cannot financially defend themselves.", ">\n\nThird, you might as well throw in that the aiming low guidance was under a Trump appointee who is no longer in that position.", ">\n\nThe GOP intentionally defunded the IRS so that it could not audit the wealthy. It takes a great deal more money upfront to audit them but the payback is far greater.", ">\n\nI'm not sure why dems voted against an amendment that would have mandated the giant infusion of cash into the IRS couldn't be used to audit folks making >$400k.", ">\n\nHrm this is pretty fucked I'd like to hear about why the Dems voted nay.", ">\n\nBecause they work for the same people as Republicans. \nThey are different but only when their owners allow them to be. \nI don't know how many times we are going to have to learn this lesson before it sticks.", ">\n\nDemocrats are responsible for this", ">\n\nThe rich returns are just too hard, enough lower class errors you can leave the rich alone. Love to see it… sigh", ">\n\nIt takes money to police the wealthy. Can't have that can we?!", ">\n\nr/noshitsherlock", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised?\nI’m not even American and this seemed obvious to me. All you have to do is look at how the poor live and compare that to the news about someone like Elon musk or Donald trump.", ">\n\nThis is why the IRS needs to go.", ">\n\nFox News helped make that happen.", ">\n\nThey'll never change,all the time when the guys in charge benefit from doing the same shit.", ">\n\nAnd yet the republicans dont submit or pass legislations to change the rules to favor targeting rich people. Curious.", ">\n\nThen 78,000 new, armed tax collectors should be able to extract even more money from the poor, middle-class and small business owners.", ">\n\nWhy did they focus on the Poorest? The thought of 87,000 more of them will actually do what? If the existing can’t focus on the wealthy! Then what makes anybody think more can?", ">\n\nMillionaires and billionaires make the government more money by creating lobbying loopholes and exploiting the economy to bilk the 99%. It's really cheap to go after the poorest who are struggling to pay day to day obligations and don't have loopholes or government sanctioned exploitation to take advantage of.", ">\n\nI could have told you this would happen. You think millionaires get $600 Venmo transactions?", ">\n\nThat's a move democrats should not make. That's one month of rent for me. What of folks worse-off?", ">\n\nHonestly it’s like squeezing blood from the stone over here anyway.", ">\n\nDuh lmfao theyve already stated it costs too much to tax weathy people previously and its most cost effective to audit the poor due to many factors...", ">\n\nI mean 99% of us are poor compared to the other 1%", ">\n\nColor me surprised", ">\n\nWe need some laws for equitable auditing.", ">\n\nYou are an Army commander about to attack the enemy. Do you prefer to attack where they have experienced career solders backed up by artillery, tanks, and airplanes, or do you attack where there are poorly armed and equipped untrained conscripts?", ">\n\nThey must be upset someone replaced their sign with a card from Cards Against Humanity", ">\n\nMay it ever be so…. Don’t reproduce if you only consume and can’t accumulate or help a Dow Jones winter water witch. Like snow, weathermen.", ">\n\nIt’s weirdly fitting how much their building sign in the photo looks like a cards against humanity card.", ">\n\nTypical", ">\n\nWow? How unusual.", ">\n\nI’d support double the number of IRS agents", ">\n\nI was low income and won about 3,000 gambling, the irs went after me", ">\n\nThe IRS came after me hard for 8$", ">\n\nAudit frequency should correlate to income, someone with a million in income should be audited 10x those with 100k income", ">\n\nSomeone should explain Pareto charts to the IRS.", ">\n\nI've been audited three times. First when I was 27, did some consulting and didn't do the 1099 prepayments. Ended up owing $17k. Second audit was after moving across country for a job. The tax preparer we hired made a mistake with the move expense deductions, owed a few thousand. Third audit was another tax preparer mistake, but this time we overpaid and were owed money we credited to the next year. \nIf you assume for discussion that the average audit on an ordinary tax payer returns $10,000, it would take 100,000,000 audits to make $1 trillion. By just doing the easy work, the IRS is leaving the real money on the table.", ">\n\nRepublicans are famous for giving rich breaks while middle class etc close the gaps", ">\n\nThe last line, \"The Inflation Reduction Act provides the IRS with $80 billion in future funding to ramp up its audits and potentially target the wealthiest taxpayers.\"", ">\n\nThe cure is not the root cause, but the middle class and the poor will eventually bear the burden after the capital operation", ">\n\nIt’s like they timed the “research” and the drop of the article with the speech. Sad man.", ">\n\nWatch Madoff. The wealthy skate and steal billions. The poor are in prison over thousands.", ">\n\nWhy does their sign look like a Card Against Humanity", ">\n\nFucking Trump, still at it.", ">\n\nOh you mean the thing people said would happen once they got massive funding actually happened? Checks out", ">\n\nOf course they did, because millionaires will lawyer up.", ">\n\nBecause the poor can't afford to fight back.", ">\n\nIt's so unfair the poor and the middle class taxpayers suffer so much while the millionaries got away with not paying the taxes It's really hurting the poor. The middle class is fading", ">\n\nAll of this can be fixed if we just use no-exemption graduated income", ">\n\nYeah we know", ">\n\nShow of hands for all surprised.\ncrickets\nHmm. Seems like Reddit suffers from a plague of double amputees...", ">\n\nWhat the actual fuck", ">\n\nAnd 2021, 2020, 2019, …", ">\n\nSounds about right.", ">\n\nOf course. Poor people can’t afford attorneys.", ">\n\nI made a mistake on my forms while I was overseas and ticked “self-employed” instead of “employed”. I was on a student visa and had two children and was making less than 10k a year. They hounded me for years. By the time I figured out what had happened I could not amend the forms and had paid thousands in penalties and interest.\nMeanwhile I knew lots of people who were there fully employed not reporting their income.\nFuck them.", ">\n\nYep! During the pandemic, even while I wasn't working didn't come after me the entire time that I was working but the minute that I wasn't nobody was cuz we were in lockdown they started popping up", ">\n\nI just now realized that the Cards Against Humanity box looks like the IRS sign", ">\n\nWhy is the sign a Cards Against Humanity question?", ">\n\nI am shocked and appalled. clutches pearls", ">\n\nRich should be taxed more than the average not right at all. Or at least there is a tier system based on pay only makes sense. Come on now", ">\n\nSounds about right, make the rich richer again.", ">\n\nWho are we going to vote for in the future ,all of them are decayed , corrupted and useless , the “most rich country in the world , governed by the most ignorant an corrupted. What a contrast .", ">\n\nGod bless America", ">\n\nno way. wait until you see those people responds. Those people are chipping away.", ">\n\nSounds about right", ">\n\nWe know.", ">\n\nI find it rather comical that Fox news is reporting on this since they are all about pushing the Republican agenda and that is all about pushing everyone else down that isn't rich and keeping them there. Not to mention they had no problem with Trump not paying taxes for years.", ">\n\nCan fucking confirm.", ">\n\nYeah, they (millionaires) have accountants who generally do things right and due to their millions being in investments it's not like it's taxable all the time. \nThen there's the ability to sell any stocks when they're down to build up losses on paper can reinvest them at a loss that can carry over across multiple years.", ">\n\nsounds about right. i don’t have a pot to piss in but they’re all over me for someone stealing my identity and filing a double tax return one year.", ">\n\nDuh", ">\n\nThere’s a reason why FOX is posting this article. The less people at the IRS, the more likely they come after folks who can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nIn order to pursue wealthy tax cheats, the IRS needs more resources and personnel. Otherwise it’s business as usual, picking on the low hanging fruit that earns under 6 figures.", ">\n\nSo wrong ....people need to be fired", ">\n\nIt’s because they can’t afford to take them to court", ">\n\nOf course it is about protecting the rich like Trump who lies ,lies , and about his tax returns . No wonder he did not want them released .", ">\n\nEasy prey bc most ppl can not lawyer up. Pretty heart breaking system we have at times.", ">\n\nWhy does the irs sign look like it's from cards against humanity?", ">\n\nCurrently getting audited over \\~$1500, which they owe me, when the rich get away with murder. Fucking unbelievably and unnecessarily stressful for me.", ">\n\nHas t this been know for a while?", ">\n\nyep and they are the same people getting tax cuts while everyone else does it tough ....\nAny one with too much money is your enemy .... not a hero of democracy", ">\n\nGet rid of taxes and the gov’t should just do stuff for free, or what ever.", ">\n\nYou have to be careful when you get one of those CP2000 notices from the IRS. The way they are written is a trap.\nIf you dispute it you are supposed to indicate that you disagree and send it back with documents supporting your dispute.\nYou are only supposed to sign it if you agree with them and when you sign it you are signing away your rights to dispute the back taxes and penalties they are demanding.\nMere worker bees like us can expect to be getting a lot of those from this years tax returns considering how the threshold for 1099k forms has been dropped to $600.\nGuys like Trump? The IRS doesn't even know where to begin.", ">\n\nThanks Biden", ">\n\nI presume those lower-income bracket filers might be more likely to reach out to 1-800-infomercial [quickie settlement/long-term penalties most favorable to gov/proprietor] than retain proper legal counsel?\nRegardless it’s got to be a lot less work for IRS agent to go after under-represented citizen(s), rather than someone who can afford to appeal, properly negotiate on their own terms?", ">\n\nLmfao Dems tax and spend. But I have to admit there Republicans that tax and spend to. Where do these Politicians get off taxing me or business and give to people who don't work what do you cause d the inflation. You can not print money \nI am Conservative not a Republican. To much money is wasted and put in pockets of people ot don't belong.\nBut all dems know how to tax tax tax. \nIts all great and good until you run out if other peoples money. \nMillionaire just like Berny he hated Millionaires until he became one now he hates Trillionaires. Funny how the gold post changes. And good old Nancy her I side stock trading. So I think you need to rethink.", ">\n\nThe IRS is only doing as directed by whomever controls the White House.", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised by this? Really?", ">\n\nThe sign in the thumbnail looks like a Cards Against Humanity card.", ">\n\nWhile this is mostly true, don’t believe everything you read. I’m no more an accountant than I am a ladies man, but someone (said they’re an accountant) posted a few days ago about this. They explained that the most likely people getting audited are trying to, fraudulently or mistakenly, claim the EITC. \nYES, it’s super easy to “bust” these people for an easy “mistake”. This is who the IRS is cracking down on. \nDo I think it’s better to bust poor people for claiming a few thousand in tax credits vs billionaires who avoid taxes altogether? Of course not, but don’t think they’re actively targeting people who fudge their mileage deductions or miss a decimal point in their calculations as small business owners. It’s simply not happening. \nAnd the reported “87,000 new IRS agents” are replacing the 10’s of 1,000’s of employees set to retire or quit over the next 10 years which doesn’t even begin to fill the gaps we’ve been growing for decades by not hiring and training more willing workers. Not to mention they’re not even close to all employees who will actively audit tax payers. They’re people who answer phones, file papers, assist others, etc… They’re mostly just average people with average jobs so of course the GOP wants to end this. They hate upward mobility and job creation unless that means tax breaks for their billionaire friends.", ">\n\nI wish everyone wasn’t a sheep and would understand this.", ">\n\nI can see the Media doing their best to turn the public against the IRS.", ">\n\nPicking on the week and helpless. That’s what we humans do. We suck. I’m waiting for that big meteor reset button.", ">\n\nAnd Fox news loves this.", ">\n\nLove it, Faux 'News' taking the piss, for 4 years under Dear Leader they campaigned for tax breaks for the rich, now they're pretending to care about the poor !", ">\n\nEvery millionaire should be audited yearly. Period.", ">\n\nAND now the gqp cult promises to rescind the money Biden set aside to aid the IRS to recover taxes from mega millionaire tax cheats like benedict donald, who paid less taxes than most working Americans.", ">\n\nRepublicans want to stop the IRS and Congress from taxing rich people, making the burden of maintaining civilization fall more heavily on poorer people. This is why Republicans vote for tax cuts for the rich and against funding for the IRS.\nAnd since Republican beliefs are based on wishful thinking, Republicans can screw over poor, rural Republicans while simultaneously taking credit for doing it to make Republicans happy about it and blaming it on Democrats to make those same Republicans resentful against Democrats for it. And what else would we expect from a Republican Party that blames Democrats for tricking them into attacking the Capitol to make Trump look bad and justifies and approves of assaulting Capitol police while brandishing their \"thin blue line\" flags.", ">\n\nThe IRS is like any other law enforcement agency, they prefer pursuing the poor because they don't have the resources to protect themselves.", ">\n\nThe IRS building sign looks like its from cards against humanity.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nNot a reliable news source.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nThat picture looks like the worst cards against humanity card too get.", ">\n\nScrew the Murdoch media empire and their failed trickle down ideologies.", ">\n\nOf course, the poorest haven’t paid over 400+ billion for decades. Not sure about the rich, we haven’t checked.", ">\n\nThis is not a surprise. With the recent inflation reduction act, the IRS an additional $80B over 10 years or $8B per year. The IRS budget for 2021 was $13.7B. The additional $8B over the year would be an increase of 58% to their budget. They will be looking to get a lot more money from taxpayers, due to this very large increase in their budget.", ">\n\nFox reported this? I'm in shock", ">\n\nAll propagandists publish clickbaity stuff that makes them sound like maybe they've let up on the evil. Unfortunately it works, since people just upvote headlines.", ">\n\nIt’s only going to get worse in 2023. Those 87k new IRS agents will not be going after the wealthy.", ">\n\nWhy?\nThat’s literally why they were being added. The IRS goes after the poorer taxpayers because they are low-hanging fruit and don’t have the lawyers and accountants to protect them. \nThe additional IRS employees were to give the personnel staffing sufficient to go after the wealthy.", ">\n\nIt doesn’t matter how many IRS agents there are. It will always be easier and more profitable for the IRS to nickel and dime the average taxpayer rather than go after the wealthy, who have the resources to lawyer up with the best lawyers and challenge the IRS in court.", ">\n\nEasier? Yes. More profitable? Doubtful.", ">\n\nIf Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nBut in 2022 ( when Biden was president and the House belonged to the Dems) they didn’t did they.", ">\n\nIt takes time to refactor an organization. It’s still full of Trump appointees.", ">\n\n2020 was a long time ago", ">\n\nNot on organizational time scales. It takes several months to safely restructure an organization as big as the federal government, and when it is the federal government it takes years. Congress gets a say in every political appointment, budget change, and organization change. It’s designed to be slow to assure continuity. \nThere is a saying that every president gets credited and blamed for what the prior administration put in motion. There is a lot of truth to that, and this organizational inertia is a big reason why. There are similar long lags in changing laws, re-writing policies, modifying rules, and so on. It’s a “feature” of having checks and balances.", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”" ]
> I know that already from the Trump tax filings.	[ "If Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nAnd when Barry was president they targeted conservative groups. I think phone calls can be made to tell them to back off of the little guy.", ">\n\n\nthey targeted conservative groups.\n\nNo. They went after specifically anti-tax tea party groups. The groups who openly flaunted tax laws", ">\n\nThey also went after progressive, left leaning groups - how do you explain that ? it was political", ">\n\nWait, did they target conservatives or progressives? Lol", ">\n\nBoth- it was quite clear they were involving themselves in politics - that’s what the IG found", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.", ">\n\nYep!\nAlso this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious.\nThe real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade.", ">\n\nThanks for the informative reply.\nYou make great points which I don't doubt. But there are times when I think it's important to consider both the letter and spirit of law at times.\nEven though it is perfectly by the letter of the law that people should be checked, it also seems against the intended spirit of said law that only a certain group of people are checked.\nI am not familiar with US law, but I think most of us can feel some degree of injustice with how things currently are.", ">\n\nThe point is to automate more checking of income common to wealthier people, and devote more resources to auditing those people. The Fox News article is disingenuous in how it describes the automated checking that goes on. It’s not great that rich people aren’t really audited, but there’s no reason to stop the automated checking of income where it’s already being done and essentially free to continue.\nIf you feel differently, explain yourself.", ">\n\nNo, we are in alignment concerning this.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nFUCK FOX NEWS\nFox is pretending to care about us poors. \nDon't reward these fascist fucks with upvotes for a disingenuous clickbait headline. They still hate us for not voting gop.", ">\n\nThey want people to hate the IRS and help defund it so they don’t go after the rich, which was the purpose of the additional funding", ">\n\nThey want people to link this to “87000” new agents, which is obviously happening on social media posts, but it’s not even a thing.", ">\n\nArticle is trash. The author is including correspondence audits (which means the IRS asked for some documentation by mail) for low income filers but not for millionaires when comparing their audit rates. Here are actual numbers according to their own source:\nAudit rates including correspondence audits\nlow income 1.27%\nmillionaires 2.38% \nAudit rates excluding correspondence audits\nlow income 0.0376%\nmillionaires 1.24%\n.\nFor low income filers, nearly all their audits were correspondence audits.", ">\n\nIt's hilarious when Fox News and the GOP pretend they care about poor people.\nNo amount of hypocrisy is too much to try to make democrats look bad.", ">\n\nIts unfortunately far easier to prove married couples who live together filed HoH for extra earned income credit than it is to prove complicated returns were incorrect.", ">\n\nIt's also trivially easy to prove the same child was claimed by two parents which is a lot of correspondence audits.", ">\n\nSo can my back taxes please just get forgiven already. 20% income being taxed is not livable", ">\n\nRepublican love flat rate taxes, you should talk to them.", ">\n\nThey’re required to audit the president and vice president, and that didn’t happen either.", ">\n\nThis isn't new, it's been been having for the last 5 - 6 years.", ">\n\nHopefully some wake up and realize its all just preparing us for the inevitable destruction of our economy. I imagine its almost too late to realize this. If we all realized this wed sell our 401Ks and not lean on money and use it to help our neighbors.", ">\n\nK bro.", ">\n\nMy wife and I are on social security. She works part time to keep us afloat. All in, we earned $50K in 2022. iRS wants $4500 from us. Really? 5X what Trump paid? Don't know if anyone is paying attention but $50k ain't rich. Oh, and out of that comes almost $4k in Medicare premiums. A program we paid into for 40+ years.\nEveryone of these arrogant, unqualified,, spoon fed assholes in Congress should be made to live on SSI or welfare, with no medical coverage, for a year. Then tell me I am acting entitled.\nSelf serving bastards.", ">\n\nDon't upvote this crap.\nDo you really think Fox cares about the working class??\nThis is just right wing propaganda, timed to coincide with McCarthy's promise to get rid of the new IRS agents who make it possible to audit the rich.\nDon't be used.", ">\n\nWhatever happened to \"dont shoot the messenger?\"", ">\n\nIRS understaffing would naturally trend to go after low-lying fruit. Easy pickings. Too many man hours to go after super complex cases. These moneyed fuckers and their bullshit. It's outrageous.", ">\n\nThe vast majority of these audits are automatically generated correspondence audits that have to be issued. We can't just turn off the program that raises a red flag when two people claim the same child as a dependent because we don't have enough forensic accountants. If you mistype your W2 you'll get an \"audit\" showing the correct info from the copy your boss sent them and telling you they'll correct it unless you tell them otherwise and you don't have to do anything if the info they have is correct.", ">\n\nYeah, all the nonsense about the IRS \"going after\" low income people is so stupid. Low income people make money in a way that their reporting is easily verifiable by a computer. They're also most likely to mess up and claim child tax credits incorrectly, etc - all of which is verifiable and issued a letter by a computer. \n-\nOther than actually being able to get someone on the phone when you call the IRS, and increased budget isn't going to impact the average person in any way.", ">\n\nMy thing is even assuming the 87k don't successfully get more money out of the rich, that's still 87k jobs. That's a net positive. I just don't understand the conservative logic here. Do they think these 87k new jobs are specifically for being insidiously predatory toward the poor? Where's the logic here? (I know I'll get hyperbolic answers, but I genuinely would like to know)", ">\n\nIt's 87,000 jobs over 10 years, the majority of which are replacement during that period. It's just a budget supplemental to stop hemorrhaging agents as they retire or cycle out into other jobs.", ">\n\nso.. this is on fox, which I assume support republican efforts to ensure that this is the permanent state of affairs. I don't really get anything anymore.", ">\n\nAnd that is the way the GOP wants it.", ">\n\n💯 Exactly what this Fox article is trying to do.", ">\n\nIt's who can afford a lawyer", ">\n\nAs the article hints at, the IRS does not do a lot of actual auditing. What it does is computer matching, which automatically generates material for a correspondence audit. Most correspondence audits occur because som poor working Joe didn't know he/her was supposed to include or exclude something, and the IRS caught it in its matching. Of course, the problem is that we have a complex code and little help in actually helping people through the various forms, rules, and so on. But millionaires don't have these issues, so they can escape most of the traps that lead to a correspondence audit. If a lot of these 87,000 were in taxpayer service (which I expect) it would lead to fewer audits at the low end, more robust audits for large corporations, wealthy individuals, and those who actively use tax avoidance strategies. But of course that is not the dialogue that gets promoted when the 87,000 agents are discussed.", ">\n\nThis is exactly why Fox News needs to be dismantled and thrown in the garbage. Ugh, \"look poors! They're coming for yoU!!!\". Scare tactics. And guess what? It sadly works. Every time.\nThey're lower than scum.", ">\n\nExactly. It's when someone misreports a number from their W2, didn't report 1099s they received, both separated parents claim a tax credit for the same kid, etc. All stuff that's easily checked by a computer. The IRS isn't \"auditing\" random low to middle income people. That would be a complete waste of their time.", ">\n\nlooks at Trump You don't say.", ">\n\nThe poor can't defend themselves, it's easier to take a little bit of money from people that won't fight back than a lot of money from people that will.", ">\n\nThe mega rich seem like they’re on a mission to destroy America, as we know it.", ">\n\nHiring 87,000 new IRS agents makes it possible to audit billionaires. So they pay their share. Those audits require an actual person or team that knows what they are doing. But Kevin McCarthy's first item of business was to announce legislation to overturn the hiring of 87,000 IRS agents. Meaning only the little guy (who can be audited by computer software) pays taxes.\nSSDD", ">\n\nThe \"87,000\" agents budget is over a ten year period. It's not for 87,000 new positions.", ">\n\nThe title is so misleading. Im surprised fox even put the juicy bit in the article about how (this stat is due to there not being enough IRS workers because) these \"audits\" on low earners are just automated letters asking for more info.\nYet again, this is just millionairs paid by billionairs to mislead the masses into blaming the poor for crimes committed by said billionairs.", ">\n\nWhich is why the IRS needs more manpower and budget, so they can go after the big fish.\nFuck Fox News and their Republican propaganda pieces. This article coincides with McCarthy saying they’ll cut the IRS budget and that the IRS is coming for you.\nFuck off Republican propaganda rag!\nStop upvoting any Fox News story. Fox should not be on the white list.", ">\n\nThis is a terrible article. It seems to include questions about tax returns as audits. If a low income filer makes a mistake it should be corrected. Is that an audit? If anyone makes a mistake and is contacted, is that an audit? Also there is no reason to go after low income as they rarely pay tax or are required to. The money requested would also pay for people to answer a phone. Those against increasing funding lie when they say all of it goes to audits. If you tell the truth, who cares if you are audited? Are y’all aware you can track your personal return online? However a business cannot. Businesses have to rely on humans that can’t be reached. I’ve waited a year for a refund. Didn’t know if IRS received the return. Didn’t know if there was an issue. Didn’t know if it was mailed or lost. I’m getting tired of Republicans pushing their crap on people.", ">\n\nwho keeps upvoting this right wing propaganda", ">\n\nWhy would the GOP want to give the agency the power to go after their donors.", ">\n\nAnd it was trumps guy that mandated it while Biden replaced him", ">\n\nApparently the mere use of an accounting firm somehow protected corps and the rich from the IRS who still (mistakenly) believe the accounting firms are trustworthy. How naive.", ">\n\nThe \"audits\" talked about are mostly form letters requesting more info about specific items.", ">\n\nThe poor can't pay for top flight attorneys.", ">\n\nYep keep the IRS underfunded so they can only go after the poors at the same time telling all the poors that the IRS is bad cause it goes after them but leave out the fact that they do that cause the poors are low hanging fruit.\nRepublicans are evil.", ">\n\nWell the GOP wants to cut funding to the IRS for new agents, so I’m sure the poor folk will continue to get screwed. I say toss the 50,000+ page tax code out and replace with a percentage based on total revenue/income made. Took a loss? No write-offs. Oh well, better luck next year. It’ll never happen because the wealthy don’t want it to.", ">\n\nWhere did you get this info? I know GOPers have been slashing IRS budgets and staffing for years but can't find reliable sources for what this has done to the actual audits - like who gets audited.", ">\n\nTheir link is Fox. This is a bad faith post.", ">\n\nThis says a lot coming from fox “news”", ">\n\nTo paraphrase Gilbert K. Chesterton, \"The Poor have sometimes objected to being taxed too heavily; The Rich have always objected to being taxed at all.\"", ">\n\ndon't post Fox news here....", ">\n\nCorporations and millionaires have the means to hire accountants and attorneys. Our tax code is gray in several areas. It’s easy to go after the poor that do not have the resources and will have no choice but to pay anything the IRS says. The additional agents will continue to target the poor and middle class because they are easy, It’s happened before, it will continue to happen.", ">\n\nI think it's funny/sad that a poor person can win the lottery and they get taxed at a higher rate than any billionaire has ever been taxed at. The system is built to keep the rich - rich and the poor - poor.", ">\n\nThe poorest can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nThe current system cannot be sustained. We are hurtling towards disaster.", ">\n\nThe only reason the bastards have the majority is because the corrupt SCOTUS allowed illegal gerrymanders to stand while they were fought in the courts.", ">\n\nThe I.R.S. goes after the poorer people because it's easier. They can't afford lawyers and accountants. So the poor can do nothing but roll over and take it up the rump. The Inflation Reduction Act that Biden signed into law in August is supposed to give $80 Billion to the I.R.S. so they can go after the millionaires. But we know that won't happen. More poor people are going to get screwed.", ">\n\nI'm confused. For decades, Faux news and the conservatives have been saying that millionaires deserve to keep more of their money than we do. That was a huge part of the 2017 tax scam that Trump signed. Now Faux is saying it's a problem? And they are rightly detailing that Republicans are the cause, along with Biden trying to fix the same issue that Fox has helped create?", ">\n\nFox News", ">\n\nHey IRS, don't forget to crawl up my ass this year because I sold some old stuff on eBay for a loss but make sure you put a few man hours into figuring out if it is legit or not.", ">\n\nlol, and the people opposed to IRS funding will say they are anti-establishment.", ">\n\nImagine how much they could squeeze the middle class with 87,000 more agents! But really, it’ll be good to see if the increase in officers actually increases tax revenue without changing the underlying laws.", ">\n\nSo, this is the newest Republican boogeyman, the IRS.\nWell, better than Drag Queens I guess.", ">\n\nOh hey just like last year, and the year before that, I think there might be a pattern", ">\n\nThank you republicans, always sticking up in the back on the small guys…", ">\n\nFox News saying this like it’s not something Rupert Murdoch’s network supports is pretty funny.", ">\n\nFox News. Ignore it.", ">\n\nFox News is still allowed in here?", ">\n\nFake news. This is Republican propaganda coming from Fox News.", ">\n\nFox News is NOT news", ">\n\nHmm sounds like it was underfunded then. Good thing now we helped ease that problem. Thanks Biden", ">\n\nIt's simply laziness by the IRS. Lower-income households have less complicated returns and easier to process. I'm sure IRS runs a non-effective but management-pleasing metric like \"how many returns were corrected\" opposed to how much money was recouped.", ">\n\nWe know. They don't have the resources to do anything. That was the point of increasing the staffing at the IRS so they had even the slightest hope of going after the big offenders with their armies or lawyers.", ">\n\nThere's less millionaires and billionaires than there are us. I'm not sure that answer fits the accuracy on hiring more workers but I'll go ahead and amuse that", ">\n\nIt's not a game of tax guy vs rich guy. The rich literally have armies of lawyers. You need the staff to overcome all the paper and challenges they'll throw at you. \nIf you throw one person to audit a millionaire, their lawyers can make it so it'll take a year to review a week of operations. Investigations will never finish unless there's sufficient staff to overcome their obstruction.", ">\n\nTo this day I do not understand why the IRS can demand our documents every year without a warrant. The 16th amendment does not alter the 4th, and the 4th does not apply only to criminal actions (as the 5th explicitly does). Yet no one seems to care about this annual violations.", ">\n\nReminder, Fox News is not news. It's entertainment, and should be regarded as such.", ">\n\nNo shit, poor ppl tend to file their own taxes and screw up where as millionaires hire expensive accountants to exploit all the legal loopholes without getting their clients in trouble.\nI don't think it's an intentional targeting as the article may be implying.", ">\n\nOne might imagine the resources of agents would be better put to use by focusing on returns that might produce more revenue, however it may be just a lot easier to collect a few bucks from easier targets.", ">\n\nThey are short staffed and accountants make it so difficult to find wrongdoing, if there is even wrongdoing to be found, that it would take a decent chunk of their workforce just to tackle it. It's like trying to find needle in a haystack but you don't know if there's a needle or not.", ">\n\nSo true....", ">\n\nShocked pikachu face.", ">\n\nYeah I’d believe this if it weren’t Fox News. They could give a fuck about the poor and middle class.", ">\n\nI would literally rather the IRS spend its time auditing 5 extraordinarily rich people or a single business than anyone who makes less than 100k per year\nETA: I’m aware that this article represents part of the Republican agenda to just gut the IRS and welfare spending generally. And I understand the difficulties in auditing the rich/businesses v lower income people claiming tax credits, etc", ">\n\nAlmost all of the little people \"audits\" are just a computer issuing a correspondence \"audit\" because the person misreported something from their W2, didn't report as much 1099 income as was reported to the IRS by others, or separated parents both trying to claim kids for tax credits or something. \n-\nThey don't really pull from the same resources. The rich people audits require human beings. Little people \"audits\" aren't really audits and a computer can do it. So if we want to audit more rich people, they need actual budget for human beings. The little people are going to be caught anyways because a computer can do it.", ">\n\nI interned at the IRS during the summer of 2012 when Lois Lerner made batshit crazy commrnts that they were targetting conservative groups", ">\n\nI say this every time it gets brought up. This is by design. I used to work in auditing and also used to do tax stuff. It’s super easy to find tax fraud on someone who only has a simple W-2 and no other income. You could find those people through a basic algorithm. Meanwhile, auditing a multi millionaire is expensive, time consuming, and often fruitless. If I was in charge of an underfunded, understaffed IRS I would tell my staff to go for the easy wins too.", ">\n\nUnpopular opinion - More funding won't resolve this. \nThe IRS will keep doing this. Unless rules & regulations forbid or disincentivize this practice, the IRS will keep this stupid practice", ">\n\nI make $40,000 a year and the IRS froze my bank accounts until I paid them $1000 in taxes I owed them because of an error I made filling my taxes. They froze my bank accounts for $1000. I was fucked for a month. I had to borrow cash from people just for food and gas money to get to work to get paid money that I couldn’t access. It was a scary time for me. Meanwhile millionaires are purposely avoiding taxes worth more than what I make in a year and nothing happens to them.", ">\n\nThe IRS sends no less than a dozen letters to a taxpayer prior to leaving a bank account. Why didn't you just put it into a repayment plan? Takes about ten minutes online.", ">\n\nDon't you just hate autocorrect?", ">\n\nIf true, its a holdover from jrbush who slashed IRS staff and budget and told them to spend more time auditing tip jars and busboys than millionaires because the millionaires had better lawyers than the IRS and service workers were unlikely to have any lawyers at all.", ">\n\nFox News solution: remove the IRS", ">\n\nAbsolutely. They’ll NEVER target the rich, adding more agents just made them a lot more capable to target all the lower class.", ">\n\nWhat people don't realize..Those 87K \"Agents\" aren't that. It's 87K employees over 25 years. Clerks etc. People are so fucking stupid when they just believe these clowns.", ">\n\nThose numbers also count it as an \"audit\" when a person misreports a number from a W2, 1099s, etc and the irs number matching software sends an automatically generated correspondence letter that basically says \"we actually show this number, this is what your tax return would have been if you reported that number correctly\". \nThe IRS isn't wasting time doing random \"audits\" as people think of them for low to middle income people. It would be a complete waste of their time. The computer just catches obvious verifiable mistakes and it counts as an audit in those numbers.", ">\n\n“those in the lowest income bracket hit 12.7 per 1,000….. The odds of a millionaire facing an audit were around 1.1%.”\nSo they’re saying 1.27% vs 1.1%!!! And acting like that’s a scandal 🙄", ">\n\nWhich means millionaires REALLY don't want more IRS auditors which means when our new resident house fascist fires five thousand auditors, said fascist (McCarthy) is making sure those millionaires aren't going to get audited. \nCha CHING !!! Go the \"donations\" into house rat republican's pockets. \nThe grift will be in full swing shortly.\nAnd with putin whispering in their ears and telling them EXACTLY how break the law - how can they lose?", ">\n\n💯 Exactly why theres a Fox link here pushing for that same reason.", ">\n\nTwo things. First of all, this is from a far right-wing propaganda outlet which should immediately raise red flags. They're trying to scare you into allowing a republican-initiated movement to entirely remove all remaining power from the IRS by making it seem like they're coming after you.\nSecond, the reason the IRS is already already virtually powerless against the rich is because the republicans have already eviscerated them in the past several decades, largely through defunding them leading to not only staffing cuts, but the inability to pursue the wealthiest people who have the resources for endless litigation. So as a result, the FBI can only really afford to go after people who cannot financially defend themselves.", ">\n\nThird, you might as well throw in that the aiming low guidance was under a Trump appointee who is no longer in that position.", ">\n\nThe GOP intentionally defunded the IRS so that it could not audit the wealthy. It takes a great deal more money upfront to audit them but the payback is far greater.", ">\n\nI'm not sure why dems voted against an amendment that would have mandated the giant infusion of cash into the IRS couldn't be used to audit folks making >$400k.", ">\n\nHrm this is pretty fucked I'd like to hear about why the Dems voted nay.", ">\n\nBecause they work for the same people as Republicans. \nThey are different but only when their owners allow them to be. \nI don't know how many times we are going to have to learn this lesson before it sticks.", ">\n\nDemocrats are responsible for this", ">\n\nThe rich returns are just too hard, enough lower class errors you can leave the rich alone. Love to see it… sigh", ">\n\nIt takes money to police the wealthy. Can't have that can we?!", ">\n\nr/noshitsherlock", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised?\nI’m not even American and this seemed obvious to me. All you have to do is look at how the poor live and compare that to the news about someone like Elon musk or Donald trump.", ">\n\nThis is why the IRS needs to go.", ">\n\nFox News helped make that happen.", ">\n\nThey'll never change,all the time when the guys in charge benefit from doing the same shit.", ">\n\nAnd yet the republicans dont submit or pass legislations to change the rules to favor targeting rich people. Curious.", ">\n\nThen 78,000 new, armed tax collectors should be able to extract even more money from the poor, middle-class and small business owners.", ">\n\nWhy did they focus on the Poorest? The thought of 87,000 more of them will actually do what? If the existing can’t focus on the wealthy! Then what makes anybody think more can?", ">\n\nMillionaires and billionaires make the government more money by creating lobbying loopholes and exploiting the economy to bilk the 99%. It's really cheap to go after the poorest who are struggling to pay day to day obligations and don't have loopholes or government sanctioned exploitation to take advantage of.", ">\n\nI could have told you this would happen. You think millionaires get $600 Venmo transactions?", ">\n\nThat's a move democrats should not make. That's one month of rent for me. What of folks worse-off?", ">\n\nHonestly it’s like squeezing blood from the stone over here anyway.", ">\n\nDuh lmfao theyve already stated it costs too much to tax weathy people previously and its most cost effective to audit the poor due to many factors...", ">\n\nI mean 99% of us are poor compared to the other 1%", ">\n\nColor me surprised", ">\n\nWe need some laws for equitable auditing.", ">\n\nYou are an Army commander about to attack the enemy. Do you prefer to attack where they have experienced career solders backed up by artillery, tanks, and airplanes, or do you attack where there are poorly armed and equipped untrained conscripts?", ">\n\nThey must be upset someone replaced their sign with a card from Cards Against Humanity", ">\n\nMay it ever be so…. Don’t reproduce if you only consume and can’t accumulate or help a Dow Jones winter water witch. Like snow, weathermen.", ">\n\nIt’s weirdly fitting how much their building sign in the photo looks like a cards against humanity card.", ">\n\nTypical", ">\n\nWow? How unusual.", ">\n\nI’d support double the number of IRS agents", ">\n\nI was low income and won about 3,000 gambling, the irs went after me", ">\n\nThe IRS came after me hard for 8$", ">\n\nAudit frequency should correlate to income, someone with a million in income should be audited 10x those with 100k income", ">\n\nSomeone should explain Pareto charts to the IRS.", ">\n\nI've been audited three times. First when I was 27, did some consulting and didn't do the 1099 prepayments. Ended up owing $17k. Second audit was after moving across country for a job. The tax preparer we hired made a mistake with the move expense deductions, owed a few thousand. Third audit was another tax preparer mistake, but this time we overpaid and were owed money we credited to the next year. \nIf you assume for discussion that the average audit on an ordinary tax payer returns $10,000, it would take 100,000,000 audits to make $1 trillion. By just doing the easy work, the IRS is leaving the real money on the table.", ">\n\nRepublicans are famous for giving rich breaks while middle class etc close the gaps", ">\n\nThe last line, \"The Inflation Reduction Act provides the IRS with $80 billion in future funding to ramp up its audits and potentially target the wealthiest taxpayers.\"", ">\n\nThe cure is not the root cause, but the middle class and the poor will eventually bear the burden after the capital operation", ">\n\nIt’s like they timed the “research” and the drop of the article with the speech. Sad man.", ">\n\nWatch Madoff. The wealthy skate and steal billions. The poor are in prison over thousands.", ">\n\nWhy does their sign look like a Card Against Humanity", ">\n\nFucking Trump, still at it.", ">\n\nOh you mean the thing people said would happen once they got massive funding actually happened? Checks out", ">\n\nOf course they did, because millionaires will lawyer up.", ">\n\nBecause the poor can't afford to fight back.", ">\n\nIt's so unfair the poor and the middle class taxpayers suffer so much while the millionaries got away with not paying the taxes It's really hurting the poor. The middle class is fading", ">\n\nAll of this can be fixed if we just use no-exemption graduated income", ">\n\nYeah we know", ">\n\nShow of hands for all surprised.\ncrickets\nHmm. Seems like Reddit suffers from a plague of double amputees...", ">\n\nWhat the actual fuck", ">\n\nAnd 2021, 2020, 2019, …", ">\n\nSounds about right.", ">\n\nOf course. Poor people can’t afford attorneys.", ">\n\nI made a mistake on my forms while I was overseas and ticked “self-employed” instead of “employed”. I was on a student visa and had two children and was making less than 10k a year. They hounded me for years. By the time I figured out what had happened I could not amend the forms and had paid thousands in penalties and interest.\nMeanwhile I knew lots of people who were there fully employed not reporting their income.\nFuck them.", ">\n\nYep! During the pandemic, even while I wasn't working didn't come after me the entire time that I was working but the minute that I wasn't nobody was cuz we were in lockdown they started popping up", ">\n\nI just now realized that the Cards Against Humanity box looks like the IRS sign", ">\n\nWhy is the sign a Cards Against Humanity question?", ">\n\nI am shocked and appalled. clutches pearls", ">\n\nRich should be taxed more than the average not right at all. Or at least there is a tier system based on pay only makes sense. Come on now", ">\n\nSounds about right, make the rich richer again.", ">\n\nWho are we going to vote for in the future ,all of them are decayed , corrupted and useless , the “most rich country in the world , governed by the most ignorant an corrupted. What a contrast .", ">\n\nGod bless America", ">\n\nno way. wait until you see those people responds. Those people are chipping away.", ">\n\nSounds about right", ">\n\nWe know.", ">\n\nI find it rather comical that Fox news is reporting on this since they are all about pushing the Republican agenda and that is all about pushing everyone else down that isn't rich and keeping them there. Not to mention they had no problem with Trump not paying taxes for years.", ">\n\nCan fucking confirm.", ">\n\nYeah, they (millionaires) have accountants who generally do things right and due to their millions being in investments it's not like it's taxable all the time. \nThen there's the ability to sell any stocks when they're down to build up losses on paper can reinvest them at a loss that can carry over across multiple years.", ">\n\nsounds about right. i don’t have a pot to piss in but they’re all over me for someone stealing my identity and filing a double tax return one year.", ">\n\nDuh", ">\n\nThere’s a reason why FOX is posting this article. The less people at the IRS, the more likely they come after folks who can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nIn order to pursue wealthy tax cheats, the IRS needs more resources and personnel. Otherwise it’s business as usual, picking on the low hanging fruit that earns under 6 figures.", ">\n\nSo wrong ....people need to be fired", ">\n\nIt’s because they can’t afford to take them to court", ">\n\nOf course it is about protecting the rich like Trump who lies ,lies , and about his tax returns . No wonder he did not want them released .", ">\n\nEasy prey bc most ppl can not lawyer up. Pretty heart breaking system we have at times.", ">\n\nWhy does the irs sign look like it's from cards against humanity?", ">\n\nCurrently getting audited over \\~$1500, which they owe me, when the rich get away with murder. Fucking unbelievably and unnecessarily stressful for me.", ">\n\nHas t this been know for a while?", ">\n\nyep and they are the same people getting tax cuts while everyone else does it tough ....\nAny one with too much money is your enemy .... not a hero of democracy", ">\n\nGet rid of taxes and the gov’t should just do stuff for free, or what ever.", ">\n\nYou have to be careful when you get one of those CP2000 notices from the IRS. The way they are written is a trap.\nIf you dispute it you are supposed to indicate that you disagree and send it back with documents supporting your dispute.\nYou are only supposed to sign it if you agree with them and when you sign it you are signing away your rights to dispute the back taxes and penalties they are demanding.\nMere worker bees like us can expect to be getting a lot of those from this years tax returns considering how the threshold for 1099k forms has been dropped to $600.\nGuys like Trump? The IRS doesn't even know where to begin.", ">\n\nThanks Biden", ">\n\nI presume those lower-income bracket filers might be more likely to reach out to 1-800-infomercial [quickie settlement/long-term penalties most favorable to gov/proprietor] than retain proper legal counsel?\nRegardless it’s got to be a lot less work for IRS agent to go after under-represented citizen(s), rather than someone who can afford to appeal, properly negotiate on their own terms?", ">\n\nLmfao Dems tax and spend. But I have to admit there Republicans that tax and spend to. Where do these Politicians get off taxing me or business and give to people who don't work what do you cause d the inflation. You can not print money \nI am Conservative not a Republican. To much money is wasted and put in pockets of people ot don't belong.\nBut all dems know how to tax tax tax. \nIts all great and good until you run out if other peoples money. \nMillionaire just like Berny he hated Millionaires until he became one now he hates Trillionaires. Funny how the gold post changes. And good old Nancy her I side stock trading. So I think you need to rethink.", ">\n\nThe IRS is only doing as directed by whomever controls the White House.", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised by this? Really?", ">\n\nThe sign in the thumbnail looks like a Cards Against Humanity card.", ">\n\nWhile this is mostly true, don’t believe everything you read. I’m no more an accountant than I am a ladies man, but someone (said they’re an accountant) posted a few days ago about this. They explained that the most likely people getting audited are trying to, fraudulently or mistakenly, claim the EITC. \nYES, it’s super easy to “bust” these people for an easy “mistake”. This is who the IRS is cracking down on. \nDo I think it’s better to bust poor people for claiming a few thousand in tax credits vs billionaires who avoid taxes altogether? Of course not, but don’t think they’re actively targeting people who fudge their mileage deductions or miss a decimal point in their calculations as small business owners. It’s simply not happening. \nAnd the reported “87,000 new IRS agents” are replacing the 10’s of 1,000’s of employees set to retire or quit over the next 10 years which doesn’t even begin to fill the gaps we’ve been growing for decades by not hiring and training more willing workers. Not to mention they’re not even close to all employees who will actively audit tax payers. They’re people who answer phones, file papers, assist others, etc… They’re mostly just average people with average jobs so of course the GOP wants to end this. They hate upward mobility and job creation unless that means tax breaks for their billionaire friends.", ">\n\nI wish everyone wasn’t a sheep and would understand this.", ">\n\nI can see the Media doing their best to turn the public against the IRS.", ">\n\nPicking on the week and helpless. That’s what we humans do. We suck. I’m waiting for that big meteor reset button.", ">\n\nAnd Fox news loves this.", ">\n\nLove it, Faux 'News' taking the piss, for 4 years under Dear Leader they campaigned for tax breaks for the rich, now they're pretending to care about the poor !", ">\n\nEvery millionaire should be audited yearly. Period.", ">\n\nAND now the gqp cult promises to rescind the money Biden set aside to aid the IRS to recover taxes from mega millionaire tax cheats like benedict donald, who paid less taxes than most working Americans.", ">\n\nRepublicans want to stop the IRS and Congress from taxing rich people, making the burden of maintaining civilization fall more heavily on poorer people. This is why Republicans vote for tax cuts for the rich and against funding for the IRS.\nAnd since Republican beliefs are based on wishful thinking, Republicans can screw over poor, rural Republicans while simultaneously taking credit for doing it to make Republicans happy about it and blaming it on Democrats to make those same Republicans resentful against Democrats for it. And what else would we expect from a Republican Party that blames Democrats for tricking them into attacking the Capitol to make Trump look bad and justifies and approves of assaulting Capitol police while brandishing their \"thin blue line\" flags.", ">\n\nThe IRS is like any other law enforcement agency, they prefer pursuing the poor because they don't have the resources to protect themselves.", ">\n\nThe IRS building sign looks like its from cards against humanity.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nNot a reliable news source.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nThat picture looks like the worst cards against humanity card too get.", ">\n\nScrew the Murdoch media empire and their failed trickle down ideologies.", ">\n\nOf course, the poorest haven’t paid over 400+ billion for decades. Not sure about the rich, we haven’t checked.", ">\n\nThis is not a surprise. With the recent inflation reduction act, the IRS an additional $80B over 10 years or $8B per year. The IRS budget for 2021 was $13.7B. The additional $8B over the year would be an increase of 58% to their budget. They will be looking to get a lot more money from taxpayers, due to this very large increase in their budget.", ">\n\nFox reported this? I'm in shock", ">\n\nAll propagandists publish clickbaity stuff that makes them sound like maybe they've let up on the evil. Unfortunately it works, since people just upvote headlines.", ">\n\nIt’s only going to get worse in 2023. Those 87k new IRS agents will not be going after the wealthy.", ">\n\nWhy?\nThat’s literally why they were being added. The IRS goes after the poorer taxpayers because they are low-hanging fruit and don’t have the lawyers and accountants to protect them. \nThe additional IRS employees were to give the personnel staffing sufficient to go after the wealthy.", ">\n\nIt doesn’t matter how many IRS agents there are. It will always be easier and more profitable for the IRS to nickel and dime the average taxpayer rather than go after the wealthy, who have the resources to lawyer up with the best lawyers and challenge the IRS in court.", ">\n\nEasier? Yes. More profitable? Doubtful.", ">\n\nIf Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nBut in 2022 ( when Biden was president and the House belonged to the Dems) they didn’t did they.", ">\n\nIt takes time to refactor an organization. It’s still full of Trump appointees.", ">\n\n2020 was a long time ago", ">\n\nNot on organizational time scales. It takes several months to safely restructure an organization as big as the federal government, and when it is the federal government it takes years. Congress gets a say in every political appointment, budget change, and organization change. It’s designed to be slow to assure continuity. \nThere is a saying that every president gets credited and blamed for what the prior administration put in motion. There is a lot of truth to that, and this organizational inertia is a big reason why. There are similar long lags in changing laws, re-writing policies, modifying rules, and so on. It’s a “feature” of having checks and balances.", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!" ]
> Obviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these "audits". When people talk about "audits" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for. So when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at "audits". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner. This is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. If Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.	[ "If Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nAnd when Barry was president they targeted conservative groups. I think phone calls can be made to tell them to back off of the little guy.", ">\n\n\nthey targeted conservative groups.\n\nNo. They went after specifically anti-tax tea party groups. The groups who openly flaunted tax laws", ">\n\nThey also went after progressive, left leaning groups - how do you explain that ? it was political", ">\n\nWait, did they target conservatives or progressives? Lol", ">\n\nBoth- it was quite clear they were involving themselves in politics - that’s what the IG found", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.", ">\n\nYep!\nAlso this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious.\nThe real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade.", ">\n\nThanks for the informative reply.\nYou make great points which I don't doubt. But there are times when I think it's important to consider both the letter and spirit of law at times.\nEven though it is perfectly by the letter of the law that people should be checked, it also seems against the intended spirit of said law that only a certain group of people are checked.\nI am not familiar with US law, but I think most of us can feel some degree of injustice with how things currently are.", ">\n\nThe point is to automate more checking of income common to wealthier people, and devote more resources to auditing those people. The Fox News article is disingenuous in how it describes the automated checking that goes on. It’s not great that rich people aren’t really audited, but there’s no reason to stop the automated checking of income where it’s already being done and essentially free to continue.\nIf you feel differently, explain yourself.", ">\n\nNo, we are in alignment concerning this.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nFUCK FOX NEWS\nFox is pretending to care about us poors. \nDon't reward these fascist fucks with upvotes for a disingenuous clickbait headline. They still hate us for not voting gop.", ">\n\nThey want people to hate the IRS and help defund it so they don’t go after the rich, which was the purpose of the additional funding", ">\n\nThey want people to link this to “87000” new agents, which is obviously happening on social media posts, but it’s not even a thing.", ">\n\nArticle is trash. The author is including correspondence audits (which means the IRS asked for some documentation by mail) for low income filers but not for millionaires when comparing their audit rates. Here are actual numbers according to their own source:\nAudit rates including correspondence audits\nlow income 1.27%\nmillionaires 2.38% \nAudit rates excluding correspondence audits\nlow income 0.0376%\nmillionaires 1.24%\n.\nFor low income filers, nearly all their audits were correspondence audits.", ">\n\nIt's hilarious when Fox News and the GOP pretend they care about poor people.\nNo amount of hypocrisy is too much to try to make democrats look bad.", ">\n\nIts unfortunately far easier to prove married couples who live together filed HoH for extra earned income credit than it is to prove complicated returns were incorrect.", ">\n\nIt's also trivially easy to prove the same child was claimed by two parents which is a lot of correspondence audits.", ">\n\nSo can my back taxes please just get forgiven already. 20% income being taxed is not livable", ">\n\nRepublican love flat rate taxes, you should talk to them.", ">\n\nThey’re required to audit the president and vice president, and that didn’t happen either.", ">\n\nThis isn't new, it's been been having for the last 5 - 6 years.", ">\n\nHopefully some wake up and realize its all just preparing us for the inevitable destruction of our economy. I imagine its almost too late to realize this. If we all realized this wed sell our 401Ks and not lean on money and use it to help our neighbors.", ">\n\nK bro.", ">\n\nMy wife and I are on social security. She works part time to keep us afloat. All in, we earned $50K in 2022. iRS wants $4500 from us. Really? 5X what Trump paid? Don't know if anyone is paying attention but $50k ain't rich. Oh, and out of that comes almost $4k in Medicare premiums. A program we paid into for 40+ years.\nEveryone of these arrogant, unqualified,, spoon fed assholes in Congress should be made to live on SSI or welfare, with no medical coverage, for a year. Then tell me I am acting entitled.\nSelf serving bastards.", ">\n\nDon't upvote this crap.\nDo you really think Fox cares about the working class??\nThis is just right wing propaganda, timed to coincide with McCarthy's promise to get rid of the new IRS agents who make it possible to audit the rich.\nDon't be used.", ">\n\nWhatever happened to \"dont shoot the messenger?\"", ">\n\nIRS understaffing would naturally trend to go after low-lying fruit. Easy pickings. Too many man hours to go after super complex cases. These moneyed fuckers and their bullshit. It's outrageous.", ">\n\nThe vast majority of these audits are automatically generated correspondence audits that have to be issued. We can't just turn off the program that raises a red flag when two people claim the same child as a dependent because we don't have enough forensic accountants. If you mistype your W2 you'll get an \"audit\" showing the correct info from the copy your boss sent them and telling you they'll correct it unless you tell them otherwise and you don't have to do anything if the info they have is correct.", ">\n\nYeah, all the nonsense about the IRS \"going after\" low income people is so stupid. Low income people make money in a way that their reporting is easily verifiable by a computer. They're also most likely to mess up and claim child tax credits incorrectly, etc - all of which is verifiable and issued a letter by a computer. \n-\nOther than actually being able to get someone on the phone when you call the IRS, and increased budget isn't going to impact the average person in any way.", ">\n\nMy thing is even assuming the 87k don't successfully get more money out of the rich, that's still 87k jobs. That's a net positive. I just don't understand the conservative logic here. Do they think these 87k new jobs are specifically for being insidiously predatory toward the poor? Where's the logic here? (I know I'll get hyperbolic answers, but I genuinely would like to know)", ">\n\nIt's 87,000 jobs over 10 years, the majority of which are replacement during that period. It's just a budget supplemental to stop hemorrhaging agents as they retire or cycle out into other jobs.", ">\n\nso.. this is on fox, which I assume support republican efforts to ensure that this is the permanent state of affairs. I don't really get anything anymore.", ">\n\nAnd that is the way the GOP wants it.", ">\n\n💯 Exactly what this Fox article is trying to do.", ">\n\nIt's who can afford a lawyer", ">\n\nAs the article hints at, the IRS does not do a lot of actual auditing. What it does is computer matching, which automatically generates material for a correspondence audit. Most correspondence audits occur because som poor working Joe didn't know he/her was supposed to include or exclude something, and the IRS caught it in its matching. Of course, the problem is that we have a complex code and little help in actually helping people through the various forms, rules, and so on. But millionaires don't have these issues, so they can escape most of the traps that lead to a correspondence audit. If a lot of these 87,000 were in taxpayer service (which I expect) it would lead to fewer audits at the low end, more robust audits for large corporations, wealthy individuals, and those who actively use tax avoidance strategies. But of course that is not the dialogue that gets promoted when the 87,000 agents are discussed.", ">\n\nThis is exactly why Fox News needs to be dismantled and thrown in the garbage. Ugh, \"look poors! They're coming for yoU!!!\". Scare tactics. And guess what? It sadly works. Every time.\nThey're lower than scum.", ">\n\nExactly. It's when someone misreports a number from their W2, didn't report 1099s they received, both separated parents claim a tax credit for the same kid, etc. All stuff that's easily checked by a computer. The IRS isn't \"auditing\" random low to middle income people. That would be a complete waste of their time.", ">\n\nlooks at Trump You don't say.", ">\n\nThe poor can't defend themselves, it's easier to take a little bit of money from people that won't fight back than a lot of money from people that will.", ">\n\nThe mega rich seem like they’re on a mission to destroy America, as we know it.", ">\n\nHiring 87,000 new IRS agents makes it possible to audit billionaires. So they pay their share. Those audits require an actual person or team that knows what they are doing. But Kevin McCarthy's first item of business was to announce legislation to overturn the hiring of 87,000 IRS agents. Meaning only the little guy (who can be audited by computer software) pays taxes.\nSSDD", ">\n\nThe \"87,000\" agents budget is over a ten year period. It's not for 87,000 new positions.", ">\n\nThe title is so misleading. Im surprised fox even put the juicy bit in the article about how (this stat is due to there not being enough IRS workers because) these \"audits\" on low earners are just automated letters asking for more info.\nYet again, this is just millionairs paid by billionairs to mislead the masses into blaming the poor for crimes committed by said billionairs.", ">\n\nWhich is why the IRS needs more manpower and budget, so they can go after the big fish.\nFuck Fox News and their Republican propaganda pieces. This article coincides with McCarthy saying they’ll cut the IRS budget and that the IRS is coming for you.\nFuck off Republican propaganda rag!\nStop upvoting any Fox News story. Fox should not be on the white list.", ">\n\nThis is a terrible article. It seems to include questions about tax returns as audits. If a low income filer makes a mistake it should be corrected. Is that an audit? If anyone makes a mistake and is contacted, is that an audit? Also there is no reason to go after low income as they rarely pay tax or are required to. The money requested would also pay for people to answer a phone. Those against increasing funding lie when they say all of it goes to audits. If you tell the truth, who cares if you are audited? Are y’all aware you can track your personal return online? However a business cannot. Businesses have to rely on humans that can’t be reached. I’ve waited a year for a refund. Didn’t know if IRS received the return. Didn’t know if there was an issue. Didn’t know if it was mailed or lost. I’m getting tired of Republicans pushing their crap on people.", ">\n\nwho keeps upvoting this right wing propaganda", ">\n\nWhy would the GOP want to give the agency the power to go after their donors.", ">\n\nAnd it was trumps guy that mandated it while Biden replaced him", ">\n\nApparently the mere use of an accounting firm somehow protected corps and the rich from the IRS who still (mistakenly) believe the accounting firms are trustworthy. How naive.", ">\n\nThe \"audits\" talked about are mostly form letters requesting more info about specific items.", ">\n\nThe poor can't pay for top flight attorneys.", ">\n\nYep keep the IRS underfunded so they can only go after the poors at the same time telling all the poors that the IRS is bad cause it goes after them but leave out the fact that they do that cause the poors are low hanging fruit.\nRepublicans are evil.", ">\n\nWell the GOP wants to cut funding to the IRS for new agents, so I’m sure the poor folk will continue to get screwed. I say toss the 50,000+ page tax code out and replace with a percentage based on total revenue/income made. Took a loss? No write-offs. Oh well, better luck next year. It’ll never happen because the wealthy don’t want it to.", ">\n\nWhere did you get this info? I know GOPers have been slashing IRS budgets and staffing for years but can't find reliable sources for what this has done to the actual audits - like who gets audited.", ">\n\nTheir link is Fox. This is a bad faith post.", ">\n\nThis says a lot coming from fox “news”", ">\n\nTo paraphrase Gilbert K. Chesterton, \"The Poor have sometimes objected to being taxed too heavily; The Rich have always objected to being taxed at all.\"", ">\n\ndon't post Fox news here....", ">\n\nCorporations and millionaires have the means to hire accountants and attorneys. Our tax code is gray in several areas. It’s easy to go after the poor that do not have the resources and will have no choice but to pay anything the IRS says. The additional agents will continue to target the poor and middle class because they are easy, It’s happened before, it will continue to happen.", ">\n\nI think it's funny/sad that a poor person can win the lottery and they get taxed at a higher rate than any billionaire has ever been taxed at. The system is built to keep the rich - rich and the poor - poor.", ">\n\nThe poorest can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nThe current system cannot be sustained. We are hurtling towards disaster.", ">\n\nThe only reason the bastards have the majority is because the corrupt SCOTUS allowed illegal gerrymanders to stand while they were fought in the courts.", ">\n\nThe I.R.S. goes after the poorer people because it's easier. They can't afford lawyers and accountants. So the poor can do nothing but roll over and take it up the rump. The Inflation Reduction Act that Biden signed into law in August is supposed to give $80 Billion to the I.R.S. so they can go after the millionaires. But we know that won't happen. More poor people are going to get screwed.", ">\n\nI'm confused. For decades, Faux news and the conservatives have been saying that millionaires deserve to keep more of their money than we do. That was a huge part of the 2017 tax scam that Trump signed. Now Faux is saying it's a problem? And they are rightly detailing that Republicans are the cause, along with Biden trying to fix the same issue that Fox has helped create?", ">\n\nFox News", ">\n\nHey IRS, don't forget to crawl up my ass this year because I sold some old stuff on eBay for a loss but make sure you put a few man hours into figuring out if it is legit or not.", ">\n\nlol, and the people opposed to IRS funding will say they are anti-establishment.", ">\n\nImagine how much they could squeeze the middle class with 87,000 more agents! But really, it’ll be good to see if the increase in officers actually increases tax revenue without changing the underlying laws.", ">\n\nSo, this is the newest Republican boogeyman, the IRS.\nWell, better than Drag Queens I guess.", ">\n\nOh hey just like last year, and the year before that, I think there might be a pattern", ">\n\nThank you republicans, always sticking up in the back on the small guys…", ">\n\nFox News saying this like it’s not something Rupert Murdoch’s network supports is pretty funny.", ">\n\nFox News. Ignore it.", ">\n\nFox News is still allowed in here?", ">\n\nFake news. This is Republican propaganda coming from Fox News.", ">\n\nFox News is NOT news", ">\n\nHmm sounds like it was underfunded then. Good thing now we helped ease that problem. Thanks Biden", ">\n\nIt's simply laziness by the IRS. Lower-income households have less complicated returns and easier to process. I'm sure IRS runs a non-effective but management-pleasing metric like \"how many returns were corrected\" opposed to how much money was recouped.", ">\n\nWe know. They don't have the resources to do anything. That was the point of increasing the staffing at the IRS so they had even the slightest hope of going after the big offenders with their armies or lawyers.", ">\n\nThere's less millionaires and billionaires than there are us. I'm not sure that answer fits the accuracy on hiring more workers but I'll go ahead and amuse that", ">\n\nIt's not a game of tax guy vs rich guy. The rich literally have armies of lawyers. You need the staff to overcome all the paper and challenges they'll throw at you. \nIf you throw one person to audit a millionaire, their lawyers can make it so it'll take a year to review a week of operations. Investigations will never finish unless there's sufficient staff to overcome their obstruction.", ">\n\nTo this day I do not understand why the IRS can demand our documents every year without a warrant. The 16th amendment does not alter the 4th, and the 4th does not apply only to criminal actions (as the 5th explicitly does). Yet no one seems to care about this annual violations.", ">\n\nReminder, Fox News is not news. It's entertainment, and should be regarded as such.", ">\n\nNo shit, poor ppl tend to file their own taxes and screw up where as millionaires hire expensive accountants to exploit all the legal loopholes without getting their clients in trouble.\nI don't think it's an intentional targeting as the article may be implying.", ">\n\nOne might imagine the resources of agents would be better put to use by focusing on returns that might produce more revenue, however it may be just a lot easier to collect a few bucks from easier targets.", ">\n\nThey are short staffed and accountants make it so difficult to find wrongdoing, if there is even wrongdoing to be found, that it would take a decent chunk of their workforce just to tackle it. It's like trying to find needle in a haystack but you don't know if there's a needle or not.", ">\n\nSo true....", ">\n\nShocked pikachu face.", ">\n\nYeah I’d believe this if it weren’t Fox News. They could give a fuck about the poor and middle class.", ">\n\nI would literally rather the IRS spend its time auditing 5 extraordinarily rich people or a single business than anyone who makes less than 100k per year\nETA: I’m aware that this article represents part of the Republican agenda to just gut the IRS and welfare spending generally. And I understand the difficulties in auditing the rich/businesses v lower income people claiming tax credits, etc", ">\n\nAlmost all of the little people \"audits\" are just a computer issuing a correspondence \"audit\" because the person misreported something from their W2, didn't report as much 1099 income as was reported to the IRS by others, or separated parents both trying to claim kids for tax credits or something. \n-\nThey don't really pull from the same resources. The rich people audits require human beings. Little people \"audits\" aren't really audits and a computer can do it. So if we want to audit more rich people, they need actual budget for human beings. The little people are going to be caught anyways because a computer can do it.", ">\n\nI interned at the IRS during the summer of 2012 when Lois Lerner made batshit crazy commrnts that they were targetting conservative groups", ">\n\nI say this every time it gets brought up. This is by design. I used to work in auditing and also used to do tax stuff. It’s super easy to find tax fraud on someone who only has a simple W-2 and no other income. You could find those people through a basic algorithm. Meanwhile, auditing a multi millionaire is expensive, time consuming, and often fruitless. If I was in charge of an underfunded, understaffed IRS I would tell my staff to go for the easy wins too.", ">\n\nUnpopular opinion - More funding won't resolve this. \nThe IRS will keep doing this. Unless rules & regulations forbid or disincentivize this practice, the IRS will keep this stupid practice", ">\n\nI make $40,000 a year and the IRS froze my bank accounts until I paid them $1000 in taxes I owed them because of an error I made filling my taxes. They froze my bank accounts for $1000. I was fucked for a month. I had to borrow cash from people just for food and gas money to get to work to get paid money that I couldn’t access. It was a scary time for me. Meanwhile millionaires are purposely avoiding taxes worth more than what I make in a year and nothing happens to them.", ">\n\nThe IRS sends no less than a dozen letters to a taxpayer prior to leaving a bank account. Why didn't you just put it into a repayment plan? Takes about ten minutes online.", ">\n\nDon't you just hate autocorrect?", ">\n\nIf true, its a holdover from jrbush who slashed IRS staff and budget and told them to spend more time auditing tip jars and busboys than millionaires because the millionaires had better lawyers than the IRS and service workers were unlikely to have any lawyers at all.", ">\n\nFox News solution: remove the IRS", ">\n\nAbsolutely. They’ll NEVER target the rich, adding more agents just made them a lot more capable to target all the lower class.", ">\n\nWhat people don't realize..Those 87K \"Agents\" aren't that. It's 87K employees over 25 years. Clerks etc. People are so fucking stupid when they just believe these clowns.", ">\n\nThose numbers also count it as an \"audit\" when a person misreports a number from a W2, 1099s, etc and the irs number matching software sends an automatically generated correspondence letter that basically says \"we actually show this number, this is what your tax return would have been if you reported that number correctly\". \nThe IRS isn't wasting time doing random \"audits\" as people think of them for low to middle income people. It would be a complete waste of their time. The computer just catches obvious verifiable mistakes and it counts as an audit in those numbers.", ">\n\n“those in the lowest income bracket hit 12.7 per 1,000….. The odds of a millionaire facing an audit were around 1.1%.”\nSo they’re saying 1.27% vs 1.1%!!! And acting like that’s a scandal 🙄", ">\n\nWhich means millionaires REALLY don't want more IRS auditors which means when our new resident house fascist fires five thousand auditors, said fascist (McCarthy) is making sure those millionaires aren't going to get audited. \nCha CHING !!! Go the \"donations\" into house rat republican's pockets. \nThe grift will be in full swing shortly.\nAnd with putin whispering in their ears and telling them EXACTLY how break the law - how can they lose?", ">\n\n💯 Exactly why theres a Fox link here pushing for that same reason.", ">\n\nTwo things. First of all, this is from a far right-wing propaganda outlet which should immediately raise red flags. They're trying to scare you into allowing a republican-initiated movement to entirely remove all remaining power from the IRS by making it seem like they're coming after you.\nSecond, the reason the IRS is already already virtually powerless against the rich is because the republicans have already eviscerated them in the past several decades, largely through defunding them leading to not only staffing cuts, but the inability to pursue the wealthiest people who have the resources for endless litigation. So as a result, the FBI can only really afford to go after people who cannot financially defend themselves.", ">\n\nThird, you might as well throw in that the aiming low guidance was under a Trump appointee who is no longer in that position.", ">\n\nThe GOP intentionally defunded the IRS so that it could not audit the wealthy. It takes a great deal more money upfront to audit them but the payback is far greater.", ">\n\nI'm not sure why dems voted against an amendment that would have mandated the giant infusion of cash into the IRS couldn't be used to audit folks making >$400k.", ">\n\nHrm this is pretty fucked I'd like to hear about why the Dems voted nay.", ">\n\nBecause they work for the same people as Republicans. \nThey are different but only when their owners allow them to be. \nI don't know how many times we are going to have to learn this lesson before it sticks.", ">\n\nDemocrats are responsible for this", ">\n\nThe rich returns are just too hard, enough lower class errors you can leave the rich alone. Love to see it… sigh", ">\n\nIt takes money to police the wealthy. Can't have that can we?!", ">\n\nr/noshitsherlock", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised?\nI’m not even American and this seemed obvious to me. All you have to do is look at how the poor live and compare that to the news about someone like Elon musk or Donald trump.", ">\n\nThis is why the IRS needs to go.", ">\n\nFox News helped make that happen.", ">\n\nThey'll never change,all the time when the guys in charge benefit from doing the same shit.", ">\n\nAnd yet the republicans dont submit or pass legislations to change the rules to favor targeting rich people. Curious.", ">\n\nThen 78,000 new, armed tax collectors should be able to extract even more money from the poor, middle-class and small business owners.", ">\n\nWhy did they focus on the Poorest? The thought of 87,000 more of them will actually do what? If the existing can’t focus on the wealthy! Then what makes anybody think more can?", ">\n\nMillionaires and billionaires make the government more money by creating lobbying loopholes and exploiting the economy to bilk the 99%. It's really cheap to go after the poorest who are struggling to pay day to day obligations and don't have loopholes or government sanctioned exploitation to take advantage of.", ">\n\nI could have told you this would happen. You think millionaires get $600 Venmo transactions?", ">\n\nThat's a move democrats should not make. That's one month of rent for me. What of folks worse-off?", ">\n\nHonestly it’s like squeezing blood from the stone over here anyway.", ">\n\nDuh lmfao theyve already stated it costs too much to tax weathy people previously and its most cost effective to audit the poor due to many factors...", ">\n\nI mean 99% of us are poor compared to the other 1%", ">\n\nColor me surprised", ">\n\nWe need some laws for equitable auditing.", ">\n\nYou are an Army commander about to attack the enemy. Do you prefer to attack where they have experienced career solders backed up by artillery, tanks, and airplanes, or do you attack where there are poorly armed and equipped untrained conscripts?", ">\n\nThey must be upset someone replaced their sign with a card from Cards Against Humanity", ">\n\nMay it ever be so…. Don’t reproduce if you only consume and can’t accumulate or help a Dow Jones winter water witch. Like snow, weathermen.", ">\n\nIt’s weirdly fitting how much their building sign in the photo looks like a cards against humanity card.", ">\n\nTypical", ">\n\nWow? How unusual.", ">\n\nI’d support double the number of IRS agents", ">\n\nI was low income and won about 3,000 gambling, the irs went after me", ">\n\nThe IRS came after me hard for 8$", ">\n\nAudit frequency should correlate to income, someone with a million in income should be audited 10x those with 100k income", ">\n\nSomeone should explain Pareto charts to the IRS.", ">\n\nI've been audited three times. First when I was 27, did some consulting and didn't do the 1099 prepayments. Ended up owing $17k. Second audit was after moving across country for a job. The tax preparer we hired made a mistake with the move expense deductions, owed a few thousand. Third audit was another tax preparer mistake, but this time we overpaid and were owed money we credited to the next year. \nIf you assume for discussion that the average audit on an ordinary tax payer returns $10,000, it would take 100,000,000 audits to make $1 trillion. By just doing the easy work, the IRS is leaving the real money on the table.", ">\n\nRepublicans are famous for giving rich breaks while middle class etc close the gaps", ">\n\nThe last line, \"The Inflation Reduction Act provides the IRS with $80 billion in future funding to ramp up its audits and potentially target the wealthiest taxpayers.\"", ">\n\nThe cure is not the root cause, but the middle class and the poor will eventually bear the burden after the capital operation", ">\n\nIt’s like they timed the “research” and the drop of the article with the speech. Sad man.", ">\n\nWatch Madoff. The wealthy skate and steal billions. The poor are in prison over thousands.", ">\n\nWhy does their sign look like a Card Against Humanity", ">\n\nFucking Trump, still at it.", ">\n\nOh you mean the thing people said would happen once they got massive funding actually happened? Checks out", ">\n\nOf course they did, because millionaires will lawyer up.", ">\n\nBecause the poor can't afford to fight back.", ">\n\nIt's so unfair the poor and the middle class taxpayers suffer so much while the millionaries got away with not paying the taxes It's really hurting the poor. The middle class is fading", ">\n\nAll of this can be fixed if we just use no-exemption graduated income", ">\n\nYeah we know", ">\n\nShow of hands for all surprised.\ncrickets\nHmm. Seems like Reddit suffers from a plague of double amputees...", ">\n\nWhat the actual fuck", ">\n\nAnd 2021, 2020, 2019, …", ">\n\nSounds about right.", ">\n\nOf course. Poor people can’t afford attorneys.", ">\n\nI made a mistake on my forms while I was overseas and ticked “self-employed” instead of “employed”. I was on a student visa and had two children and was making less than 10k a year. They hounded me for years. By the time I figured out what had happened I could not amend the forms and had paid thousands in penalties and interest.\nMeanwhile I knew lots of people who were there fully employed not reporting their income.\nFuck them.", ">\n\nYep! During the pandemic, even while I wasn't working didn't come after me the entire time that I was working but the minute that I wasn't nobody was cuz we were in lockdown they started popping up", ">\n\nI just now realized that the Cards Against Humanity box looks like the IRS sign", ">\n\nWhy is the sign a Cards Against Humanity question?", ">\n\nI am shocked and appalled. clutches pearls", ">\n\nRich should be taxed more than the average not right at all. Or at least there is a tier system based on pay only makes sense. Come on now", ">\n\nSounds about right, make the rich richer again.", ">\n\nWho are we going to vote for in the future ,all of them are decayed , corrupted and useless , the “most rich country in the world , governed by the most ignorant an corrupted. What a contrast .", ">\n\nGod bless America", ">\n\nno way. wait until you see those people responds. Those people are chipping away.", ">\n\nSounds about right", ">\n\nWe know.", ">\n\nI find it rather comical that Fox news is reporting on this since they are all about pushing the Republican agenda and that is all about pushing everyone else down that isn't rich and keeping them there. Not to mention they had no problem with Trump not paying taxes for years.", ">\n\nCan fucking confirm.", ">\n\nYeah, they (millionaires) have accountants who generally do things right and due to their millions being in investments it's not like it's taxable all the time. \nThen there's the ability to sell any stocks when they're down to build up losses on paper can reinvest them at a loss that can carry over across multiple years.", ">\n\nsounds about right. i don’t have a pot to piss in but they’re all over me for someone stealing my identity and filing a double tax return one year.", ">\n\nDuh", ">\n\nThere’s a reason why FOX is posting this article. The less people at the IRS, the more likely they come after folks who can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nIn order to pursue wealthy tax cheats, the IRS needs more resources and personnel. Otherwise it’s business as usual, picking on the low hanging fruit that earns under 6 figures.", ">\n\nSo wrong ....people need to be fired", ">\n\nIt’s because they can’t afford to take them to court", ">\n\nOf course it is about protecting the rich like Trump who lies ,lies , and about his tax returns . No wonder he did not want them released .", ">\n\nEasy prey bc most ppl can not lawyer up. Pretty heart breaking system we have at times.", ">\n\nWhy does the irs sign look like it's from cards against humanity?", ">\n\nCurrently getting audited over \\~$1500, which they owe me, when the rich get away with murder. Fucking unbelievably and unnecessarily stressful for me.", ">\n\nHas t this been know for a while?", ">\n\nyep and they are the same people getting tax cuts while everyone else does it tough ....\nAny one with too much money is your enemy .... not a hero of democracy", ">\n\nGet rid of taxes and the gov’t should just do stuff for free, or what ever.", ">\n\nYou have to be careful when you get one of those CP2000 notices from the IRS. The way they are written is a trap.\nIf you dispute it you are supposed to indicate that you disagree and send it back with documents supporting your dispute.\nYou are only supposed to sign it if you agree with them and when you sign it you are signing away your rights to dispute the back taxes and penalties they are demanding.\nMere worker bees like us can expect to be getting a lot of those from this years tax returns considering how the threshold for 1099k forms has been dropped to $600.\nGuys like Trump? The IRS doesn't even know where to begin.", ">\n\nThanks Biden", ">\n\nI presume those lower-income bracket filers might be more likely to reach out to 1-800-infomercial [quickie settlement/long-term penalties most favorable to gov/proprietor] than retain proper legal counsel?\nRegardless it’s got to be a lot less work for IRS agent to go after under-represented citizen(s), rather than someone who can afford to appeal, properly negotiate on their own terms?", ">\n\nLmfao Dems tax and spend. But I have to admit there Republicans that tax and spend to. Where do these Politicians get off taxing me or business and give to people who don't work what do you cause d the inflation. You can not print money \nI am Conservative not a Republican. To much money is wasted and put in pockets of people ot don't belong.\nBut all dems know how to tax tax tax. \nIts all great and good until you run out if other peoples money. \nMillionaire just like Berny he hated Millionaires until he became one now he hates Trillionaires. Funny how the gold post changes. And good old Nancy her I side stock trading. So I think you need to rethink.", ">\n\nThe IRS is only doing as directed by whomever controls the White House.", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised by this? Really?", ">\n\nThe sign in the thumbnail looks like a Cards Against Humanity card.", ">\n\nWhile this is mostly true, don’t believe everything you read. I’m no more an accountant than I am a ladies man, but someone (said they’re an accountant) posted a few days ago about this. They explained that the most likely people getting audited are trying to, fraudulently or mistakenly, claim the EITC. \nYES, it’s super easy to “bust” these people for an easy “mistake”. This is who the IRS is cracking down on. \nDo I think it’s better to bust poor people for claiming a few thousand in tax credits vs billionaires who avoid taxes altogether? Of course not, but don’t think they’re actively targeting people who fudge their mileage deductions or miss a decimal point in their calculations as small business owners. It’s simply not happening. \nAnd the reported “87,000 new IRS agents” are replacing the 10’s of 1,000’s of employees set to retire or quit over the next 10 years which doesn’t even begin to fill the gaps we’ve been growing for decades by not hiring and training more willing workers. Not to mention they’re not even close to all employees who will actively audit tax payers. They’re people who answer phones, file papers, assist others, etc… They’re mostly just average people with average jobs so of course the GOP wants to end this. They hate upward mobility and job creation unless that means tax breaks for their billionaire friends.", ">\n\nI wish everyone wasn’t a sheep and would understand this.", ">\n\nI can see the Media doing their best to turn the public against the IRS.", ">\n\nPicking on the week and helpless. That’s what we humans do. We suck. I’m waiting for that big meteor reset button.", ">\n\nAnd Fox news loves this.", ">\n\nLove it, Faux 'News' taking the piss, for 4 years under Dear Leader they campaigned for tax breaks for the rich, now they're pretending to care about the poor !", ">\n\nEvery millionaire should be audited yearly. Period.", ">\n\nAND now the gqp cult promises to rescind the money Biden set aside to aid the IRS to recover taxes from mega millionaire tax cheats like benedict donald, who paid less taxes than most working Americans.", ">\n\nRepublicans want to stop the IRS and Congress from taxing rich people, making the burden of maintaining civilization fall more heavily on poorer people. This is why Republicans vote for tax cuts for the rich and against funding for the IRS.\nAnd since Republican beliefs are based on wishful thinking, Republicans can screw over poor, rural Republicans while simultaneously taking credit for doing it to make Republicans happy about it and blaming it on Democrats to make those same Republicans resentful against Democrats for it. And what else would we expect from a Republican Party that blames Democrats for tricking them into attacking the Capitol to make Trump look bad and justifies and approves of assaulting Capitol police while brandishing their \"thin blue line\" flags.", ">\n\nThe IRS is like any other law enforcement agency, they prefer pursuing the poor because they don't have the resources to protect themselves.", ">\n\nThe IRS building sign looks like its from cards against humanity.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nNot a reliable news source.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nThat picture looks like the worst cards against humanity card too get.", ">\n\nScrew the Murdoch media empire and their failed trickle down ideologies.", ">\n\nOf course, the poorest haven’t paid over 400+ billion for decades. Not sure about the rich, we haven’t checked.", ">\n\nThis is not a surprise. With the recent inflation reduction act, the IRS an additional $80B over 10 years or $8B per year. The IRS budget for 2021 was $13.7B. The additional $8B over the year would be an increase of 58% to their budget. They will be looking to get a lot more money from taxpayers, due to this very large increase in their budget.", ">\n\nFox reported this? I'm in shock", ">\n\nAll propagandists publish clickbaity stuff that makes them sound like maybe they've let up on the evil. Unfortunately it works, since people just upvote headlines.", ">\n\nIt’s only going to get worse in 2023. Those 87k new IRS agents will not be going after the wealthy.", ">\n\nWhy?\nThat’s literally why they were being added. The IRS goes after the poorer taxpayers because they are low-hanging fruit and don’t have the lawyers and accountants to protect them. \nThe additional IRS employees were to give the personnel staffing sufficient to go after the wealthy.", ">\n\nIt doesn’t matter how many IRS agents there are. It will always be easier and more profitable for the IRS to nickel and dime the average taxpayer rather than go after the wealthy, who have the resources to lawyer up with the best lawyers and challenge the IRS in court.", ">\n\nEasier? Yes. More profitable? Doubtful.", ">\n\nIf Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nBut in 2022 ( when Biden was president and the House belonged to the Dems) they didn’t did they.", ">\n\nIt takes time to refactor an organization. It’s still full of Trump appointees.", ">\n\n2020 was a long time ago", ">\n\nNot on organizational time scales. It takes several months to safely restructure an organization as big as the federal government, and when it is the federal government it takes years. Congress gets a say in every political appointment, budget change, and organization change. It’s designed to be slow to assure continuity. \nThere is a saying that every president gets credited and blamed for what the prior administration put in motion. There is a lot of truth to that, and this organizational inertia is a big reason why. There are similar long lags in changing laws, re-writing policies, modifying rules, and so on. It’s a “feature” of having checks and balances.", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings." ]
> You are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a "poor" person getting a letter saying "Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.	[ "If Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nAnd when Barry was president they targeted conservative groups. I think phone calls can be made to tell them to back off of the little guy.", ">\n\n\nthey targeted conservative groups.\n\nNo. They went after specifically anti-tax tea party groups. The groups who openly flaunted tax laws", ">\n\nThey also went after progressive, left leaning groups - how do you explain that ? it was political", ">\n\nWait, did they target conservatives or progressives? Lol", ">\n\nBoth- it was quite clear they were involving themselves in politics - that’s what the IG found", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.", ">\n\nYep!\nAlso this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious.\nThe real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade.", ">\n\nThanks for the informative reply.\nYou make great points which I don't doubt. But there are times when I think it's important to consider both the letter and spirit of law at times.\nEven though it is perfectly by the letter of the law that people should be checked, it also seems against the intended spirit of said law that only a certain group of people are checked.\nI am not familiar with US law, but I think most of us can feel some degree of injustice with how things currently are.", ">\n\nThe point is to automate more checking of income common to wealthier people, and devote more resources to auditing those people. The Fox News article is disingenuous in how it describes the automated checking that goes on. It’s not great that rich people aren’t really audited, but there’s no reason to stop the automated checking of income where it’s already being done and essentially free to continue.\nIf you feel differently, explain yourself.", ">\n\nNo, we are in alignment concerning this.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nFUCK FOX NEWS\nFox is pretending to care about us poors. \nDon't reward these fascist fucks with upvotes for a disingenuous clickbait headline. They still hate us for not voting gop.", ">\n\nThey want people to hate the IRS and help defund it so they don’t go after the rich, which was the purpose of the additional funding", ">\n\nThey want people to link this to “87000” new agents, which is obviously happening on social media posts, but it’s not even a thing.", ">\n\nArticle is trash. The author is including correspondence audits (which means the IRS asked for some documentation by mail) for low income filers but not for millionaires when comparing their audit rates. Here are actual numbers according to their own source:\nAudit rates including correspondence audits\nlow income 1.27%\nmillionaires 2.38% \nAudit rates excluding correspondence audits\nlow income 0.0376%\nmillionaires 1.24%\n.\nFor low income filers, nearly all their audits were correspondence audits.", ">\n\nIt's hilarious when Fox News and the GOP pretend they care about poor people.\nNo amount of hypocrisy is too much to try to make democrats look bad.", ">\n\nIts unfortunately far easier to prove married couples who live together filed HoH for extra earned income credit than it is to prove complicated returns were incorrect.", ">\n\nIt's also trivially easy to prove the same child was claimed by two parents which is a lot of correspondence audits.", ">\n\nSo can my back taxes please just get forgiven already. 20% income being taxed is not livable", ">\n\nRepublican love flat rate taxes, you should talk to them.", ">\n\nThey’re required to audit the president and vice president, and that didn’t happen either.", ">\n\nThis isn't new, it's been been having for the last 5 - 6 years.", ">\n\nHopefully some wake up and realize its all just preparing us for the inevitable destruction of our economy. I imagine its almost too late to realize this. If we all realized this wed sell our 401Ks and not lean on money and use it to help our neighbors.", ">\n\nK bro.", ">\n\nMy wife and I are on social security. She works part time to keep us afloat. All in, we earned $50K in 2022. iRS wants $4500 from us. Really? 5X what Trump paid? Don't know if anyone is paying attention but $50k ain't rich. Oh, and out of that comes almost $4k in Medicare premiums. A program we paid into for 40+ years.\nEveryone of these arrogant, unqualified,, spoon fed assholes in Congress should be made to live on SSI or welfare, with no medical coverage, for a year. Then tell me I am acting entitled.\nSelf serving bastards.", ">\n\nDon't upvote this crap.\nDo you really think Fox cares about the working class??\nThis is just right wing propaganda, timed to coincide with McCarthy's promise to get rid of the new IRS agents who make it possible to audit the rich.\nDon't be used.", ">\n\nWhatever happened to \"dont shoot the messenger?\"", ">\n\nIRS understaffing would naturally trend to go after low-lying fruit. Easy pickings. Too many man hours to go after super complex cases. These moneyed fuckers and their bullshit. It's outrageous.", ">\n\nThe vast majority of these audits are automatically generated correspondence audits that have to be issued. We can't just turn off the program that raises a red flag when two people claim the same child as a dependent because we don't have enough forensic accountants. If you mistype your W2 you'll get an \"audit\" showing the correct info from the copy your boss sent them and telling you they'll correct it unless you tell them otherwise and you don't have to do anything if the info they have is correct.", ">\n\nYeah, all the nonsense about the IRS \"going after\" low income people is so stupid. Low income people make money in a way that their reporting is easily verifiable by a computer. They're also most likely to mess up and claim child tax credits incorrectly, etc - all of which is verifiable and issued a letter by a computer. \n-\nOther than actually being able to get someone on the phone when you call the IRS, and increased budget isn't going to impact the average person in any way.", ">\n\nMy thing is even assuming the 87k don't successfully get more money out of the rich, that's still 87k jobs. That's a net positive. I just don't understand the conservative logic here. Do they think these 87k new jobs are specifically for being insidiously predatory toward the poor? Where's the logic here? (I know I'll get hyperbolic answers, but I genuinely would like to know)", ">\n\nIt's 87,000 jobs over 10 years, the majority of which are replacement during that period. It's just a budget supplemental to stop hemorrhaging agents as they retire or cycle out into other jobs.", ">\n\nso.. this is on fox, which I assume support republican efforts to ensure that this is the permanent state of affairs. I don't really get anything anymore.", ">\n\nAnd that is the way the GOP wants it.", ">\n\n💯 Exactly what this Fox article is trying to do.", ">\n\nIt's who can afford a lawyer", ">\n\nAs the article hints at, the IRS does not do a lot of actual auditing. What it does is computer matching, which automatically generates material for a correspondence audit. Most correspondence audits occur because som poor working Joe didn't know he/her was supposed to include or exclude something, and the IRS caught it in its matching. Of course, the problem is that we have a complex code and little help in actually helping people through the various forms, rules, and so on. But millionaires don't have these issues, so they can escape most of the traps that lead to a correspondence audit. If a lot of these 87,000 were in taxpayer service (which I expect) it would lead to fewer audits at the low end, more robust audits for large corporations, wealthy individuals, and those who actively use tax avoidance strategies. But of course that is not the dialogue that gets promoted when the 87,000 agents are discussed.", ">\n\nThis is exactly why Fox News needs to be dismantled and thrown in the garbage. Ugh, \"look poors! They're coming for yoU!!!\". Scare tactics. And guess what? It sadly works. Every time.\nThey're lower than scum.", ">\n\nExactly. It's when someone misreports a number from their W2, didn't report 1099s they received, both separated parents claim a tax credit for the same kid, etc. All stuff that's easily checked by a computer. The IRS isn't \"auditing\" random low to middle income people. That would be a complete waste of their time.", ">\n\nlooks at Trump You don't say.", ">\n\nThe poor can't defend themselves, it's easier to take a little bit of money from people that won't fight back than a lot of money from people that will.", ">\n\nThe mega rich seem like they’re on a mission to destroy America, as we know it.", ">\n\nHiring 87,000 new IRS agents makes it possible to audit billionaires. So they pay their share. Those audits require an actual person or team that knows what they are doing. But Kevin McCarthy's first item of business was to announce legislation to overturn the hiring of 87,000 IRS agents. Meaning only the little guy (who can be audited by computer software) pays taxes.\nSSDD", ">\n\nThe \"87,000\" agents budget is over a ten year period. It's not for 87,000 new positions.", ">\n\nThe title is so misleading. Im surprised fox even put the juicy bit in the article about how (this stat is due to there not being enough IRS workers because) these \"audits\" on low earners are just automated letters asking for more info.\nYet again, this is just millionairs paid by billionairs to mislead the masses into blaming the poor for crimes committed by said billionairs.", ">\n\nWhich is why the IRS needs more manpower and budget, so they can go after the big fish.\nFuck Fox News and their Republican propaganda pieces. This article coincides with McCarthy saying they’ll cut the IRS budget and that the IRS is coming for you.\nFuck off Republican propaganda rag!\nStop upvoting any Fox News story. Fox should not be on the white list.", ">\n\nThis is a terrible article. It seems to include questions about tax returns as audits. If a low income filer makes a mistake it should be corrected. Is that an audit? If anyone makes a mistake and is contacted, is that an audit? Also there is no reason to go after low income as they rarely pay tax or are required to. The money requested would also pay for people to answer a phone. Those against increasing funding lie when they say all of it goes to audits. If you tell the truth, who cares if you are audited? Are y’all aware you can track your personal return online? However a business cannot. Businesses have to rely on humans that can’t be reached. I’ve waited a year for a refund. Didn’t know if IRS received the return. Didn’t know if there was an issue. Didn’t know if it was mailed or lost. I’m getting tired of Republicans pushing their crap on people.", ">\n\nwho keeps upvoting this right wing propaganda", ">\n\nWhy would the GOP want to give the agency the power to go after their donors.", ">\n\nAnd it was trumps guy that mandated it while Biden replaced him", ">\n\nApparently the mere use of an accounting firm somehow protected corps and the rich from the IRS who still (mistakenly) believe the accounting firms are trustworthy. How naive.", ">\n\nThe \"audits\" talked about are mostly form letters requesting more info about specific items.", ">\n\nThe poor can't pay for top flight attorneys.", ">\n\nYep keep the IRS underfunded so they can only go after the poors at the same time telling all the poors that the IRS is bad cause it goes after them but leave out the fact that they do that cause the poors are low hanging fruit.\nRepublicans are evil.", ">\n\nWell the GOP wants to cut funding to the IRS for new agents, so I’m sure the poor folk will continue to get screwed. I say toss the 50,000+ page tax code out and replace with a percentage based on total revenue/income made. Took a loss? No write-offs. Oh well, better luck next year. It’ll never happen because the wealthy don’t want it to.", ">\n\nWhere did you get this info? I know GOPers have been slashing IRS budgets and staffing for years but can't find reliable sources for what this has done to the actual audits - like who gets audited.", ">\n\nTheir link is Fox. This is a bad faith post.", ">\n\nThis says a lot coming from fox “news”", ">\n\nTo paraphrase Gilbert K. Chesterton, \"The Poor have sometimes objected to being taxed too heavily; The Rich have always objected to being taxed at all.\"", ">\n\ndon't post Fox news here....", ">\n\nCorporations and millionaires have the means to hire accountants and attorneys. Our tax code is gray in several areas. It’s easy to go after the poor that do not have the resources and will have no choice but to pay anything the IRS says. The additional agents will continue to target the poor and middle class because they are easy, It’s happened before, it will continue to happen.", ">\n\nI think it's funny/sad that a poor person can win the lottery and they get taxed at a higher rate than any billionaire has ever been taxed at. The system is built to keep the rich - rich and the poor - poor.", ">\n\nThe poorest can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nThe current system cannot be sustained. We are hurtling towards disaster.", ">\n\nThe only reason the bastards have the majority is because the corrupt SCOTUS allowed illegal gerrymanders to stand while they were fought in the courts.", ">\n\nThe I.R.S. goes after the poorer people because it's easier. They can't afford lawyers and accountants. So the poor can do nothing but roll over and take it up the rump. The Inflation Reduction Act that Biden signed into law in August is supposed to give $80 Billion to the I.R.S. so they can go after the millionaires. But we know that won't happen. More poor people are going to get screwed.", ">\n\nI'm confused. For decades, Faux news and the conservatives have been saying that millionaires deserve to keep more of their money than we do. That was a huge part of the 2017 tax scam that Trump signed. Now Faux is saying it's a problem? And they are rightly detailing that Republicans are the cause, along with Biden trying to fix the same issue that Fox has helped create?", ">\n\nFox News", ">\n\nHey IRS, don't forget to crawl up my ass this year because I sold some old stuff on eBay for a loss but make sure you put a few man hours into figuring out if it is legit or not.", ">\n\nlol, and the people opposed to IRS funding will say they are anti-establishment.", ">\n\nImagine how much they could squeeze the middle class with 87,000 more agents! But really, it’ll be good to see if the increase in officers actually increases tax revenue without changing the underlying laws.", ">\n\nSo, this is the newest Republican boogeyman, the IRS.\nWell, better than Drag Queens I guess.", ">\n\nOh hey just like last year, and the year before that, I think there might be a pattern", ">\n\nThank you republicans, always sticking up in the back on the small guys…", ">\n\nFox News saying this like it’s not something Rupert Murdoch’s network supports is pretty funny.", ">\n\nFox News. Ignore it.", ">\n\nFox News is still allowed in here?", ">\n\nFake news. This is Republican propaganda coming from Fox News.", ">\n\nFox News is NOT news", ">\n\nHmm sounds like it was underfunded then. Good thing now we helped ease that problem. Thanks Biden", ">\n\nIt's simply laziness by the IRS. Lower-income households have less complicated returns and easier to process. I'm sure IRS runs a non-effective but management-pleasing metric like \"how many returns were corrected\" opposed to how much money was recouped.", ">\n\nWe know. They don't have the resources to do anything. That was the point of increasing the staffing at the IRS so they had even the slightest hope of going after the big offenders with their armies or lawyers.", ">\n\nThere's less millionaires and billionaires than there are us. I'm not sure that answer fits the accuracy on hiring more workers but I'll go ahead and amuse that", ">\n\nIt's not a game of tax guy vs rich guy. The rich literally have armies of lawyers. You need the staff to overcome all the paper and challenges they'll throw at you. \nIf you throw one person to audit a millionaire, their lawyers can make it so it'll take a year to review a week of operations. Investigations will never finish unless there's sufficient staff to overcome their obstruction.", ">\n\nTo this day I do not understand why the IRS can demand our documents every year without a warrant. The 16th amendment does not alter the 4th, and the 4th does not apply only to criminal actions (as the 5th explicitly does). Yet no one seems to care about this annual violations.", ">\n\nReminder, Fox News is not news. It's entertainment, and should be regarded as such.", ">\n\nNo shit, poor ppl tend to file their own taxes and screw up where as millionaires hire expensive accountants to exploit all the legal loopholes without getting their clients in trouble.\nI don't think it's an intentional targeting as the article may be implying.", ">\n\nOne might imagine the resources of agents would be better put to use by focusing on returns that might produce more revenue, however it may be just a lot easier to collect a few bucks from easier targets.", ">\n\nThey are short staffed and accountants make it so difficult to find wrongdoing, if there is even wrongdoing to be found, that it would take a decent chunk of their workforce just to tackle it. It's like trying to find needle in a haystack but you don't know if there's a needle or not.", ">\n\nSo true....", ">\n\nShocked pikachu face.", ">\n\nYeah I’d believe this if it weren’t Fox News. They could give a fuck about the poor and middle class.", ">\n\nI would literally rather the IRS spend its time auditing 5 extraordinarily rich people or a single business than anyone who makes less than 100k per year\nETA: I’m aware that this article represents part of the Republican agenda to just gut the IRS and welfare spending generally. And I understand the difficulties in auditing the rich/businesses v lower income people claiming tax credits, etc", ">\n\nAlmost all of the little people \"audits\" are just a computer issuing a correspondence \"audit\" because the person misreported something from their W2, didn't report as much 1099 income as was reported to the IRS by others, or separated parents both trying to claim kids for tax credits or something. \n-\nThey don't really pull from the same resources. The rich people audits require human beings. Little people \"audits\" aren't really audits and a computer can do it. So if we want to audit more rich people, they need actual budget for human beings. The little people are going to be caught anyways because a computer can do it.", ">\n\nI interned at the IRS during the summer of 2012 when Lois Lerner made batshit crazy commrnts that they were targetting conservative groups", ">\n\nI say this every time it gets brought up. This is by design. I used to work in auditing and also used to do tax stuff. It’s super easy to find tax fraud on someone who only has a simple W-2 and no other income. You could find those people through a basic algorithm. Meanwhile, auditing a multi millionaire is expensive, time consuming, and often fruitless. If I was in charge of an underfunded, understaffed IRS I would tell my staff to go for the easy wins too.", ">\n\nUnpopular opinion - More funding won't resolve this. \nThe IRS will keep doing this. Unless rules & regulations forbid or disincentivize this practice, the IRS will keep this stupid practice", ">\n\nI make $40,000 a year and the IRS froze my bank accounts until I paid them $1000 in taxes I owed them because of an error I made filling my taxes. They froze my bank accounts for $1000. I was fucked for a month. I had to borrow cash from people just for food and gas money to get to work to get paid money that I couldn’t access. It was a scary time for me. Meanwhile millionaires are purposely avoiding taxes worth more than what I make in a year and nothing happens to them.", ">\n\nThe IRS sends no less than a dozen letters to a taxpayer prior to leaving a bank account. Why didn't you just put it into a repayment plan? Takes about ten minutes online.", ">\n\nDon't you just hate autocorrect?", ">\n\nIf true, its a holdover from jrbush who slashed IRS staff and budget and told them to spend more time auditing tip jars and busboys than millionaires because the millionaires had better lawyers than the IRS and service workers were unlikely to have any lawyers at all.", ">\n\nFox News solution: remove the IRS", ">\n\nAbsolutely. They’ll NEVER target the rich, adding more agents just made them a lot more capable to target all the lower class.", ">\n\nWhat people don't realize..Those 87K \"Agents\" aren't that. It's 87K employees over 25 years. Clerks etc. People are so fucking stupid when they just believe these clowns.", ">\n\nThose numbers also count it as an \"audit\" when a person misreports a number from a W2, 1099s, etc and the irs number matching software sends an automatically generated correspondence letter that basically says \"we actually show this number, this is what your tax return would have been if you reported that number correctly\". \nThe IRS isn't wasting time doing random \"audits\" as people think of them for low to middle income people. It would be a complete waste of their time. The computer just catches obvious verifiable mistakes and it counts as an audit in those numbers.", ">\n\n“those in the lowest income bracket hit 12.7 per 1,000….. The odds of a millionaire facing an audit were around 1.1%.”\nSo they’re saying 1.27% vs 1.1%!!! And acting like that’s a scandal 🙄", ">\n\nWhich means millionaires REALLY don't want more IRS auditors which means when our new resident house fascist fires five thousand auditors, said fascist (McCarthy) is making sure those millionaires aren't going to get audited. \nCha CHING !!! Go the \"donations\" into house rat republican's pockets. \nThe grift will be in full swing shortly.\nAnd with putin whispering in their ears and telling them EXACTLY how break the law - how can they lose?", ">\n\n💯 Exactly why theres a Fox link here pushing for that same reason.", ">\n\nTwo things. First of all, this is from a far right-wing propaganda outlet which should immediately raise red flags. They're trying to scare you into allowing a republican-initiated movement to entirely remove all remaining power from the IRS by making it seem like they're coming after you.\nSecond, the reason the IRS is already already virtually powerless against the rich is because the republicans have already eviscerated them in the past several decades, largely through defunding them leading to not only staffing cuts, but the inability to pursue the wealthiest people who have the resources for endless litigation. So as a result, the FBI can only really afford to go after people who cannot financially defend themselves.", ">\n\nThird, you might as well throw in that the aiming low guidance was under a Trump appointee who is no longer in that position.", ">\n\nThe GOP intentionally defunded the IRS so that it could not audit the wealthy. It takes a great deal more money upfront to audit them but the payback is far greater.", ">\n\nI'm not sure why dems voted against an amendment that would have mandated the giant infusion of cash into the IRS couldn't be used to audit folks making >$400k.", ">\n\nHrm this is pretty fucked I'd like to hear about why the Dems voted nay.", ">\n\nBecause they work for the same people as Republicans. \nThey are different but only when their owners allow them to be. \nI don't know how many times we are going to have to learn this lesson before it sticks.", ">\n\nDemocrats are responsible for this", ">\n\nThe rich returns are just too hard, enough lower class errors you can leave the rich alone. Love to see it… sigh", ">\n\nIt takes money to police the wealthy. Can't have that can we?!", ">\n\nr/noshitsherlock", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised?\nI’m not even American and this seemed obvious to me. All you have to do is look at how the poor live and compare that to the news about someone like Elon musk or Donald trump.", ">\n\nThis is why the IRS needs to go.", ">\n\nFox News helped make that happen.", ">\n\nThey'll never change,all the time when the guys in charge benefit from doing the same shit.", ">\n\nAnd yet the republicans dont submit or pass legislations to change the rules to favor targeting rich people. Curious.", ">\n\nThen 78,000 new, armed tax collectors should be able to extract even more money from the poor, middle-class and small business owners.", ">\n\nWhy did they focus on the Poorest? The thought of 87,000 more of them will actually do what? If the existing can’t focus on the wealthy! Then what makes anybody think more can?", ">\n\nMillionaires and billionaires make the government more money by creating lobbying loopholes and exploiting the economy to bilk the 99%. It's really cheap to go after the poorest who are struggling to pay day to day obligations and don't have loopholes or government sanctioned exploitation to take advantage of.", ">\n\nI could have told you this would happen. You think millionaires get $600 Venmo transactions?", ">\n\nThat's a move democrats should not make. That's one month of rent for me. What of folks worse-off?", ">\n\nHonestly it’s like squeezing blood from the stone over here anyway.", ">\n\nDuh lmfao theyve already stated it costs too much to tax weathy people previously and its most cost effective to audit the poor due to many factors...", ">\n\nI mean 99% of us are poor compared to the other 1%", ">\n\nColor me surprised", ">\n\nWe need some laws for equitable auditing.", ">\n\nYou are an Army commander about to attack the enemy. Do you prefer to attack where they have experienced career solders backed up by artillery, tanks, and airplanes, or do you attack where there are poorly armed and equipped untrained conscripts?", ">\n\nThey must be upset someone replaced their sign with a card from Cards Against Humanity", ">\n\nMay it ever be so…. Don’t reproduce if you only consume and can’t accumulate or help a Dow Jones winter water witch. Like snow, weathermen.", ">\n\nIt’s weirdly fitting how much their building sign in the photo looks like a cards against humanity card.", ">\n\nTypical", ">\n\nWow? How unusual.", ">\n\nI’d support double the number of IRS agents", ">\n\nI was low income and won about 3,000 gambling, the irs went after me", ">\n\nThe IRS came after me hard for 8$", ">\n\nAudit frequency should correlate to income, someone with a million in income should be audited 10x those with 100k income", ">\n\nSomeone should explain Pareto charts to the IRS.", ">\n\nI've been audited three times. First when I was 27, did some consulting and didn't do the 1099 prepayments. Ended up owing $17k. Second audit was after moving across country for a job. The tax preparer we hired made a mistake with the move expense deductions, owed a few thousand. Third audit was another tax preparer mistake, but this time we overpaid and were owed money we credited to the next year. \nIf you assume for discussion that the average audit on an ordinary tax payer returns $10,000, it would take 100,000,000 audits to make $1 trillion. By just doing the easy work, the IRS is leaving the real money on the table.", ">\n\nRepublicans are famous for giving rich breaks while middle class etc close the gaps", ">\n\nThe last line, \"The Inflation Reduction Act provides the IRS with $80 billion in future funding to ramp up its audits and potentially target the wealthiest taxpayers.\"", ">\n\nThe cure is not the root cause, but the middle class and the poor will eventually bear the burden after the capital operation", ">\n\nIt’s like they timed the “research” and the drop of the article with the speech. Sad man.", ">\n\nWatch Madoff. The wealthy skate and steal billions. The poor are in prison over thousands.", ">\n\nWhy does their sign look like a Card Against Humanity", ">\n\nFucking Trump, still at it.", ">\n\nOh you mean the thing people said would happen once they got massive funding actually happened? Checks out", ">\n\nOf course they did, because millionaires will lawyer up.", ">\n\nBecause the poor can't afford to fight back.", ">\n\nIt's so unfair the poor and the middle class taxpayers suffer so much while the millionaries got away with not paying the taxes It's really hurting the poor. The middle class is fading", ">\n\nAll of this can be fixed if we just use no-exemption graduated income", ">\n\nYeah we know", ">\n\nShow of hands for all surprised.\ncrickets\nHmm. Seems like Reddit suffers from a plague of double amputees...", ">\n\nWhat the actual fuck", ">\n\nAnd 2021, 2020, 2019, …", ">\n\nSounds about right.", ">\n\nOf course. Poor people can’t afford attorneys.", ">\n\nI made a mistake on my forms while I was overseas and ticked “self-employed” instead of “employed”. I was on a student visa and had two children and was making less than 10k a year. They hounded me for years. By the time I figured out what had happened I could not amend the forms and had paid thousands in penalties and interest.\nMeanwhile I knew lots of people who were there fully employed not reporting their income.\nFuck them.", ">\n\nYep! During the pandemic, even while I wasn't working didn't come after me the entire time that I was working but the minute that I wasn't nobody was cuz we were in lockdown they started popping up", ">\n\nI just now realized that the Cards Against Humanity box looks like the IRS sign", ">\n\nWhy is the sign a Cards Against Humanity question?", ">\n\nI am shocked and appalled. clutches pearls", ">\n\nRich should be taxed more than the average not right at all. Or at least there is a tier system based on pay only makes sense. Come on now", ">\n\nSounds about right, make the rich richer again.", ">\n\nWho are we going to vote for in the future ,all of them are decayed , corrupted and useless , the “most rich country in the world , governed by the most ignorant an corrupted. What a contrast .", ">\n\nGod bless America", ">\n\nno way. wait until you see those people responds. Those people are chipping away.", ">\n\nSounds about right", ">\n\nWe know.", ">\n\nI find it rather comical that Fox news is reporting on this since they are all about pushing the Republican agenda and that is all about pushing everyone else down that isn't rich and keeping them there. Not to mention they had no problem with Trump not paying taxes for years.", ">\n\nCan fucking confirm.", ">\n\nYeah, they (millionaires) have accountants who generally do things right and due to their millions being in investments it's not like it's taxable all the time. \nThen there's the ability to sell any stocks when they're down to build up losses on paper can reinvest them at a loss that can carry over across multiple years.", ">\n\nsounds about right. i don’t have a pot to piss in but they’re all over me for someone stealing my identity and filing a double tax return one year.", ">\n\nDuh", ">\n\nThere’s a reason why FOX is posting this article. The less people at the IRS, the more likely they come after folks who can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nIn order to pursue wealthy tax cheats, the IRS needs more resources and personnel. Otherwise it’s business as usual, picking on the low hanging fruit that earns under 6 figures.", ">\n\nSo wrong ....people need to be fired", ">\n\nIt’s because they can’t afford to take them to court", ">\n\nOf course it is about protecting the rich like Trump who lies ,lies , and about his tax returns . No wonder he did not want them released .", ">\n\nEasy prey bc most ppl can not lawyer up. Pretty heart breaking system we have at times.", ">\n\nWhy does the irs sign look like it's from cards against humanity?", ">\n\nCurrently getting audited over \\~$1500, which they owe me, when the rich get away with murder. Fucking unbelievably and unnecessarily stressful for me.", ">\n\nHas t this been know for a while?", ">\n\nyep and they are the same people getting tax cuts while everyone else does it tough ....\nAny one with too much money is your enemy .... not a hero of democracy", ">\n\nGet rid of taxes and the gov’t should just do stuff for free, or what ever.", ">\n\nYou have to be careful when you get one of those CP2000 notices from the IRS. The way they are written is a trap.\nIf you dispute it you are supposed to indicate that you disagree and send it back with documents supporting your dispute.\nYou are only supposed to sign it if you agree with them and when you sign it you are signing away your rights to dispute the back taxes and penalties they are demanding.\nMere worker bees like us can expect to be getting a lot of those from this years tax returns considering how the threshold for 1099k forms has been dropped to $600.\nGuys like Trump? The IRS doesn't even know where to begin.", ">\n\nThanks Biden", ">\n\nI presume those lower-income bracket filers might be more likely to reach out to 1-800-infomercial [quickie settlement/long-term penalties most favorable to gov/proprietor] than retain proper legal counsel?\nRegardless it’s got to be a lot less work for IRS agent to go after under-represented citizen(s), rather than someone who can afford to appeal, properly negotiate on their own terms?", ">\n\nLmfao Dems tax and spend. But I have to admit there Republicans that tax and spend to. Where do these Politicians get off taxing me or business and give to people who don't work what do you cause d the inflation. You can not print money \nI am Conservative not a Republican. To much money is wasted and put in pockets of people ot don't belong.\nBut all dems know how to tax tax tax. \nIts all great and good until you run out if other peoples money. \nMillionaire just like Berny he hated Millionaires until he became one now he hates Trillionaires. Funny how the gold post changes. And good old Nancy her I side stock trading. So I think you need to rethink.", ">\n\nThe IRS is only doing as directed by whomever controls the White House.", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised by this? Really?", ">\n\nThe sign in the thumbnail looks like a Cards Against Humanity card.", ">\n\nWhile this is mostly true, don’t believe everything you read. I’m no more an accountant than I am a ladies man, but someone (said they’re an accountant) posted a few days ago about this. They explained that the most likely people getting audited are trying to, fraudulently or mistakenly, claim the EITC. \nYES, it’s super easy to “bust” these people for an easy “mistake”. This is who the IRS is cracking down on. \nDo I think it’s better to bust poor people for claiming a few thousand in tax credits vs billionaires who avoid taxes altogether? Of course not, but don’t think they’re actively targeting people who fudge their mileage deductions or miss a decimal point in their calculations as small business owners. It’s simply not happening. \nAnd the reported “87,000 new IRS agents” are replacing the 10’s of 1,000’s of employees set to retire or quit over the next 10 years which doesn’t even begin to fill the gaps we’ve been growing for decades by not hiring and training more willing workers. Not to mention they’re not even close to all employees who will actively audit tax payers. They’re people who answer phones, file papers, assist others, etc… They’re mostly just average people with average jobs so of course the GOP wants to end this. They hate upward mobility and job creation unless that means tax breaks for their billionaire friends.", ">\n\nI wish everyone wasn’t a sheep and would understand this.", ">\n\nI can see the Media doing their best to turn the public against the IRS.", ">\n\nPicking on the week and helpless. That’s what we humans do. We suck. I’m waiting for that big meteor reset button.", ">\n\nAnd Fox news loves this.", ">\n\nLove it, Faux 'News' taking the piss, for 4 years under Dear Leader they campaigned for tax breaks for the rich, now they're pretending to care about the poor !", ">\n\nEvery millionaire should be audited yearly. Period.", ">\n\nAND now the gqp cult promises to rescind the money Biden set aside to aid the IRS to recover taxes from mega millionaire tax cheats like benedict donald, who paid less taxes than most working Americans.", ">\n\nRepublicans want to stop the IRS and Congress from taxing rich people, making the burden of maintaining civilization fall more heavily on poorer people. This is why Republicans vote for tax cuts for the rich and against funding for the IRS.\nAnd since Republican beliefs are based on wishful thinking, Republicans can screw over poor, rural Republicans while simultaneously taking credit for doing it to make Republicans happy about it and blaming it on Democrats to make those same Republicans resentful against Democrats for it. And what else would we expect from a Republican Party that blames Democrats for tricking them into attacking the Capitol to make Trump look bad and justifies and approves of assaulting Capitol police while brandishing their \"thin blue line\" flags.", ">\n\nThe IRS is like any other law enforcement agency, they prefer pursuing the poor because they don't have the resources to protect themselves.", ">\n\nThe IRS building sign looks like its from cards against humanity.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nNot a reliable news source.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nThat picture looks like the worst cards against humanity card too get.", ">\n\nScrew the Murdoch media empire and their failed trickle down ideologies.", ">\n\nOf course, the poorest haven’t paid over 400+ billion for decades. Not sure about the rich, we haven’t checked.", ">\n\nThis is not a surprise. With the recent inflation reduction act, the IRS an additional $80B over 10 years or $8B per year. The IRS budget for 2021 was $13.7B. The additional $8B over the year would be an increase of 58% to their budget. They will be looking to get a lot more money from taxpayers, due to this very large increase in their budget.", ">\n\nFox reported this? I'm in shock", ">\n\nAll propagandists publish clickbaity stuff that makes them sound like maybe they've let up on the evil. Unfortunately it works, since people just upvote headlines.", ">\n\nIt’s only going to get worse in 2023. Those 87k new IRS agents will not be going after the wealthy.", ">\n\nWhy?\nThat’s literally why they were being added. The IRS goes after the poorer taxpayers because they are low-hanging fruit and don’t have the lawyers and accountants to protect them. \nThe additional IRS employees were to give the personnel staffing sufficient to go after the wealthy.", ">\n\nIt doesn’t matter how many IRS agents there are. It will always be easier and more profitable for the IRS to nickel and dime the average taxpayer rather than go after the wealthy, who have the resources to lawyer up with the best lawyers and challenge the IRS in court.", ">\n\nEasier? Yes. More profitable? Doubtful.", ">\n\nIf Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nBut in 2022 ( when Biden was president and the House belonged to the Dems) they didn’t did they.", ">\n\nIt takes time to refactor an organization. It’s still full of Trump appointees.", ">\n\n2020 was a long time ago", ">\n\nNot on organizational time scales. It takes several months to safely restructure an organization as big as the federal government, and when it is the federal government it takes years. Congress gets a say in every political appointment, budget change, and organization change. It’s designed to be slow to assure continuity. \nThere is a saying that every president gets credited and blamed for what the prior administration put in motion. There is a lot of truth to that, and this organizational inertia is a big reason why. There are similar long lags in changing laws, re-writing policies, modifying rules, and so on. It’s a “feature” of having checks and balances.", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA." ]
> And that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are "hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date." You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,	[ "If Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nAnd when Barry was president they targeted conservative groups. I think phone calls can be made to tell them to back off of the little guy.", ">\n\n\nthey targeted conservative groups.\n\nNo. They went after specifically anti-tax tea party groups. The groups who openly flaunted tax laws", ">\n\nThey also went after progressive, left leaning groups - how do you explain that ? it was political", ">\n\nWait, did they target conservatives or progressives? Lol", ">\n\nBoth- it was quite clear they were involving themselves in politics - that’s what the IG found", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.", ">\n\nYep!\nAlso this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious.\nThe real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade.", ">\n\nThanks for the informative reply.\nYou make great points which I don't doubt. But there are times when I think it's important to consider both the letter and spirit of law at times.\nEven though it is perfectly by the letter of the law that people should be checked, it also seems against the intended spirit of said law that only a certain group of people are checked.\nI am not familiar with US law, but I think most of us can feel some degree of injustice with how things currently are.", ">\n\nThe point is to automate more checking of income common to wealthier people, and devote more resources to auditing those people. The Fox News article is disingenuous in how it describes the automated checking that goes on. It’s not great that rich people aren’t really audited, but there’s no reason to stop the automated checking of income where it’s already being done and essentially free to continue.\nIf you feel differently, explain yourself.", ">\n\nNo, we are in alignment concerning this.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nFUCK FOX NEWS\nFox is pretending to care about us poors. \nDon't reward these fascist fucks with upvotes for a disingenuous clickbait headline. They still hate us for not voting gop.", ">\n\nThey want people to hate the IRS and help defund it so they don’t go after the rich, which was the purpose of the additional funding", ">\n\nThey want people to link this to “87000” new agents, which is obviously happening on social media posts, but it’s not even a thing.", ">\n\nArticle is trash. The author is including correspondence audits (which means the IRS asked for some documentation by mail) for low income filers but not for millionaires when comparing their audit rates. Here are actual numbers according to their own source:\nAudit rates including correspondence audits\nlow income 1.27%\nmillionaires 2.38% \nAudit rates excluding correspondence audits\nlow income 0.0376%\nmillionaires 1.24%\n.\nFor low income filers, nearly all their audits were correspondence audits.", ">\n\nIt's hilarious when Fox News and the GOP pretend they care about poor people.\nNo amount of hypocrisy is too much to try to make democrats look bad.", ">\n\nIts unfortunately far easier to prove married couples who live together filed HoH for extra earned income credit than it is to prove complicated returns were incorrect.", ">\n\nIt's also trivially easy to prove the same child was claimed by two parents which is a lot of correspondence audits.", ">\n\nSo can my back taxes please just get forgiven already. 20% income being taxed is not livable", ">\n\nRepublican love flat rate taxes, you should talk to them.", ">\n\nThey’re required to audit the president and vice president, and that didn’t happen either.", ">\n\nThis isn't new, it's been been having for the last 5 - 6 years.", ">\n\nHopefully some wake up and realize its all just preparing us for the inevitable destruction of our economy. I imagine its almost too late to realize this. If we all realized this wed sell our 401Ks and not lean on money and use it to help our neighbors.", ">\n\nK bro.", ">\n\nMy wife and I are on social security. She works part time to keep us afloat. All in, we earned $50K in 2022. iRS wants $4500 from us. Really? 5X what Trump paid? Don't know if anyone is paying attention but $50k ain't rich. Oh, and out of that comes almost $4k in Medicare premiums. A program we paid into for 40+ years.\nEveryone of these arrogant, unqualified,, spoon fed assholes in Congress should be made to live on SSI or welfare, with no medical coverage, for a year. Then tell me I am acting entitled.\nSelf serving bastards.", ">\n\nDon't upvote this crap.\nDo you really think Fox cares about the working class??\nThis is just right wing propaganda, timed to coincide with McCarthy's promise to get rid of the new IRS agents who make it possible to audit the rich.\nDon't be used.", ">\n\nWhatever happened to \"dont shoot the messenger?\"", ">\n\nIRS understaffing would naturally trend to go after low-lying fruit. Easy pickings. Too many man hours to go after super complex cases. These moneyed fuckers and their bullshit. It's outrageous.", ">\n\nThe vast majority of these audits are automatically generated correspondence audits that have to be issued. We can't just turn off the program that raises a red flag when two people claim the same child as a dependent because we don't have enough forensic accountants. If you mistype your W2 you'll get an \"audit\" showing the correct info from the copy your boss sent them and telling you they'll correct it unless you tell them otherwise and you don't have to do anything if the info they have is correct.", ">\n\nYeah, all the nonsense about the IRS \"going after\" low income people is so stupid. Low income people make money in a way that their reporting is easily verifiable by a computer. They're also most likely to mess up and claim child tax credits incorrectly, etc - all of which is verifiable and issued a letter by a computer. \n-\nOther than actually being able to get someone on the phone when you call the IRS, and increased budget isn't going to impact the average person in any way.", ">\n\nMy thing is even assuming the 87k don't successfully get more money out of the rich, that's still 87k jobs. That's a net positive. I just don't understand the conservative logic here. Do they think these 87k new jobs are specifically for being insidiously predatory toward the poor? Where's the logic here? (I know I'll get hyperbolic answers, but I genuinely would like to know)", ">\n\nIt's 87,000 jobs over 10 years, the majority of which are replacement during that period. It's just a budget supplemental to stop hemorrhaging agents as they retire or cycle out into other jobs.", ">\n\nso.. this is on fox, which I assume support republican efforts to ensure that this is the permanent state of affairs. I don't really get anything anymore.", ">\n\nAnd that is the way the GOP wants it.", ">\n\n💯 Exactly what this Fox article is trying to do.", ">\n\nIt's who can afford a lawyer", ">\n\nAs the article hints at, the IRS does not do a lot of actual auditing. What it does is computer matching, which automatically generates material for a correspondence audit. Most correspondence audits occur because som poor working Joe didn't know he/her was supposed to include or exclude something, and the IRS caught it in its matching. Of course, the problem is that we have a complex code and little help in actually helping people through the various forms, rules, and so on. But millionaires don't have these issues, so they can escape most of the traps that lead to a correspondence audit. If a lot of these 87,000 were in taxpayer service (which I expect) it would lead to fewer audits at the low end, more robust audits for large corporations, wealthy individuals, and those who actively use tax avoidance strategies. But of course that is not the dialogue that gets promoted when the 87,000 agents are discussed.", ">\n\nThis is exactly why Fox News needs to be dismantled and thrown in the garbage. Ugh, \"look poors! They're coming for yoU!!!\". Scare tactics. And guess what? It sadly works. Every time.\nThey're lower than scum.", ">\n\nExactly. It's when someone misreports a number from their W2, didn't report 1099s they received, both separated parents claim a tax credit for the same kid, etc. All stuff that's easily checked by a computer. The IRS isn't \"auditing\" random low to middle income people. That would be a complete waste of their time.", ">\n\nlooks at Trump You don't say.", ">\n\nThe poor can't defend themselves, it's easier to take a little bit of money from people that won't fight back than a lot of money from people that will.", ">\n\nThe mega rich seem like they’re on a mission to destroy America, as we know it.", ">\n\nHiring 87,000 new IRS agents makes it possible to audit billionaires. So they pay their share. Those audits require an actual person or team that knows what they are doing. But Kevin McCarthy's first item of business was to announce legislation to overturn the hiring of 87,000 IRS agents. Meaning only the little guy (who can be audited by computer software) pays taxes.\nSSDD", ">\n\nThe \"87,000\" agents budget is over a ten year period. It's not for 87,000 new positions.", ">\n\nThe title is so misleading. Im surprised fox even put the juicy bit in the article about how (this stat is due to there not being enough IRS workers because) these \"audits\" on low earners are just automated letters asking for more info.\nYet again, this is just millionairs paid by billionairs to mislead the masses into blaming the poor for crimes committed by said billionairs.", ">\n\nWhich is why the IRS needs more manpower and budget, so they can go after the big fish.\nFuck Fox News and their Republican propaganda pieces. This article coincides with McCarthy saying they’ll cut the IRS budget and that the IRS is coming for you.\nFuck off Republican propaganda rag!\nStop upvoting any Fox News story. Fox should not be on the white list.", ">\n\nThis is a terrible article. It seems to include questions about tax returns as audits. If a low income filer makes a mistake it should be corrected. Is that an audit? If anyone makes a mistake and is contacted, is that an audit? Also there is no reason to go after low income as they rarely pay tax or are required to. The money requested would also pay for people to answer a phone. Those against increasing funding lie when they say all of it goes to audits. If you tell the truth, who cares if you are audited? Are y’all aware you can track your personal return online? However a business cannot. Businesses have to rely on humans that can’t be reached. I’ve waited a year for a refund. Didn’t know if IRS received the return. Didn’t know if there was an issue. Didn’t know if it was mailed or lost. I’m getting tired of Republicans pushing their crap on people.", ">\n\nwho keeps upvoting this right wing propaganda", ">\n\nWhy would the GOP want to give the agency the power to go after their donors.", ">\n\nAnd it was trumps guy that mandated it while Biden replaced him", ">\n\nApparently the mere use of an accounting firm somehow protected corps and the rich from the IRS who still (mistakenly) believe the accounting firms are trustworthy. How naive.", ">\n\nThe \"audits\" talked about are mostly form letters requesting more info about specific items.", ">\n\nThe poor can't pay for top flight attorneys.", ">\n\nYep keep the IRS underfunded so they can only go after the poors at the same time telling all the poors that the IRS is bad cause it goes after them but leave out the fact that they do that cause the poors are low hanging fruit.\nRepublicans are evil.", ">\n\nWell the GOP wants to cut funding to the IRS for new agents, so I’m sure the poor folk will continue to get screwed. I say toss the 50,000+ page tax code out and replace with a percentage based on total revenue/income made. Took a loss? No write-offs. Oh well, better luck next year. It’ll never happen because the wealthy don’t want it to.", ">\n\nWhere did you get this info? I know GOPers have been slashing IRS budgets and staffing for years but can't find reliable sources for what this has done to the actual audits - like who gets audited.", ">\n\nTheir link is Fox. This is a bad faith post.", ">\n\nThis says a lot coming from fox “news”", ">\n\nTo paraphrase Gilbert K. Chesterton, \"The Poor have sometimes objected to being taxed too heavily; The Rich have always objected to being taxed at all.\"", ">\n\ndon't post Fox news here....", ">\n\nCorporations and millionaires have the means to hire accountants and attorneys. Our tax code is gray in several areas. It’s easy to go after the poor that do not have the resources and will have no choice but to pay anything the IRS says. The additional agents will continue to target the poor and middle class because they are easy, It’s happened before, it will continue to happen.", ">\n\nI think it's funny/sad that a poor person can win the lottery and they get taxed at a higher rate than any billionaire has ever been taxed at. The system is built to keep the rich - rich and the poor - poor.", ">\n\nThe poorest can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nThe current system cannot be sustained. We are hurtling towards disaster.", ">\n\nThe only reason the bastards have the majority is because the corrupt SCOTUS allowed illegal gerrymanders to stand while they were fought in the courts.", ">\n\nThe I.R.S. goes after the poorer people because it's easier. They can't afford lawyers and accountants. So the poor can do nothing but roll over and take it up the rump. The Inflation Reduction Act that Biden signed into law in August is supposed to give $80 Billion to the I.R.S. so they can go after the millionaires. But we know that won't happen. More poor people are going to get screwed.", ">\n\nI'm confused. For decades, Faux news and the conservatives have been saying that millionaires deserve to keep more of their money than we do. That was a huge part of the 2017 tax scam that Trump signed. Now Faux is saying it's a problem? And they are rightly detailing that Republicans are the cause, along with Biden trying to fix the same issue that Fox has helped create?", ">\n\nFox News", ">\n\nHey IRS, don't forget to crawl up my ass this year because I sold some old stuff on eBay for a loss but make sure you put a few man hours into figuring out if it is legit or not.", ">\n\nlol, and the people opposed to IRS funding will say they are anti-establishment.", ">\n\nImagine how much they could squeeze the middle class with 87,000 more agents! But really, it’ll be good to see if the increase in officers actually increases tax revenue without changing the underlying laws.", ">\n\nSo, this is the newest Republican boogeyman, the IRS.\nWell, better than Drag Queens I guess.", ">\n\nOh hey just like last year, and the year before that, I think there might be a pattern", ">\n\nThank you republicans, always sticking up in the back on the small guys…", ">\n\nFox News saying this like it’s not something Rupert Murdoch’s network supports is pretty funny.", ">\n\nFox News. Ignore it.", ">\n\nFox News is still allowed in here?", ">\n\nFake news. This is Republican propaganda coming from Fox News.", ">\n\nFox News is NOT news", ">\n\nHmm sounds like it was underfunded then. Good thing now we helped ease that problem. Thanks Biden", ">\n\nIt's simply laziness by the IRS. Lower-income households have less complicated returns and easier to process. I'm sure IRS runs a non-effective but management-pleasing metric like \"how many returns were corrected\" opposed to how much money was recouped.", ">\n\nWe know. They don't have the resources to do anything. That was the point of increasing the staffing at the IRS so they had even the slightest hope of going after the big offenders with their armies or lawyers.", ">\n\nThere's less millionaires and billionaires than there are us. I'm not sure that answer fits the accuracy on hiring more workers but I'll go ahead and amuse that", ">\n\nIt's not a game of tax guy vs rich guy. The rich literally have armies of lawyers. You need the staff to overcome all the paper and challenges they'll throw at you. \nIf you throw one person to audit a millionaire, their lawyers can make it so it'll take a year to review a week of operations. Investigations will never finish unless there's sufficient staff to overcome their obstruction.", ">\n\nTo this day I do not understand why the IRS can demand our documents every year without a warrant. The 16th amendment does not alter the 4th, and the 4th does not apply only to criminal actions (as the 5th explicitly does). Yet no one seems to care about this annual violations.", ">\n\nReminder, Fox News is not news. It's entertainment, and should be regarded as such.", ">\n\nNo shit, poor ppl tend to file their own taxes and screw up where as millionaires hire expensive accountants to exploit all the legal loopholes without getting their clients in trouble.\nI don't think it's an intentional targeting as the article may be implying.", ">\n\nOne might imagine the resources of agents would be better put to use by focusing on returns that might produce more revenue, however it may be just a lot easier to collect a few bucks from easier targets.", ">\n\nThey are short staffed and accountants make it so difficult to find wrongdoing, if there is even wrongdoing to be found, that it would take a decent chunk of their workforce just to tackle it. It's like trying to find needle in a haystack but you don't know if there's a needle or not.", ">\n\nSo true....", ">\n\nShocked pikachu face.", ">\n\nYeah I’d believe this if it weren’t Fox News. They could give a fuck about the poor and middle class.", ">\n\nI would literally rather the IRS spend its time auditing 5 extraordinarily rich people or a single business than anyone who makes less than 100k per year\nETA: I’m aware that this article represents part of the Republican agenda to just gut the IRS and welfare spending generally. And I understand the difficulties in auditing the rich/businesses v lower income people claiming tax credits, etc", ">\n\nAlmost all of the little people \"audits\" are just a computer issuing a correspondence \"audit\" because the person misreported something from their W2, didn't report as much 1099 income as was reported to the IRS by others, or separated parents both trying to claim kids for tax credits or something. \n-\nThey don't really pull from the same resources. The rich people audits require human beings. Little people \"audits\" aren't really audits and a computer can do it. So if we want to audit more rich people, they need actual budget for human beings. The little people are going to be caught anyways because a computer can do it.", ">\n\nI interned at the IRS during the summer of 2012 when Lois Lerner made batshit crazy commrnts that they were targetting conservative groups", ">\n\nI say this every time it gets brought up. This is by design. I used to work in auditing and also used to do tax stuff. It’s super easy to find tax fraud on someone who only has a simple W-2 and no other income. You could find those people through a basic algorithm. Meanwhile, auditing a multi millionaire is expensive, time consuming, and often fruitless. If I was in charge of an underfunded, understaffed IRS I would tell my staff to go for the easy wins too.", ">\n\nUnpopular opinion - More funding won't resolve this. \nThe IRS will keep doing this. Unless rules & regulations forbid or disincentivize this practice, the IRS will keep this stupid practice", ">\n\nI make $40,000 a year and the IRS froze my bank accounts until I paid them $1000 in taxes I owed them because of an error I made filling my taxes. They froze my bank accounts for $1000. I was fucked for a month. I had to borrow cash from people just for food and gas money to get to work to get paid money that I couldn’t access. It was a scary time for me. Meanwhile millionaires are purposely avoiding taxes worth more than what I make in a year and nothing happens to them.", ">\n\nThe IRS sends no less than a dozen letters to a taxpayer prior to leaving a bank account. Why didn't you just put it into a repayment plan? Takes about ten minutes online.", ">\n\nDon't you just hate autocorrect?", ">\n\nIf true, its a holdover from jrbush who slashed IRS staff and budget and told them to spend more time auditing tip jars and busboys than millionaires because the millionaires had better lawyers than the IRS and service workers were unlikely to have any lawyers at all.", ">\n\nFox News solution: remove the IRS", ">\n\nAbsolutely. They’ll NEVER target the rich, adding more agents just made them a lot more capable to target all the lower class.", ">\n\nWhat people don't realize..Those 87K \"Agents\" aren't that. It's 87K employees over 25 years. Clerks etc. People are so fucking stupid when they just believe these clowns.", ">\n\nThose numbers also count it as an \"audit\" when a person misreports a number from a W2, 1099s, etc and the irs number matching software sends an automatically generated correspondence letter that basically says \"we actually show this number, this is what your tax return would have been if you reported that number correctly\". \nThe IRS isn't wasting time doing random \"audits\" as people think of them for low to middle income people. It would be a complete waste of their time. The computer just catches obvious verifiable mistakes and it counts as an audit in those numbers.", ">\n\n“those in the lowest income bracket hit 12.7 per 1,000….. The odds of a millionaire facing an audit were around 1.1%.”\nSo they’re saying 1.27% vs 1.1%!!! And acting like that’s a scandal 🙄", ">\n\nWhich means millionaires REALLY don't want more IRS auditors which means when our new resident house fascist fires five thousand auditors, said fascist (McCarthy) is making sure those millionaires aren't going to get audited. \nCha CHING !!! Go the \"donations\" into house rat republican's pockets. \nThe grift will be in full swing shortly.\nAnd with putin whispering in their ears and telling them EXACTLY how break the law - how can they lose?", ">\n\n💯 Exactly why theres a Fox link here pushing for that same reason.", ">\n\nTwo things. First of all, this is from a far right-wing propaganda outlet which should immediately raise red flags. They're trying to scare you into allowing a republican-initiated movement to entirely remove all remaining power from the IRS by making it seem like they're coming after you.\nSecond, the reason the IRS is already already virtually powerless against the rich is because the republicans have already eviscerated them in the past several decades, largely through defunding them leading to not only staffing cuts, but the inability to pursue the wealthiest people who have the resources for endless litigation. So as a result, the FBI can only really afford to go after people who cannot financially defend themselves.", ">\n\nThird, you might as well throw in that the aiming low guidance was under a Trump appointee who is no longer in that position.", ">\n\nThe GOP intentionally defunded the IRS so that it could not audit the wealthy. It takes a great deal more money upfront to audit them but the payback is far greater.", ">\n\nI'm not sure why dems voted against an amendment that would have mandated the giant infusion of cash into the IRS couldn't be used to audit folks making >$400k.", ">\n\nHrm this is pretty fucked I'd like to hear about why the Dems voted nay.", ">\n\nBecause they work for the same people as Republicans. \nThey are different but only when their owners allow them to be. \nI don't know how many times we are going to have to learn this lesson before it sticks.", ">\n\nDemocrats are responsible for this", ">\n\nThe rich returns are just too hard, enough lower class errors you can leave the rich alone. Love to see it… sigh", ">\n\nIt takes money to police the wealthy. Can't have that can we?!", ">\n\nr/noshitsherlock", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised?\nI’m not even American and this seemed obvious to me. All you have to do is look at how the poor live and compare that to the news about someone like Elon musk or Donald trump.", ">\n\nThis is why the IRS needs to go.", ">\n\nFox News helped make that happen.", ">\n\nThey'll never change,all the time when the guys in charge benefit from doing the same shit.", ">\n\nAnd yet the republicans dont submit or pass legislations to change the rules to favor targeting rich people. Curious.", ">\n\nThen 78,000 new, armed tax collectors should be able to extract even more money from the poor, middle-class and small business owners.", ">\n\nWhy did they focus on the Poorest? The thought of 87,000 more of them will actually do what? If the existing can’t focus on the wealthy! Then what makes anybody think more can?", ">\n\nMillionaires and billionaires make the government more money by creating lobbying loopholes and exploiting the economy to bilk the 99%. It's really cheap to go after the poorest who are struggling to pay day to day obligations and don't have loopholes or government sanctioned exploitation to take advantage of.", ">\n\nI could have told you this would happen. You think millionaires get $600 Venmo transactions?", ">\n\nThat's a move democrats should not make. That's one month of rent for me. What of folks worse-off?", ">\n\nHonestly it’s like squeezing blood from the stone over here anyway.", ">\n\nDuh lmfao theyve already stated it costs too much to tax weathy people previously and its most cost effective to audit the poor due to many factors...", ">\n\nI mean 99% of us are poor compared to the other 1%", ">\n\nColor me surprised", ">\n\nWe need some laws for equitable auditing.", ">\n\nYou are an Army commander about to attack the enemy. Do you prefer to attack where they have experienced career solders backed up by artillery, tanks, and airplanes, or do you attack where there are poorly armed and equipped untrained conscripts?", ">\n\nThey must be upset someone replaced their sign with a card from Cards Against Humanity", ">\n\nMay it ever be so…. Don’t reproduce if you only consume and can’t accumulate or help a Dow Jones winter water witch. Like snow, weathermen.", ">\n\nIt’s weirdly fitting how much their building sign in the photo looks like a cards against humanity card.", ">\n\nTypical", ">\n\nWow? How unusual.", ">\n\nI’d support double the number of IRS agents", ">\n\nI was low income and won about 3,000 gambling, the irs went after me", ">\n\nThe IRS came after me hard for 8$", ">\n\nAudit frequency should correlate to income, someone with a million in income should be audited 10x those with 100k income", ">\n\nSomeone should explain Pareto charts to the IRS.", ">\n\nI've been audited three times. First when I was 27, did some consulting and didn't do the 1099 prepayments. Ended up owing $17k. Second audit was after moving across country for a job. The tax preparer we hired made a mistake with the move expense deductions, owed a few thousand. Third audit was another tax preparer mistake, but this time we overpaid and were owed money we credited to the next year. \nIf you assume for discussion that the average audit on an ordinary tax payer returns $10,000, it would take 100,000,000 audits to make $1 trillion. By just doing the easy work, the IRS is leaving the real money on the table.", ">\n\nRepublicans are famous for giving rich breaks while middle class etc close the gaps", ">\n\nThe last line, \"The Inflation Reduction Act provides the IRS with $80 billion in future funding to ramp up its audits and potentially target the wealthiest taxpayers.\"", ">\n\nThe cure is not the root cause, but the middle class and the poor will eventually bear the burden after the capital operation", ">\n\nIt’s like they timed the “research” and the drop of the article with the speech. Sad man.", ">\n\nWatch Madoff. The wealthy skate and steal billions. The poor are in prison over thousands.", ">\n\nWhy does their sign look like a Card Against Humanity", ">\n\nFucking Trump, still at it.", ">\n\nOh you mean the thing people said would happen once they got massive funding actually happened? Checks out", ">\n\nOf course they did, because millionaires will lawyer up.", ">\n\nBecause the poor can't afford to fight back.", ">\n\nIt's so unfair the poor and the middle class taxpayers suffer so much while the millionaries got away with not paying the taxes It's really hurting the poor. The middle class is fading", ">\n\nAll of this can be fixed if we just use no-exemption graduated income", ">\n\nYeah we know", ">\n\nShow of hands for all surprised.\ncrickets\nHmm. Seems like Reddit suffers from a plague of double amputees...", ">\n\nWhat the actual fuck", ">\n\nAnd 2021, 2020, 2019, …", ">\n\nSounds about right.", ">\n\nOf course. Poor people can’t afford attorneys.", ">\n\nI made a mistake on my forms while I was overseas and ticked “self-employed” instead of “employed”. I was on a student visa and had two children and was making less than 10k a year. They hounded me for years. By the time I figured out what had happened I could not amend the forms and had paid thousands in penalties and interest.\nMeanwhile I knew lots of people who were there fully employed not reporting their income.\nFuck them.", ">\n\nYep! During the pandemic, even while I wasn't working didn't come after me the entire time that I was working but the minute that I wasn't nobody was cuz we were in lockdown they started popping up", ">\n\nI just now realized that the Cards Against Humanity box looks like the IRS sign", ">\n\nWhy is the sign a Cards Against Humanity question?", ">\n\nI am shocked and appalled. clutches pearls", ">\n\nRich should be taxed more than the average not right at all. Or at least there is a tier system based on pay only makes sense. Come on now", ">\n\nSounds about right, make the rich richer again.", ">\n\nWho are we going to vote for in the future ,all of them are decayed , corrupted and useless , the “most rich country in the world , governed by the most ignorant an corrupted. What a contrast .", ">\n\nGod bless America", ">\n\nno way. wait until you see those people responds. Those people are chipping away.", ">\n\nSounds about right", ">\n\nWe know.", ">\n\nI find it rather comical that Fox news is reporting on this since they are all about pushing the Republican agenda and that is all about pushing everyone else down that isn't rich and keeping them there. Not to mention they had no problem with Trump not paying taxes for years.", ">\n\nCan fucking confirm.", ">\n\nYeah, they (millionaires) have accountants who generally do things right and due to their millions being in investments it's not like it's taxable all the time. \nThen there's the ability to sell any stocks when they're down to build up losses on paper can reinvest them at a loss that can carry over across multiple years.", ">\n\nsounds about right. i don’t have a pot to piss in but they’re all over me for someone stealing my identity and filing a double tax return one year.", ">\n\nDuh", ">\n\nThere’s a reason why FOX is posting this article. The less people at the IRS, the more likely they come after folks who can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nIn order to pursue wealthy tax cheats, the IRS needs more resources and personnel. Otherwise it’s business as usual, picking on the low hanging fruit that earns under 6 figures.", ">\n\nSo wrong ....people need to be fired", ">\n\nIt’s because they can’t afford to take them to court", ">\n\nOf course it is about protecting the rich like Trump who lies ,lies , and about his tax returns . No wonder he did not want them released .", ">\n\nEasy prey bc most ppl can not lawyer up. Pretty heart breaking system we have at times.", ">\n\nWhy does the irs sign look like it's from cards against humanity?", ">\n\nCurrently getting audited over \\~$1500, which they owe me, when the rich get away with murder. Fucking unbelievably and unnecessarily stressful for me.", ">\n\nHas t this been know for a while?", ">\n\nyep and they are the same people getting tax cuts while everyone else does it tough ....\nAny one with too much money is your enemy .... not a hero of democracy", ">\n\nGet rid of taxes and the gov’t should just do stuff for free, or what ever.", ">\n\nYou have to be careful when you get one of those CP2000 notices from the IRS. The way they are written is a trap.\nIf you dispute it you are supposed to indicate that you disagree and send it back with documents supporting your dispute.\nYou are only supposed to sign it if you agree with them and when you sign it you are signing away your rights to dispute the back taxes and penalties they are demanding.\nMere worker bees like us can expect to be getting a lot of those from this years tax returns considering how the threshold for 1099k forms has been dropped to $600.\nGuys like Trump? The IRS doesn't even know where to begin.", ">\n\nThanks Biden", ">\n\nI presume those lower-income bracket filers might be more likely to reach out to 1-800-infomercial [quickie settlement/long-term penalties most favorable to gov/proprietor] than retain proper legal counsel?\nRegardless it’s got to be a lot less work for IRS agent to go after under-represented citizen(s), rather than someone who can afford to appeal, properly negotiate on their own terms?", ">\n\nLmfao Dems tax and spend. But I have to admit there Republicans that tax and spend to. Where do these Politicians get off taxing me or business and give to people who don't work what do you cause d the inflation. You can not print money \nI am Conservative not a Republican. To much money is wasted and put in pockets of people ot don't belong.\nBut all dems know how to tax tax tax. \nIts all great and good until you run out if other peoples money. \nMillionaire just like Berny he hated Millionaires until he became one now he hates Trillionaires. Funny how the gold post changes. And good old Nancy her I side stock trading. So I think you need to rethink.", ">\n\nThe IRS is only doing as directed by whomever controls the White House.", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised by this? Really?", ">\n\nThe sign in the thumbnail looks like a Cards Against Humanity card.", ">\n\nWhile this is mostly true, don’t believe everything you read. I’m no more an accountant than I am a ladies man, but someone (said they’re an accountant) posted a few days ago about this. They explained that the most likely people getting audited are trying to, fraudulently or mistakenly, claim the EITC. \nYES, it’s super easy to “bust” these people for an easy “mistake”. This is who the IRS is cracking down on. \nDo I think it’s better to bust poor people for claiming a few thousand in tax credits vs billionaires who avoid taxes altogether? Of course not, but don’t think they’re actively targeting people who fudge their mileage deductions or miss a decimal point in their calculations as small business owners. It’s simply not happening. \nAnd the reported “87,000 new IRS agents” are replacing the 10’s of 1,000’s of employees set to retire or quit over the next 10 years which doesn’t even begin to fill the gaps we’ve been growing for decades by not hiring and training more willing workers. Not to mention they’re not even close to all employees who will actively audit tax payers. They’re people who answer phones, file papers, assist others, etc… They’re mostly just average people with average jobs so of course the GOP wants to end this. They hate upward mobility and job creation unless that means tax breaks for their billionaire friends.", ">\n\nI wish everyone wasn’t a sheep and would understand this.", ">\n\nI can see the Media doing their best to turn the public against the IRS.", ">\n\nPicking on the week and helpless. That’s what we humans do. We suck. I’m waiting for that big meteor reset button.", ">\n\nAnd Fox news loves this.", ">\n\nLove it, Faux 'News' taking the piss, for 4 years under Dear Leader they campaigned for tax breaks for the rich, now they're pretending to care about the poor !", ">\n\nEvery millionaire should be audited yearly. Period.", ">\n\nAND now the gqp cult promises to rescind the money Biden set aside to aid the IRS to recover taxes from mega millionaire tax cheats like benedict donald, who paid less taxes than most working Americans.", ">\n\nRepublicans want to stop the IRS and Congress from taxing rich people, making the burden of maintaining civilization fall more heavily on poorer people. This is why Republicans vote for tax cuts for the rich and against funding for the IRS.\nAnd since Republican beliefs are based on wishful thinking, Republicans can screw over poor, rural Republicans while simultaneously taking credit for doing it to make Republicans happy about it and blaming it on Democrats to make those same Republicans resentful against Democrats for it. And what else would we expect from a Republican Party that blames Democrats for tricking them into attacking the Capitol to make Trump look bad and justifies and approves of assaulting Capitol police while brandishing their \"thin blue line\" flags.", ">\n\nThe IRS is like any other law enforcement agency, they prefer pursuing the poor because they don't have the resources to protect themselves.", ">\n\nThe IRS building sign looks like its from cards against humanity.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nNot a reliable news source.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nThat picture looks like the worst cards against humanity card too get.", ">\n\nScrew the Murdoch media empire and their failed trickle down ideologies.", ">\n\nOf course, the poorest haven’t paid over 400+ billion for decades. Not sure about the rich, we haven’t checked.", ">\n\nThis is not a surprise. With the recent inflation reduction act, the IRS an additional $80B over 10 years or $8B per year. The IRS budget for 2021 was $13.7B. The additional $8B over the year would be an increase of 58% to their budget. They will be looking to get a lot more money from taxpayers, due to this very large increase in their budget.", ">\n\nFox reported this? I'm in shock", ">\n\nAll propagandists publish clickbaity stuff that makes them sound like maybe they've let up on the evil. Unfortunately it works, since people just upvote headlines.", ">\n\nIt’s only going to get worse in 2023. Those 87k new IRS agents will not be going after the wealthy.", ">\n\nWhy?\nThat’s literally why they were being added. The IRS goes after the poorer taxpayers because they are low-hanging fruit and don’t have the lawyers and accountants to protect them. \nThe additional IRS employees were to give the personnel staffing sufficient to go after the wealthy.", ">\n\nIt doesn’t matter how many IRS agents there are. It will always be easier and more profitable for the IRS to nickel and dime the average taxpayer rather than go after the wealthy, who have the resources to lawyer up with the best lawyers and challenge the IRS in court.", ">\n\nEasier? Yes. More profitable? Doubtful.", ">\n\nIf Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nBut in 2022 ( when Biden was president and the House belonged to the Dems) they didn’t did they.", ">\n\nIt takes time to refactor an organization. It’s still full of Trump appointees.", ">\n\n2020 was a long time ago", ">\n\nNot on organizational time scales. It takes several months to safely restructure an organization as big as the federal government, and when it is the federal government it takes years. Congress gets a say in every political appointment, budget change, and organization change. It’s designed to be slow to assure continuity. \nThere is a saying that every president gets credited and blamed for what the prior administration put in motion. There is a lot of truth to that, and this organizational inertia is a big reason why. There are similar long lags in changing laws, re-writing policies, modifying rules, and so on. It’s a “feature” of having checks and balances.", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit." ]
> Yeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually "auditing" random normal returns.	[ "If Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nAnd when Barry was president they targeted conservative groups. I think phone calls can be made to tell them to back off of the little guy.", ">\n\n\nthey targeted conservative groups.\n\nNo. They went after specifically anti-tax tea party groups. The groups who openly flaunted tax laws", ">\n\nThey also went after progressive, left leaning groups - how do you explain that ? it was political", ">\n\nWait, did they target conservatives or progressives? Lol", ">\n\nBoth- it was quite clear they were involving themselves in politics - that’s what the IG found", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.", ">\n\nYep!\nAlso this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious.\nThe real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade.", ">\n\nThanks for the informative reply.\nYou make great points which I don't doubt. But there are times when I think it's important to consider both the letter and spirit of law at times.\nEven though it is perfectly by the letter of the law that people should be checked, it also seems against the intended spirit of said law that only a certain group of people are checked.\nI am not familiar with US law, but I think most of us can feel some degree of injustice with how things currently are.", ">\n\nThe point is to automate more checking of income common to wealthier people, and devote more resources to auditing those people. The Fox News article is disingenuous in how it describes the automated checking that goes on. It’s not great that rich people aren’t really audited, but there’s no reason to stop the automated checking of income where it’s already being done and essentially free to continue.\nIf you feel differently, explain yourself.", ">\n\nNo, we are in alignment concerning this.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nFUCK FOX NEWS\nFox is pretending to care about us poors. \nDon't reward these fascist fucks with upvotes for a disingenuous clickbait headline. They still hate us for not voting gop.", ">\n\nThey want people to hate the IRS and help defund it so they don’t go after the rich, which was the purpose of the additional funding", ">\n\nThey want people to link this to “87000” new agents, which is obviously happening on social media posts, but it’s not even a thing.", ">\n\nArticle is trash. The author is including correspondence audits (which means the IRS asked for some documentation by mail) for low income filers but not for millionaires when comparing their audit rates. Here are actual numbers according to their own source:\nAudit rates including correspondence audits\nlow income 1.27%\nmillionaires 2.38% \nAudit rates excluding correspondence audits\nlow income 0.0376%\nmillionaires 1.24%\n.\nFor low income filers, nearly all their audits were correspondence audits.", ">\n\nIt's hilarious when Fox News and the GOP pretend they care about poor people.\nNo amount of hypocrisy is too much to try to make democrats look bad.", ">\n\nIts unfortunately far easier to prove married couples who live together filed HoH for extra earned income credit than it is to prove complicated returns were incorrect.", ">\n\nIt's also trivially easy to prove the same child was claimed by two parents which is a lot of correspondence audits.", ">\n\nSo can my back taxes please just get forgiven already. 20% income being taxed is not livable", ">\n\nRepublican love flat rate taxes, you should talk to them.", ">\n\nThey’re required to audit the president and vice president, and that didn’t happen either.", ">\n\nThis isn't new, it's been been having for the last 5 - 6 years.", ">\n\nHopefully some wake up and realize its all just preparing us for the inevitable destruction of our economy. I imagine its almost too late to realize this. If we all realized this wed sell our 401Ks and not lean on money and use it to help our neighbors.", ">\n\nK bro.", ">\n\nMy wife and I are on social security. She works part time to keep us afloat. All in, we earned $50K in 2022. iRS wants $4500 from us. Really? 5X what Trump paid? Don't know if anyone is paying attention but $50k ain't rich. Oh, and out of that comes almost $4k in Medicare premiums. A program we paid into for 40+ years.\nEveryone of these arrogant, unqualified,, spoon fed assholes in Congress should be made to live on SSI or welfare, with no medical coverage, for a year. Then tell me I am acting entitled.\nSelf serving bastards.", ">\n\nDon't upvote this crap.\nDo you really think Fox cares about the working class??\nThis is just right wing propaganda, timed to coincide with McCarthy's promise to get rid of the new IRS agents who make it possible to audit the rich.\nDon't be used.", ">\n\nWhatever happened to \"dont shoot the messenger?\"", ">\n\nIRS understaffing would naturally trend to go after low-lying fruit. Easy pickings. Too many man hours to go after super complex cases. These moneyed fuckers and their bullshit. It's outrageous.", ">\n\nThe vast majority of these audits are automatically generated correspondence audits that have to be issued. We can't just turn off the program that raises a red flag when two people claim the same child as a dependent because we don't have enough forensic accountants. If you mistype your W2 you'll get an \"audit\" showing the correct info from the copy your boss sent them and telling you they'll correct it unless you tell them otherwise and you don't have to do anything if the info they have is correct.", ">\n\nYeah, all the nonsense about the IRS \"going after\" low income people is so stupid. Low income people make money in a way that their reporting is easily verifiable by a computer. They're also most likely to mess up and claim child tax credits incorrectly, etc - all of which is verifiable and issued a letter by a computer. \n-\nOther than actually being able to get someone on the phone when you call the IRS, and increased budget isn't going to impact the average person in any way.", ">\n\nMy thing is even assuming the 87k don't successfully get more money out of the rich, that's still 87k jobs. That's a net positive. I just don't understand the conservative logic here. Do they think these 87k new jobs are specifically for being insidiously predatory toward the poor? Where's the logic here? (I know I'll get hyperbolic answers, but I genuinely would like to know)", ">\n\nIt's 87,000 jobs over 10 years, the majority of which are replacement during that period. It's just a budget supplemental to stop hemorrhaging agents as they retire or cycle out into other jobs.", ">\n\nso.. this is on fox, which I assume support republican efforts to ensure that this is the permanent state of affairs. I don't really get anything anymore.", ">\n\nAnd that is the way the GOP wants it.", ">\n\n💯 Exactly what this Fox article is trying to do.", ">\n\nIt's who can afford a lawyer", ">\n\nAs the article hints at, the IRS does not do a lot of actual auditing. What it does is computer matching, which automatically generates material for a correspondence audit. Most correspondence audits occur because som poor working Joe didn't know he/her was supposed to include or exclude something, and the IRS caught it in its matching. Of course, the problem is that we have a complex code and little help in actually helping people through the various forms, rules, and so on. But millionaires don't have these issues, so they can escape most of the traps that lead to a correspondence audit. If a lot of these 87,000 were in taxpayer service (which I expect) it would lead to fewer audits at the low end, more robust audits for large corporations, wealthy individuals, and those who actively use tax avoidance strategies. But of course that is not the dialogue that gets promoted when the 87,000 agents are discussed.", ">\n\nThis is exactly why Fox News needs to be dismantled and thrown in the garbage. Ugh, \"look poors! They're coming for yoU!!!\". Scare tactics. And guess what? It sadly works. Every time.\nThey're lower than scum.", ">\n\nExactly. It's when someone misreports a number from their W2, didn't report 1099s they received, both separated parents claim a tax credit for the same kid, etc. All stuff that's easily checked by a computer. The IRS isn't \"auditing\" random low to middle income people. That would be a complete waste of their time.", ">\n\nlooks at Trump You don't say.", ">\n\nThe poor can't defend themselves, it's easier to take a little bit of money from people that won't fight back than a lot of money from people that will.", ">\n\nThe mega rich seem like they’re on a mission to destroy America, as we know it.", ">\n\nHiring 87,000 new IRS agents makes it possible to audit billionaires. So they pay their share. Those audits require an actual person or team that knows what they are doing. But Kevin McCarthy's first item of business was to announce legislation to overturn the hiring of 87,000 IRS agents. Meaning only the little guy (who can be audited by computer software) pays taxes.\nSSDD", ">\n\nThe \"87,000\" agents budget is over a ten year period. It's not for 87,000 new positions.", ">\n\nThe title is so misleading. Im surprised fox even put the juicy bit in the article about how (this stat is due to there not being enough IRS workers because) these \"audits\" on low earners are just automated letters asking for more info.\nYet again, this is just millionairs paid by billionairs to mislead the masses into blaming the poor for crimes committed by said billionairs.", ">\n\nWhich is why the IRS needs more manpower and budget, so they can go after the big fish.\nFuck Fox News and their Republican propaganda pieces. This article coincides with McCarthy saying they’ll cut the IRS budget and that the IRS is coming for you.\nFuck off Republican propaganda rag!\nStop upvoting any Fox News story. Fox should not be on the white list.", ">\n\nThis is a terrible article. It seems to include questions about tax returns as audits. If a low income filer makes a mistake it should be corrected. Is that an audit? If anyone makes a mistake and is contacted, is that an audit? Also there is no reason to go after low income as they rarely pay tax or are required to. The money requested would also pay for people to answer a phone. Those against increasing funding lie when they say all of it goes to audits. If you tell the truth, who cares if you are audited? Are y’all aware you can track your personal return online? However a business cannot. Businesses have to rely on humans that can’t be reached. I’ve waited a year for a refund. Didn’t know if IRS received the return. Didn’t know if there was an issue. Didn’t know if it was mailed or lost. I’m getting tired of Republicans pushing their crap on people.", ">\n\nwho keeps upvoting this right wing propaganda", ">\n\nWhy would the GOP want to give the agency the power to go after their donors.", ">\n\nAnd it was trumps guy that mandated it while Biden replaced him", ">\n\nApparently the mere use of an accounting firm somehow protected corps and the rich from the IRS who still (mistakenly) believe the accounting firms are trustworthy. How naive.", ">\n\nThe \"audits\" talked about are mostly form letters requesting more info about specific items.", ">\n\nThe poor can't pay for top flight attorneys.", ">\n\nYep keep the IRS underfunded so they can only go after the poors at the same time telling all the poors that the IRS is bad cause it goes after them but leave out the fact that they do that cause the poors are low hanging fruit.\nRepublicans are evil.", ">\n\nWell the GOP wants to cut funding to the IRS for new agents, so I’m sure the poor folk will continue to get screwed. I say toss the 50,000+ page tax code out and replace with a percentage based on total revenue/income made. Took a loss? No write-offs. Oh well, better luck next year. It’ll never happen because the wealthy don’t want it to.", ">\n\nWhere did you get this info? I know GOPers have been slashing IRS budgets and staffing for years but can't find reliable sources for what this has done to the actual audits - like who gets audited.", ">\n\nTheir link is Fox. This is a bad faith post.", ">\n\nThis says a lot coming from fox “news”", ">\n\nTo paraphrase Gilbert K. Chesterton, \"The Poor have sometimes objected to being taxed too heavily; The Rich have always objected to being taxed at all.\"", ">\n\ndon't post Fox news here....", ">\n\nCorporations and millionaires have the means to hire accountants and attorneys. Our tax code is gray in several areas. It’s easy to go after the poor that do not have the resources and will have no choice but to pay anything the IRS says. The additional agents will continue to target the poor and middle class because they are easy, It’s happened before, it will continue to happen.", ">\n\nI think it's funny/sad that a poor person can win the lottery and they get taxed at a higher rate than any billionaire has ever been taxed at. The system is built to keep the rich - rich and the poor - poor.", ">\n\nThe poorest can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nThe current system cannot be sustained. We are hurtling towards disaster.", ">\n\nThe only reason the bastards have the majority is because the corrupt SCOTUS allowed illegal gerrymanders to stand while they were fought in the courts.", ">\n\nThe I.R.S. goes after the poorer people because it's easier. They can't afford lawyers and accountants. So the poor can do nothing but roll over and take it up the rump. The Inflation Reduction Act that Biden signed into law in August is supposed to give $80 Billion to the I.R.S. so they can go after the millionaires. But we know that won't happen. More poor people are going to get screwed.", ">\n\nI'm confused. For decades, Faux news and the conservatives have been saying that millionaires deserve to keep more of their money than we do. That was a huge part of the 2017 tax scam that Trump signed. Now Faux is saying it's a problem? And they are rightly detailing that Republicans are the cause, along with Biden trying to fix the same issue that Fox has helped create?", ">\n\nFox News", ">\n\nHey IRS, don't forget to crawl up my ass this year because I sold some old stuff on eBay for a loss but make sure you put a few man hours into figuring out if it is legit or not.", ">\n\nlol, and the people opposed to IRS funding will say they are anti-establishment.", ">\n\nImagine how much they could squeeze the middle class with 87,000 more agents! But really, it’ll be good to see if the increase in officers actually increases tax revenue without changing the underlying laws.", ">\n\nSo, this is the newest Republican boogeyman, the IRS.\nWell, better than Drag Queens I guess.", ">\n\nOh hey just like last year, and the year before that, I think there might be a pattern", ">\n\nThank you republicans, always sticking up in the back on the small guys…", ">\n\nFox News saying this like it’s not something Rupert Murdoch’s network supports is pretty funny.", ">\n\nFox News. Ignore it.", ">\n\nFox News is still allowed in here?", ">\n\nFake news. This is Republican propaganda coming from Fox News.", ">\n\nFox News is NOT news", ">\n\nHmm sounds like it was underfunded then. Good thing now we helped ease that problem. Thanks Biden", ">\n\nIt's simply laziness by the IRS. Lower-income households have less complicated returns and easier to process. I'm sure IRS runs a non-effective but management-pleasing metric like \"how many returns were corrected\" opposed to how much money was recouped.", ">\n\nWe know. They don't have the resources to do anything. That was the point of increasing the staffing at the IRS so they had even the slightest hope of going after the big offenders with their armies or lawyers.", ">\n\nThere's less millionaires and billionaires than there are us. I'm not sure that answer fits the accuracy on hiring more workers but I'll go ahead and amuse that", ">\n\nIt's not a game of tax guy vs rich guy. The rich literally have armies of lawyers. You need the staff to overcome all the paper and challenges they'll throw at you. \nIf you throw one person to audit a millionaire, their lawyers can make it so it'll take a year to review a week of operations. Investigations will never finish unless there's sufficient staff to overcome their obstruction.", ">\n\nTo this day I do not understand why the IRS can demand our documents every year without a warrant. The 16th amendment does not alter the 4th, and the 4th does not apply only to criminal actions (as the 5th explicitly does). Yet no one seems to care about this annual violations.", ">\n\nReminder, Fox News is not news. It's entertainment, and should be regarded as such.", ">\n\nNo shit, poor ppl tend to file their own taxes and screw up where as millionaires hire expensive accountants to exploit all the legal loopholes without getting their clients in trouble.\nI don't think it's an intentional targeting as the article may be implying.", ">\n\nOne might imagine the resources of agents would be better put to use by focusing on returns that might produce more revenue, however it may be just a lot easier to collect a few bucks from easier targets.", ">\n\nThey are short staffed and accountants make it so difficult to find wrongdoing, if there is even wrongdoing to be found, that it would take a decent chunk of their workforce just to tackle it. It's like trying to find needle in a haystack but you don't know if there's a needle or not.", ">\n\nSo true....", ">\n\nShocked pikachu face.", ">\n\nYeah I’d believe this if it weren’t Fox News. They could give a fuck about the poor and middle class.", ">\n\nI would literally rather the IRS spend its time auditing 5 extraordinarily rich people or a single business than anyone who makes less than 100k per year\nETA: I’m aware that this article represents part of the Republican agenda to just gut the IRS and welfare spending generally. And I understand the difficulties in auditing the rich/businesses v lower income people claiming tax credits, etc", ">\n\nAlmost all of the little people \"audits\" are just a computer issuing a correspondence \"audit\" because the person misreported something from their W2, didn't report as much 1099 income as was reported to the IRS by others, or separated parents both trying to claim kids for tax credits or something. \n-\nThey don't really pull from the same resources. The rich people audits require human beings. Little people \"audits\" aren't really audits and a computer can do it. So if we want to audit more rich people, they need actual budget for human beings. The little people are going to be caught anyways because a computer can do it.", ">\n\nI interned at the IRS during the summer of 2012 when Lois Lerner made batshit crazy commrnts that they were targetting conservative groups", ">\n\nI say this every time it gets brought up. This is by design. I used to work in auditing and also used to do tax stuff. It’s super easy to find tax fraud on someone who only has a simple W-2 and no other income. You could find those people through a basic algorithm. Meanwhile, auditing a multi millionaire is expensive, time consuming, and often fruitless. If I was in charge of an underfunded, understaffed IRS I would tell my staff to go for the easy wins too.", ">\n\nUnpopular opinion - More funding won't resolve this. \nThe IRS will keep doing this. Unless rules & regulations forbid or disincentivize this practice, the IRS will keep this stupid practice", ">\n\nI make $40,000 a year and the IRS froze my bank accounts until I paid them $1000 in taxes I owed them because of an error I made filling my taxes. They froze my bank accounts for $1000. I was fucked for a month. I had to borrow cash from people just for food and gas money to get to work to get paid money that I couldn’t access. It was a scary time for me. Meanwhile millionaires are purposely avoiding taxes worth more than what I make in a year and nothing happens to them.", ">\n\nThe IRS sends no less than a dozen letters to a taxpayer prior to leaving a bank account. Why didn't you just put it into a repayment plan? Takes about ten minutes online.", ">\n\nDon't you just hate autocorrect?", ">\n\nIf true, its a holdover from jrbush who slashed IRS staff and budget and told them to spend more time auditing tip jars and busboys than millionaires because the millionaires had better lawyers than the IRS and service workers were unlikely to have any lawyers at all.", ">\n\nFox News solution: remove the IRS", ">\n\nAbsolutely. They’ll NEVER target the rich, adding more agents just made them a lot more capable to target all the lower class.", ">\n\nWhat people don't realize..Those 87K \"Agents\" aren't that. It's 87K employees over 25 years. Clerks etc. People are so fucking stupid when they just believe these clowns.", ">\n\nThose numbers also count it as an \"audit\" when a person misreports a number from a W2, 1099s, etc and the irs number matching software sends an automatically generated correspondence letter that basically says \"we actually show this number, this is what your tax return would have been if you reported that number correctly\". \nThe IRS isn't wasting time doing random \"audits\" as people think of them for low to middle income people. It would be a complete waste of their time. The computer just catches obvious verifiable mistakes and it counts as an audit in those numbers.", ">\n\n“those in the lowest income bracket hit 12.7 per 1,000….. The odds of a millionaire facing an audit were around 1.1%.”\nSo they’re saying 1.27% vs 1.1%!!! And acting like that’s a scandal 🙄", ">\n\nWhich means millionaires REALLY don't want more IRS auditors which means when our new resident house fascist fires five thousand auditors, said fascist (McCarthy) is making sure those millionaires aren't going to get audited. \nCha CHING !!! Go the \"donations\" into house rat republican's pockets. \nThe grift will be in full swing shortly.\nAnd with putin whispering in their ears and telling them EXACTLY how break the law - how can they lose?", ">\n\n💯 Exactly why theres a Fox link here pushing for that same reason.", ">\n\nTwo things. First of all, this is from a far right-wing propaganda outlet which should immediately raise red flags. They're trying to scare you into allowing a republican-initiated movement to entirely remove all remaining power from the IRS by making it seem like they're coming after you.\nSecond, the reason the IRS is already already virtually powerless against the rich is because the republicans have already eviscerated them in the past several decades, largely through defunding them leading to not only staffing cuts, but the inability to pursue the wealthiest people who have the resources for endless litigation. So as a result, the FBI can only really afford to go after people who cannot financially defend themselves.", ">\n\nThird, you might as well throw in that the aiming low guidance was under a Trump appointee who is no longer in that position.", ">\n\nThe GOP intentionally defunded the IRS so that it could not audit the wealthy. It takes a great deal more money upfront to audit them but the payback is far greater.", ">\n\nI'm not sure why dems voted against an amendment that would have mandated the giant infusion of cash into the IRS couldn't be used to audit folks making >$400k.", ">\n\nHrm this is pretty fucked I'd like to hear about why the Dems voted nay.", ">\n\nBecause they work for the same people as Republicans. \nThey are different but only when their owners allow them to be. \nI don't know how many times we are going to have to learn this lesson before it sticks.", ">\n\nDemocrats are responsible for this", ">\n\nThe rich returns are just too hard, enough lower class errors you can leave the rich alone. Love to see it… sigh", ">\n\nIt takes money to police the wealthy. Can't have that can we?!", ">\n\nr/noshitsherlock", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised?\nI’m not even American and this seemed obvious to me. All you have to do is look at how the poor live and compare that to the news about someone like Elon musk or Donald trump.", ">\n\nThis is why the IRS needs to go.", ">\n\nFox News helped make that happen.", ">\n\nThey'll never change,all the time when the guys in charge benefit from doing the same shit.", ">\n\nAnd yet the republicans dont submit or pass legislations to change the rules to favor targeting rich people. Curious.", ">\n\nThen 78,000 new, armed tax collectors should be able to extract even more money from the poor, middle-class and small business owners.", ">\n\nWhy did they focus on the Poorest? The thought of 87,000 more of them will actually do what? If the existing can’t focus on the wealthy! Then what makes anybody think more can?", ">\n\nMillionaires and billionaires make the government more money by creating lobbying loopholes and exploiting the economy to bilk the 99%. It's really cheap to go after the poorest who are struggling to pay day to day obligations and don't have loopholes or government sanctioned exploitation to take advantage of.", ">\n\nI could have told you this would happen. You think millionaires get $600 Venmo transactions?", ">\n\nThat's a move democrats should not make. That's one month of rent for me. What of folks worse-off?", ">\n\nHonestly it’s like squeezing blood from the stone over here anyway.", ">\n\nDuh lmfao theyve already stated it costs too much to tax weathy people previously and its most cost effective to audit the poor due to many factors...", ">\n\nI mean 99% of us are poor compared to the other 1%", ">\n\nColor me surprised", ">\n\nWe need some laws for equitable auditing.", ">\n\nYou are an Army commander about to attack the enemy. Do you prefer to attack where they have experienced career solders backed up by artillery, tanks, and airplanes, or do you attack where there are poorly armed and equipped untrained conscripts?", ">\n\nThey must be upset someone replaced their sign with a card from Cards Against Humanity", ">\n\nMay it ever be so…. Don’t reproduce if you only consume and can’t accumulate or help a Dow Jones winter water witch. Like snow, weathermen.", ">\n\nIt’s weirdly fitting how much their building sign in the photo looks like a cards against humanity card.", ">\n\nTypical", ">\n\nWow? How unusual.", ">\n\nI’d support double the number of IRS agents", ">\n\nI was low income and won about 3,000 gambling, the irs went after me", ">\n\nThe IRS came after me hard for 8$", ">\n\nAudit frequency should correlate to income, someone with a million in income should be audited 10x those with 100k income", ">\n\nSomeone should explain Pareto charts to the IRS.", ">\n\nI've been audited three times. First when I was 27, did some consulting and didn't do the 1099 prepayments. Ended up owing $17k. Second audit was after moving across country for a job. The tax preparer we hired made a mistake with the move expense deductions, owed a few thousand. Third audit was another tax preparer mistake, but this time we overpaid and were owed money we credited to the next year. \nIf you assume for discussion that the average audit on an ordinary tax payer returns $10,000, it would take 100,000,000 audits to make $1 trillion. By just doing the easy work, the IRS is leaving the real money on the table.", ">\n\nRepublicans are famous for giving rich breaks while middle class etc close the gaps", ">\n\nThe last line, \"The Inflation Reduction Act provides the IRS with $80 billion in future funding to ramp up its audits and potentially target the wealthiest taxpayers.\"", ">\n\nThe cure is not the root cause, but the middle class and the poor will eventually bear the burden after the capital operation", ">\n\nIt’s like they timed the “research” and the drop of the article with the speech. Sad man.", ">\n\nWatch Madoff. The wealthy skate and steal billions. The poor are in prison over thousands.", ">\n\nWhy does their sign look like a Card Against Humanity", ">\n\nFucking Trump, still at it.", ">\n\nOh you mean the thing people said would happen once they got massive funding actually happened? Checks out", ">\n\nOf course they did, because millionaires will lawyer up.", ">\n\nBecause the poor can't afford to fight back.", ">\n\nIt's so unfair the poor and the middle class taxpayers suffer so much while the millionaries got away with not paying the taxes It's really hurting the poor. The middle class is fading", ">\n\nAll of this can be fixed if we just use no-exemption graduated income", ">\n\nYeah we know", ">\n\nShow of hands for all surprised.\ncrickets\nHmm. Seems like Reddit suffers from a plague of double amputees...", ">\n\nWhat the actual fuck", ">\n\nAnd 2021, 2020, 2019, …", ">\n\nSounds about right.", ">\n\nOf course. Poor people can’t afford attorneys.", ">\n\nI made a mistake on my forms while I was overseas and ticked “self-employed” instead of “employed”. I was on a student visa and had two children and was making less than 10k a year. They hounded me for years. By the time I figured out what had happened I could not amend the forms and had paid thousands in penalties and interest.\nMeanwhile I knew lots of people who were there fully employed not reporting their income.\nFuck them.", ">\n\nYep! During the pandemic, even while I wasn't working didn't come after me the entire time that I was working but the minute that I wasn't nobody was cuz we were in lockdown they started popping up", ">\n\nI just now realized that the Cards Against Humanity box looks like the IRS sign", ">\n\nWhy is the sign a Cards Against Humanity question?", ">\n\nI am shocked and appalled. clutches pearls", ">\n\nRich should be taxed more than the average not right at all. Or at least there is a tier system based on pay only makes sense. Come on now", ">\n\nSounds about right, make the rich richer again.", ">\n\nWho are we going to vote for in the future ,all of them are decayed , corrupted and useless , the “most rich country in the world , governed by the most ignorant an corrupted. What a contrast .", ">\n\nGod bless America", ">\n\nno way. wait until you see those people responds. Those people are chipping away.", ">\n\nSounds about right", ">\n\nWe know.", ">\n\nI find it rather comical that Fox news is reporting on this since they are all about pushing the Republican agenda and that is all about pushing everyone else down that isn't rich and keeping them there. Not to mention they had no problem with Trump not paying taxes for years.", ">\n\nCan fucking confirm.", ">\n\nYeah, they (millionaires) have accountants who generally do things right and due to their millions being in investments it's not like it's taxable all the time. \nThen there's the ability to sell any stocks when they're down to build up losses on paper can reinvest them at a loss that can carry over across multiple years.", ">\n\nsounds about right. i don’t have a pot to piss in but they’re all over me for someone stealing my identity and filing a double tax return one year.", ">\n\nDuh", ">\n\nThere’s a reason why FOX is posting this article. The less people at the IRS, the more likely they come after folks who can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nIn order to pursue wealthy tax cheats, the IRS needs more resources and personnel. Otherwise it’s business as usual, picking on the low hanging fruit that earns under 6 figures.", ">\n\nSo wrong ....people need to be fired", ">\n\nIt’s because they can’t afford to take them to court", ">\n\nOf course it is about protecting the rich like Trump who lies ,lies , and about his tax returns . No wonder he did not want them released .", ">\n\nEasy prey bc most ppl can not lawyer up. Pretty heart breaking system we have at times.", ">\n\nWhy does the irs sign look like it's from cards against humanity?", ">\n\nCurrently getting audited over \\~$1500, which they owe me, when the rich get away with murder. Fucking unbelievably and unnecessarily stressful for me.", ">\n\nHas t this been know for a while?", ">\n\nyep and they are the same people getting tax cuts while everyone else does it tough ....\nAny one with too much money is your enemy .... not a hero of democracy", ">\n\nGet rid of taxes and the gov’t should just do stuff for free, or what ever.", ">\n\nYou have to be careful when you get one of those CP2000 notices from the IRS. The way they are written is a trap.\nIf you dispute it you are supposed to indicate that you disagree and send it back with documents supporting your dispute.\nYou are only supposed to sign it if you agree with them and when you sign it you are signing away your rights to dispute the back taxes and penalties they are demanding.\nMere worker bees like us can expect to be getting a lot of those from this years tax returns considering how the threshold for 1099k forms has been dropped to $600.\nGuys like Trump? The IRS doesn't even know where to begin.", ">\n\nThanks Biden", ">\n\nI presume those lower-income bracket filers might be more likely to reach out to 1-800-infomercial [quickie settlement/long-term penalties most favorable to gov/proprietor] than retain proper legal counsel?\nRegardless it’s got to be a lot less work for IRS agent to go after under-represented citizen(s), rather than someone who can afford to appeal, properly negotiate on their own terms?", ">\n\nLmfao Dems tax and spend. But I have to admit there Republicans that tax and spend to. Where do these Politicians get off taxing me or business and give to people who don't work what do you cause d the inflation. You can not print money \nI am Conservative not a Republican. To much money is wasted and put in pockets of people ot don't belong.\nBut all dems know how to tax tax tax. \nIts all great and good until you run out if other peoples money. \nMillionaire just like Berny he hated Millionaires until he became one now he hates Trillionaires. Funny how the gold post changes. And good old Nancy her I side stock trading. So I think you need to rethink.", ">\n\nThe IRS is only doing as directed by whomever controls the White House.", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised by this? Really?", ">\n\nThe sign in the thumbnail looks like a Cards Against Humanity card.", ">\n\nWhile this is mostly true, don’t believe everything you read. I’m no more an accountant than I am a ladies man, but someone (said they’re an accountant) posted a few days ago about this. They explained that the most likely people getting audited are trying to, fraudulently or mistakenly, claim the EITC. \nYES, it’s super easy to “bust” these people for an easy “mistake”. This is who the IRS is cracking down on. \nDo I think it’s better to bust poor people for claiming a few thousand in tax credits vs billionaires who avoid taxes altogether? Of course not, but don’t think they’re actively targeting people who fudge their mileage deductions or miss a decimal point in their calculations as small business owners. It’s simply not happening. \nAnd the reported “87,000 new IRS agents” are replacing the 10’s of 1,000’s of employees set to retire or quit over the next 10 years which doesn’t even begin to fill the gaps we’ve been growing for decades by not hiring and training more willing workers. Not to mention they’re not even close to all employees who will actively audit tax payers. They’re people who answer phones, file papers, assist others, etc… They’re mostly just average people with average jobs so of course the GOP wants to end this. They hate upward mobility and job creation unless that means tax breaks for their billionaire friends.", ">\n\nI wish everyone wasn’t a sheep and would understand this.", ">\n\nI can see the Media doing their best to turn the public against the IRS.", ">\n\nPicking on the week and helpless. That’s what we humans do. We suck. I’m waiting for that big meteor reset button.", ">\n\nAnd Fox news loves this.", ">\n\nLove it, Faux 'News' taking the piss, for 4 years under Dear Leader they campaigned for tax breaks for the rich, now they're pretending to care about the poor !", ">\n\nEvery millionaire should be audited yearly. Period.", ">\n\nAND now the gqp cult promises to rescind the money Biden set aside to aid the IRS to recover taxes from mega millionaire tax cheats like benedict donald, who paid less taxes than most working Americans.", ">\n\nRepublicans want to stop the IRS and Congress from taxing rich people, making the burden of maintaining civilization fall more heavily on poorer people. This is why Republicans vote for tax cuts for the rich and against funding for the IRS.\nAnd since Republican beliefs are based on wishful thinking, Republicans can screw over poor, rural Republicans while simultaneously taking credit for doing it to make Republicans happy about it and blaming it on Democrats to make those same Republicans resentful against Democrats for it. And what else would we expect from a Republican Party that blames Democrats for tricking them into attacking the Capitol to make Trump look bad and justifies and approves of assaulting Capitol police while brandishing their \"thin blue line\" flags.", ">\n\nThe IRS is like any other law enforcement agency, they prefer pursuing the poor because they don't have the resources to protect themselves.", ">\n\nThe IRS building sign looks like its from cards against humanity.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nNot a reliable news source.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nThat picture looks like the worst cards against humanity card too get.", ">\n\nScrew the Murdoch media empire and their failed trickle down ideologies.", ">\n\nOf course, the poorest haven’t paid over 400+ billion for decades. Not sure about the rich, we haven’t checked.", ">\n\nThis is not a surprise. With the recent inflation reduction act, the IRS an additional $80B over 10 years or $8B per year. The IRS budget for 2021 was $13.7B. The additional $8B over the year would be an increase of 58% to their budget. They will be looking to get a lot more money from taxpayers, due to this very large increase in their budget.", ">\n\nFox reported this? I'm in shock", ">\n\nAll propagandists publish clickbaity stuff that makes them sound like maybe they've let up on the evil. Unfortunately it works, since people just upvote headlines.", ">\n\nIt’s only going to get worse in 2023. Those 87k new IRS agents will not be going after the wealthy.", ">\n\nWhy?\nThat’s literally why they were being added. The IRS goes after the poorer taxpayers because they are low-hanging fruit and don’t have the lawyers and accountants to protect them. \nThe additional IRS employees were to give the personnel staffing sufficient to go after the wealthy.", ">\n\nIt doesn’t matter how many IRS agents there are. It will always be easier and more profitable for the IRS to nickel and dime the average taxpayer rather than go after the wealthy, who have the resources to lawyer up with the best lawyers and challenge the IRS in court.", ">\n\nEasier? Yes. More profitable? Doubtful.", ">\n\nIf Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nBut in 2022 ( when Biden was president and the House belonged to the Dems) they didn’t did they.", ">\n\nIt takes time to refactor an organization. It’s still full of Trump appointees.", ">\n\n2020 was a long time ago", ">\n\nNot on organizational time scales. It takes several months to safely restructure an organization as big as the federal government, and when it is the federal government it takes years. Congress gets a say in every political appointment, budget change, and organization change. It’s designed to be slow to assure continuity. \nThere is a saying that every president gets credited and blamed for what the prior administration put in motion. There is a lot of truth to that, and this organizational inertia is a big reason why. There are similar long lags in changing laws, re-writing policies, modifying rules, and so on. It’s a “feature” of having checks and balances.", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit," ]
> and Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again	[ "If Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nAnd when Barry was president they targeted conservative groups. I think phone calls can be made to tell them to back off of the little guy.", ">\n\n\nthey targeted conservative groups.\n\nNo. They went after specifically anti-tax tea party groups. The groups who openly flaunted tax laws", ">\n\nThey also went after progressive, left leaning groups - how do you explain that ? it was political", ">\n\nWait, did they target conservatives or progressives? Lol", ">\n\nBoth- it was quite clear they were involving themselves in politics - that’s what the IG found", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.", ">\n\nYep!\nAlso this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious.\nThe real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade.", ">\n\nThanks for the informative reply.\nYou make great points which I don't doubt. But there are times when I think it's important to consider both the letter and spirit of law at times.\nEven though it is perfectly by the letter of the law that people should be checked, it also seems against the intended spirit of said law that only a certain group of people are checked.\nI am not familiar with US law, but I think most of us can feel some degree of injustice with how things currently are.", ">\n\nThe point is to automate more checking of income common to wealthier people, and devote more resources to auditing those people. The Fox News article is disingenuous in how it describes the automated checking that goes on. It’s not great that rich people aren’t really audited, but there’s no reason to stop the automated checking of income where it’s already being done and essentially free to continue.\nIf you feel differently, explain yourself.", ">\n\nNo, we are in alignment concerning this.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nFUCK FOX NEWS\nFox is pretending to care about us poors. \nDon't reward these fascist fucks with upvotes for a disingenuous clickbait headline. They still hate us for not voting gop.", ">\n\nThey want people to hate the IRS and help defund it so they don’t go after the rich, which was the purpose of the additional funding", ">\n\nThey want people to link this to “87000” new agents, which is obviously happening on social media posts, but it’s not even a thing.", ">\n\nArticle is trash. The author is including correspondence audits (which means the IRS asked for some documentation by mail) for low income filers but not for millionaires when comparing their audit rates. Here are actual numbers according to their own source:\nAudit rates including correspondence audits\nlow income 1.27%\nmillionaires 2.38% \nAudit rates excluding correspondence audits\nlow income 0.0376%\nmillionaires 1.24%\n.\nFor low income filers, nearly all their audits were correspondence audits.", ">\n\nIt's hilarious when Fox News and the GOP pretend they care about poor people.\nNo amount of hypocrisy is too much to try to make democrats look bad.", ">\n\nIts unfortunately far easier to prove married couples who live together filed HoH for extra earned income credit than it is to prove complicated returns were incorrect.", ">\n\nIt's also trivially easy to prove the same child was claimed by two parents which is a lot of correspondence audits.", ">\n\nSo can my back taxes please just get forgiven already. 20% income being taxed is not livable", ">\n\nRepublican love flat rate taxes, you should talk to them.", ">\n\nThey’re required to audit the president and vice president, and that didn’t happen either.", ">\n\nThis isn't new, it's been been having for the last 5 - 6 years.", ">\n\nHopefully some wake up and realize its all just preparing us for the inevitable destruction of our economy. I imagine its almost too late to realize this. If we all realized this wed sell our 401Ks and not lean on money and use it to help our neighbors.", ">\n\nK bro.", ">\n\nMy wife and I are on social security. She works part time to keep us afloat. All in, we earned $50K in 2022. iRS wants $4500 from us. Really? 5X what Trump paid? Don't know if anyone is paying attention but $50k ain't rich. Oh, and out of that comes almost $4k in Medicare premiums. A program we paid into for 40+ years.\nEveryone of these arrogant, unqualified,, spoon fed assholes in Congress should be made to live on SSI or welfare, with no medical coverage, for a year. Then tell me I am acting entitled.\nSelf serving bastards.", ">\n\nDon't upvote this crap.\nDo you really think Fox cares about the working class??\nThis is just right wing propaganda, timed to coincide with McCarthy's promise to get rid of the new IRS agents who make it possible to audit the rich.\nDon't be used.", ">\n\nWhatever happened to \"dont shoot the messenger?\"", ">\n\nIRS understaffing would naturally trend to go after low-lying fruit. Easy pickings. Too many man hours to go after super complex cases. These moneyed fuckers and their bullshit. It's outrageous.", ">\n\nThe vast majority of these audits are automatically generated correspondence audits that have to be issued. We can't just turn off the program that raises a red flag when two people claim the same child as a dependent because we don't have enough forensic accountants. If you mistype your W2 you'll get an \"audit\" showing the correct info from the copy your boss sent them and telling you they'll correct it unless you tell them otherwise and you don't have to do anything if the info they have is correct.", ">\n\nYeah, all the nonsense about the IRS \"going after\" low income people is so stupid. Low income people make money in a way that their reporting is easily verifiable by a computer. They're also most likely to mess up and claim child tax credits incorrectly, etc - all of which is verifiable and issued a letter by a computer. \n-\nOther than actually being able to get someone on the phone when you call the IRS, and increased budget isn't going to impact the average person in any way.", ">\n\nMy thing is even assuming the 87k don't successfully get more money out of the rich, that's still 87k jobs. That's a net positive. I just don't understand the conservative logic here. Do they think these 87k new jobs are specifically for being insidiously predatory toward the poor? Where's the logic here? (I know I'll get hyperbolic answers, but I genuinely would like to know)", ">\n\nIt's 87,000 jobs over 10 years, the majority of which are replacement during that period. It's just a budget supplemental to stop hemorrhaging agents as they retire or cycle out into other jobs.", ">\n\nso.. this is on fox, which I assume support republican efforts to ensure that this is the permanent state of affairs. I don't really get anything anymore.", ">\n\nAnd that is the way the GOP wants it.", ">\n\n💯 Exactly what this Fox article is trying to do.", ">\n\nIt's who can afford a lawyer", ">\n\nAs the article hints at, the IRS does not do a lot of actual auditing. What it does is computer matching, which automatically generates material for a correspondence audit. Most correspondence audits occur because som poor working Joe didn't know he/her was supposed to include or exclude something, and the IRS caught it in its matching. Of course, the problem is that we have a complex code and little help in actually helping people through the various forms, rules, and so on. But millionaires don't have these issues, so they can escape most of the traps that lead to a correspondence audit. If a lot of these 87,000 were in taxpayer service (which I expect) it would lead to fewer audits at the low end, more robust audits for large corporations, wealthy individuals, and those who actively use tax avoidance strategies. But of course that is not the dialogue that gets promoted when the 87,000 agents are discussed.", ">\n\nThis is exactly why Fox News needs to be dismantled and thrown in the garbage. Ugh, \"look poors! They're coming for yoU!!!\". Scare tactics. And guess what? It sadly works. Every time.\nThey're lower than scum.", ">\n\nExactly. It's when someone misreports a number from their W2, didn't report 1099s they received, both separated parents claim a tax credit for the same kid, etc. All stuff that's easily checked by a computer. The IRS isn't \"auditing\" random low to middle income people. That would be a complete waste of their time.", ">\n\nlooks at Trump You don't say.", ">\n\nThe poor can't defend themselves, it's easier to take a little bit of money from people that won't fight back than a lot of money from people that will.", ">\n\nThe mega rich seem like they’re on a mission to destroy America, as we know it.", ">\n\nHiring 87,000 new IRS agents makes it possible to audit billionaires. So they pay their share. Those audits require an actual person or team that knows what they are doing. But Kevin McCarthy's first item of business was to announce legislation to overturn the hiring of 87,000 IRS agents. Meaning only the little guy (who can be audited by computer software) pays taxes.\nSSDD", ">\n\nThe \"87,000\" agents budget is over a ten year period. It's not for 87,000 new positions.", ">\n\nThe title is so misleading. Im surprised fox even put the juicy bit in the article about how (this stat is due to there not being enough IRS workers because) these \"audits\" on low earners are just automated letters asking for more info.\nYet again, this is just millionairs paid by billionairs to mislead the masses into blaming the poor for crimes committed by said billionairs.", ">\n\nWhich is why the IRS needs more manpower and budget, so they can go after the big fish.\nFuck Fox News and their Republican propaganda pieces. This article coincides with McCarthy saying they’ll cut the IRS budget and that the IRS is coming for you.\nFuck off Republican propaganda rag!\nStop upvoting any Fox News story. Fox should not be on the white list.", ">\n\nThis is a terrible article. It seems to include questions about tax returns as audits. If a low income filer makes a mistake it should be corrected. Is that an audit? If anyone makes a mistake and is contacted, is that an audit? Also there is no reason to go after low income as they rarely pay tax or are required to. The money requested would also pay for people to answer a phone. Those against increasing funding lie when they say all of it goes to audits. If you tell the truth, who cares if you are audited? Are y’all aware you can track your personal return online? However a business cannot. Businesses have to rely on humans that can’t be reached. I’ve waited a year for a refund. Didn’t know if IRS received the return. Didn’t know if there was an issue. Didn’t know if it was mailed or lost. I’m getting tired of Republicans pushing their crap on people.", ">\n\nwho keeps upvoting this right wing propaganda", ">\n\nWhy would the GOP want to give the agency the power to go after their donors.", ">\n\nAnd it was trumps guy that mandated it while Biden replaced him", ">\n\nApparently the mere use of an accounting firm somehow protected corps and the rich from the IRS who still (mistakenly) believe the accounting firms are trustworthy. How naive.", ">\n\nThe \"audits\" talked about are mostly form letters requesting more info about specific items.", ">\n\nThe poor can't pay for top flight attorneys.", ">\n\nYep keep the IRS underfunded so they can only go after the poors at the same time telling all the poors that the IRS is bad cause it goes after them but leave out the fact that they do that cause the poors are low hanging fruit.\nRepublicans are evil.", ">\n\nWell the GOP wants to cut funding to the IRS for new agents, so I’m sure the poor folk will continue to get screwed. I say toss the 50,000+ page tax code out and replace with a percentage based on total revenue/income made. Took a loss? No write-offs. Oh well, better luck next year. It’ll never happen because the wealthy don’t want it to.", ">\n\nWhere did you get this info? I know GOPers have been slashing IRS budgets and staffing for years but can't find reliable sources for what this has done to the actual audits - like who gets audited.", ">\n\nTheir link is Fox. This is a bad faith post.", ">\n\nThis says a lot coming from fox “news”", ">\n\nTo paraphrase Gilbert K. Chesterton, \"The Poor have sometimes objected to being taxed too heavily; The Rich have always objected to being taxed at all.\"", ">\n\ndon't post Fox news here....", ">\n\nCorporations and millionaires have the means to hire accountants and attorneys. Our tax code is gray in several areas. It’s easy to go after the poor that do not have the resources and will have no choice but to pay anything the IRS says. The additional agents will continue to target the poor and middle class because they are easy, It’s happened before, it will continue to happen.", ">\n\nI think it's funny/sad that a poor person can win the lottery and they get taxed at a higher rate than any billionaire has ever been taxed at. The system is built to keep the rich - rich and the poor - poor.", ">\n\nThe poorest can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nThe current system cannot be sustained. We are hurtling towards disaster.", ">\n\nThe only reason the bastards have the majority is because the corrupt SCOTUS allowed illegal gerrymanders to stand while they were fought in the courts.", ">\n\nThe I.R.S. goes after the poorer people because it's easier. They can't afford lawyers and accountants. So the poor can do nothing but roll over and take it up the rump. The Inflation Reduction Act that Biden signed into law in August is supposed to give $80 Billion to the I.R.S. so they can go after the millionaires. But we know that won't happen. More poor people are going to get screwed.", ">\n\nI'm confused. For decades, Faux news and the conservatives have been saying that millionaires deserve to keep more of their money than we do. That was a huge part of the 2017 tax scam that Trump signed. Now Faux is saying it's a problem? And they are rightly detailing that Republicans are the cause, along with Biden trying to fix the same issue that Fox has helped create?", ">\n\nFox News", ">\n\nHey IRS, don't forget to crawl up my ass this year because I sold some old stuff on eBay for a loss but make sure you put a few man hours into figuring out if it is legit or not.", ">\n\nlol, and the people opposed to IRS funding will say they are anti-establishment.", ">\n\nImagine how much they could squeeze the middle class with 87,000 more agents! But really, it’ll be good to see if the increase in officers actually increases tax revenue without changing the underlying laws.", ">\n\nSo, this is the newest Republican boogeyman, the IRS.\nWell, better than Drag Queens I guess.", ">\n\nOh hey just like last year, and the year before that, I think there might be a pattern", ">\n\nThank you republicans, always sticking up in the back on the small guys…", ">\n\nFox News saying this like it’s not something Rupert Murdoch’s network supports is pretty funny.", ">\n\nFox News. Ignore it.", ">\n\nFox News is still allowed in here?", ">\n\nFake news. This is Republican propaganda coming from Fox News.", ">\n\nFox News is NOT news", ">\n\nHmm sounds like it was underfunded then. Good thing now we helped ease that problem. Thanks Biden", ">\n\nIt's simply laziness by the IRS. Lower-income households have less complicated returns and easier to process. I'm sure IRS runs a non-effective but management-pleasing metric like \"how many returns were corrected\" opposed to how much money was recouped.", ">\n\nWe know. They don't have the resources to do anything. That was the point of increasing the staffing at the IRS so they had even the slightest hope of going after the big offenders with their armies or lawyers.", ">\n\nThere's less millionaires and billionaires than there are us. I'm not sure that answer fits the accuracy on hiring more workers but I'll go ahead and amuse that", ">\n\nIt's not a game of tax guy vs rich guy. The rich literally have armies of lawyers. You need the staff to overcome all the paper and challenges they'll throw at you. \nIf you throw one person to audit a millionaire, their lawyers can make it so it'll take a year to review a week of operations. Investigations will never finish unless there's sufficient staff to overcome their obstruction.", ">\n\nTo this day I do not understand why the IRS can demand our documents every year without a warrant. The 16th amendment does not alter the 4th, and the 4th does not apply only to criminal actions (as the 5th explicitly does). Yet no one seems to care about this annual violations.", ">\n\nReminder, Fox News is not news. It's entertainment, and should be regarded as such.", ">\n\nNo shit, poor ppl tend to file their own taxes and screw up where as millionaires hire expensive accountants to exploit all the legal loopholes without getting their clients in trouble.\nI don't think it's an intentional targeting as the article may be implying.", ">\n\nOne might imagine the resources of agents would be better put to use by focusing on returns that might produce more revenue, however it may be just a lot easier to collect a few bucks from easier targets.", ">\n\nThey are short staffed and accountants make it so difficult to find wrongdoing, if there is even wrongdoing to be found, that it would take a decent chunk of their workforce just to tackle it. It's like trying to find needle in a haystack but you don't know if there's a needle or not.", ">\n\nSo true....", ">\n\nShocked pikachu face.", ">\n\nYeah I’d believe this if it weren’t Fox News. They could give a fuck about the poor and middle class.", ">\n\nI would literally rather the IRS spend its time auditing 5 extraordinarily rich people or a single business than anyone who makes less than 100k per year\nETA: I’m aware that this article represents part of the Republican agenda to just gut the IRS and welfare spending generally. And I understand the difficulties in auditing the rich/businesses v lower income people claiming tax credits, etc", ">\n\nAlmost all of the little people \"audits\" are just a computer issuing a correspondence \"audit\" because the person misreported something from their W2, didn't report as much 1099 income as was reported to the IRS by others, or separated parents both trying to claim kids for tax credits or something. \n-\nThey don't really pull from the same resources. The rich people audits require human beings. Little people \"audits\" aren't really audits and a computer can do it. So if we want to audit more rich people, they need actual budget for human beings. The little people are going to be caught anyways because a computer can do it.", ">\n\nI interned at the IRS during the summer of 2012 when Lois Lerner made batshit crazy commrnts that they were targetting conservative groups", ">\n\nI say this every time it gets brought up. This is by design. I used to work in auditing and also used to do tax stuff. It’s super easy to find tax fraud on someone who only has a simple W-2 and no other income. You could find those people through a basic algorithm. Meanwhile, auditing a multi millionaire is expensive, time consuming, and often fruitless. If I was in charge of an underfunded, understaffed IRS I would tell my staff to go for the easy wins too.", ">\n\nUnpopular opinion - More funding won't resolve this. \nThe IRS will keep doing this. Unless rules & regulations forbid or disincentivize this practice, the IRS will keep this stupid practice", ">\n\nI make $40,000 a year and the IRS froze my bank accounts until I paid them $1000 in taxes I owed them because of an error I made filling my taxes. They froze my bank accounts for $1000. I was fucked for a month. I had to borrow cash from people just for food and gas money to get to work to get paid money that I couldn’t access. It was a scary time for me. Meanwhile millionaires are purposely avoiding taxes worth more than what I make in a year and nothing happens to them.", ">\n\nThe IRS sends no less than a dozen letters to a taxpayer prior to leaving a bank account. Why didn't you just put it into a repayment plan? Takes about ten minutes online.", ">\n\nDon't you just hate autocorrect?", ">\n\nIf true, its a holdover from jrbush who slashed IRS staff and budget and told them to spend more time auditing tip jars and busboys than millionaires because the millionaires had better lawyers than the IRS and service workers were unlikely to have any lawyers at all.", ">\n\nFox News solution: remove the IRS", ">\n\nAbsolutely. They’ll NEVER target the rich, adding more agents just made them a lot more capable to target all the lower class.", ">\n\nWhat people don't realize..Those 87K \"Agents\" aren't that. It's 87K employees over 25 years. Clerks etc. People are so fucking stupid when they just believe these clowns.", ">\n\nThose numbers also count it as an \"audit\" when a person misreports a number from a W2, 1099s, etc and the irs number matching software sends an automatically generated correspondence letter that basically says \"we actually show this number, this is what your tax return would have been if you reported that number correctly\". \nThe IRS isn't wasting time doing random \"audits\" as people think of them for low to middle income people. It would be a complete waste of their time. The computer just catches obvious verifiable mistakes and it counts as an audit in those numbers.", ">\n\n“those in the lowest income bracket hit 12.7 per 1,000….. The odds of a millionaire facing an audit were around 1.1%.”\nSo they’re saying 1.27% vs 1.1%!!! And acting like that’s a scandal 🙄", ">\n\nWhich means millionaires REALLY don't want more IRS auditors which means when our new resident house fascist fires five thousand auditors, said fascist (McCarthy) is making sure those millionaires aren't going to get audited. \nCha CHING !!! Go the \"donations\" into house rat republican's pockets. \nThe grift will be in full swing shortly.\nAnd with putin whispering in their ears and telling them EXACTLY how break the law - how can they lose?", ">\n\n💯 Exactly why theres a Fox link here pushing for that same reason.", ">\n\nTwo things. First of all, this is from a far right-wing propaganda outlet which should immediately raise red flags. They're trying to scare you into allowing a republican-initiated movement to entirely remove all remaining power from the IRS by making it seem like they're coming after you.\nSecond, the reason the IRS is already already virtually powerless against the rich is because the republicans have already eviscerated them in the past several decades, largely through defunding them leading to not only staffing cuts, but the inability to pursue the wealthiest people who have the resources for endless litigation. So as a result, the FBI can only really afford to go after people who cannot financially defend themselves.", ">\n\nThird, you might as well throw in that the aiming low guidance was under a Trump appointee who is no longer in that position.", ">\n\nThe GOP intentionally defunded the IRS so that it could not audit the wealthy. It takes a great deal more money upfront to audit them but the payback is far greater.", ">\n\nI'm not sure why dems voted against an amendment that would have mandated the giant infusion of cash into the IRS couldn't be used to audit folks making >$400k.", ">\n\nHrm this is pretty fucked I'd like to hear about why the Dems voted nay.", ">\n\nBecause they work for the same people as Republicans. \nThey are different but only when their owners allow them to be. \nI don't know how many times we are going to have to learn this lesson before it sticks.", ">\n\nDemocrats are responsible for this", ">\n\nThe rich returns are just too hard, enough lower class errors you can leave the rich alone. Love to see it… sigh", ">\n\nIt takes money to police the wealthy. Can't have that can we?!", ">\n\nr/noshitsherlock", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised?\nI’m not even American and this seemed obvious to me. All you have to do is look at how the poor live and compare that to the news about someone like Elon musk or Donald trump.", ">\n\nThis is why the IRS needs to go.", ">\n\nFox News helped make that happen.", ">\n\nThey'll never change,all the time when the guys in charge benefit from doing the same shit.", ">\n\nAnd yet the republicans dont submit or pass legislations to change the rules to favor targeting rich people. Curious.", ">\n\nThen 78,000 new, armed tax collectors should be able to extract even more money from the poor, middle-class and small business owners.", ">\n\nWhy did they focus on the Poorest? The thought of 87,000 more of them will actually do what? If the existing can’t focus on the wealthy! Then what makes anybody think more can?", ">\n\nMillionaires and billionaires make the government more money by creating lobbying loopholes and exploiting the economy to bilk the 99%. It's really cheap to go after the poorest who are struggling to pay day to day obligations and don't have loopholes or government sanctioned exploitation to take advantage of.", ">\n\nI could have told you this would happen. You think millionaires get $600 Venmo transactions?", ">\n\nThat's a move democrats should not make. That's one month of rent for me. What of folks worse-off?", ">\n\nHonestly it’s like squeezing blood from the stone over here anyway.", ">\n\nDuh lmfao theyve already stated it costs too much to tax weathy people previously and its most cost effective to audit the poor due to many factors...", ">\n\nI mean 99% of us are poor compared to the other 1%", ">\n\nColor me surprised", ">\n\nWe need some laws for equitable auditing.", ">\n\nYou are an Army commander about to attack the enemy. Do you prefer to attack where they have experienced career solders backed up by artillery, tanks, and airplanes, or do you attack where there are poorly armed and equipped untrained conscripts?", ">\n\nThey must be upset someone replaced their sign with a card from Cards Against Humanity", ">\n\nMay it ever be so…. Don’t reproduce if you only consume and can’t accumulate or help a Dow Jones winter water witch. Like snow, weathermen.", ">\n\nIt’s weirdly fitting how much their building sign in the photo looks like a cards against humanity card.", ">\n\nTypical", ">\n\nWow? How unusual.", ">\n\nI’d support double the number of IRS agents", ">\n\nI was low income and won about 3,000 gambling, the irs went after me", ">\n\nThe IRS came after me hard for 8$", ">\n\nAudit frequency should correlate to income, someone with a million in income should be audited 10x those with 100k income", ">\n\nSomeone should explain Pareto charts to the IRS.", ">\n\nI've been audited three times. First when I was 27, did some consulting and didn't do the 1099 prepayments. Ended up owing $17k. Second audit was after moving across country for a job. The tax preparer we hired made a mistake with the move expense deductions, owed a few thousand. Third audit was another tax preparer mistake, but this time we overpaid and were owed money we credited to the next year. \nIf you assume for discussion that the average audit on an ordinary tax payer returns $10,000, it would take 100,000,000 audits to make $1 trillion. By just doing the easy work, the IRS is leaving the real money on the table.", ">\n\nRepublicans are famous for giving rich breaks while middle class etc close the gaps", ">\n\nThe last line, \"The Inflation Reduction Act provides the IRS with $80 billion in future funding to ramp up its audits and potentially target the wealthiest taxpayers.\"", ">\n\nThe cure is not the root cause, but the middle class and the poor will eventually bear the burden after the capital operation", ">\n\nIt’s like they timed the “research” and the drop of the article with the speech. Sad man.", ">\n\nWatch Madoff. The wealthy skate and steal billions. The poor are in prison over thousands.", ">\n\nWhy does their sign look like a Card Against Humanity", ">\n\nFucking Trump, still at it.", ">\n\nOh you mean the thing people said would happen once they got massive funding actually happened? Checks out", ">\n\nOf course they did, because millionaires will lawyer up.", ">\n\nBecause the poor can't afford to fight back.", ">\n\nIt's so unfair the poor and the middle class taxpayers suffer so much while the millionaries got away with not paying the taxes It's really hurting the poor. The middle class is fading", ">\n\nAll of this can be fixed if we just use no-exemption graduated income", ">\n\nYeah we know", ">\n\nShow of hands for all surprised.\ncrickets\nHmm. Seems like Reddit suffers from a plague of double amputees...", ">\n\nWhat the actual fuck", ">\n\nAnd 2021, 2020, 2019, …", ">\n\nSounds about right.", ">\n\nOf course. Poor people can’t afford attorneys.", ">\n\nI made a mistake on my forms while I was overseas and ticked “self-employed” instead of “employed”. I was on a student visa and had two children and was making less than 10k a year. They hounded me for years. By the time I figured out what had happened I could not amend the forms and had paid thousands in penalties and interest.\nMeanwhile I knew lots of people who were there fully employed not reporting their income.\nFuck them.", ">\n\nYep! During the pandemic, even while I wasn't working didn't come after me the entire time that I was working but the minute that I wasn't nobody was cuz we were in lockdown they started popping up", ">\n\nI just now realized that the Cards Against Humanity box looks like the IRS sign", ">\n\nWhy is the sign a Cards Against Humanity question?", ">\n\nI am shocked and appalled. clutches pearls", ">\n\nRich should be taxed more than the average not right at all. Or at least there is a tier system based on pay only makes sense. Come on now", ">\n\nSounds about right, make the rich richer again.", ">\n\nWho are we going to vote for in the future ,all of them are decayed , corrupted and useless , the “most rich country in the world , governed by the most ignorant an corrupted. What a contrast .", ">\n\nGod bless America", ">\n\nno way. wait until you see those people responds. Those people are chipping away.", ">\n\nSounds about right", ">\n\nWe know.", ">\n\nI find it rather comical that Fox news is reporting on this since they are all about pushing the Republican agenda and that is all about pushing everyone else down that isn't rich and keeping them there. Not to mention they had no problem with Trump not paying taxes for years.", ">\n\nCan fucking confirm.", ">\n\nYeah, they (millionaires) have accountants who generally do things right and due to their millions being in investments it's not like it's taxable all the time. \nThen there's the ability to sell any stocks when they're down to build up losses on paper can reinvest them at a loss that can carry over across multiple years.", ">\n\nsounds about right. i don’t have a pot to piss in but they’re all over me for someone stealing my identity and filing a double tax return one year.", ">\n\nDuh", ">\n\nThere’s a reason why FOX is posting this article. The less people at the IRS, the more likely they come after folks who can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nIn order to pursue wealthy tax cheats, the IRS needs more resources and personnel. Otherwise it’s business as usual, picking on the low hanging fruit that earns under 6 figures.", ">\n\nSo wrong ....people need to be fired", ">\n\nIt’s because they can’t afford to take them to court", ">\n\nOf course it is about protecting the rich like Trump who lies ,lies , and about his tax returns . No wonder he did not want them released .", ">\n\nEasy prey bc most ppl can not lawyer up. Pretty heart breaking system we have at times.", ">\n\nWhy does the irs sign look like it's from cards against humanity?", ">\n\nCurrently getting audited over \\~$1500, which they owe me, when the rich get away with murder. Fucking unbelievably and unnecessarily stressful for me.", ">\n\nHas t this been know for a while?", ">\n\nyep and they are the same people getting tax cuts while everyone else does it tough ....\nAny one with too much money is your enemy .... not a hero of democracy", ">\n\nGet rid of taxes and the gov’t should just do stuff for free, or what ever.", ">\n\nYou have to be careful when you get one of those CP2000 notices from the IRS. The way they are written is a trap.\nIf you dispute it you are supposed to indicate that you disagree and send it back with documents supporting your dispute.\nYou are only supposed to sign it if you agree with them and when you sign it you are signing away your rights to dispute the back taxes and penalties they are demanding.\nMere worker bees like us can expect to be getting a lot of those from this years tax returns considering how the threshold for 1099k forms has been dropped to $600.\nGuys like Trump? The IRS doesn't even know where to begin.", ">\n\nThanks Biden", ">\n\nI presume those lower-income bracket filers might be more likely to reach out to 1-800-infomercial [quickie settlement/long-term penalties most favorable to gov/proprietor] than retain proper legal counsel?\nRegardless it’s got to be a lot less work for IRS agent to go after under-represented citizen(s), rather than someone who can afford to appeal, properly negotiate on their own terms?", ">\n\nLmfao Dems tax and spend. But I have to admit there Republicans that tax and spend to. Where do these Politicians get off taxing me or business and give to people who don't work what do you cause d the inflation. You can not print money \nI am Conservative not a Republican. To much money is wasted and put in pockets of people ot don't belong.\nBut all dems know how to tax tax tax. \nIts all great and good until you run out if other peoples money. \nMillionaire just like Berny he hated Millionaires until he became one now he hates Trillionaires. Funny how the gold post changes. And good old Nancy her I side stock trading. So I think you need to rethink.", ">\n\nThe IRS is only doing as directed by whomever controls the White House.", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised by this? Really?", ">\n\nThe sign in the thumbnail looks like a Cards Against Humanity card.", ">\n\nWhile this is mostly true, don’t believe everything you read. I’m no more an accountant than I am a ladies man, but someone (said they’re an accountant) posted a few days ago about this. They explained that the most likely people getting audited are trying to, fraudulently or mistakenly, claim the EITC. \nYES, it’s super easy to “bust” these people for an easy “mistake”. This is who the IRS is cracking down on. \nDo I think it’s better to bust poor people for claiming a few thousand in tax credits vs billionaires who avoid taxes altogether? Of course not, but don’t think they’re actively targeting people who fudge their mileage deductions or miss a decimal point in their calculations as small business owners. It’s simply not happening. \nAnd the reported “87,000 new IRS agents” are replacing the 10’s of 1,000’s of employees set to retire or quit over the next 10 years which doesn’t even begin to fill the gaps we’ve been growing for decades by not hiring and training more willing workers. Not to mention they’re not even close to all employees who will actively audit tax payers. They’re people who answer phones, file papers, assist others, etc… They’re mostly just average people with average jobs so of course the GOP wants to end this. They hate upward mobility and job creation unless that means tax breaks for their billionaire friends.", ">\n\nI wish everyone wasn’t a sheep and would understand this.", ">\n\nI can see the Media doing their best to turn the public against the IRS.", ">\n\nPicking on the week and helpless. That’s what we humans do. We suck. I’m waiting for that big meteor reset button.", ">\n\nAnd Fox news loves this.", ">\n\nLove it, Faux 'News' taking the piss, for 4 years under Dear Leader they campaigned for tax breaks for the rich, now they're pretending to care about the poor !", ">\n\nEvery millionaire should be audited yearly. Period.", ">\n\nAND now the gqp cult promises to rescind the money Biden set aside to aid the IRS to recover taxes from mega millionaire tax cheats like benedict donald, who paid less taxes than most working Americans.", ">\n\nRepublicans want to stop the IRS and Congress from taxing rich people, making the burden of maintaining civilization fall more heavily on poorer people. This is why Republicans vote for tax cuts for the rich and against funding for the IRS.\nAnd since Republican beliefs are based on wishful thinking, Republicans can screw over poor, rural Republicans while simultaneously taking credit for doing it to make Republicans happy about it and blaming it on Democrats to make those same Republicans resentful against Democrats for it. And what else would we expect from a Republican Party that blames Democrats for tricking them into attacking the Capitol to make Trump look bad and justifies and approves of assaulting Capitol police while brandishing their \"thin blue line\" flags.", ">\n\nThe IRS is like any other law enforcement agency, they prefer pursuing the poor because they don't have the resources to protect themselves.", ">\n\nThe IRS building sign looks like its from cards against humanity.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nNot a reliable news source.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nThat picture looks like the worst cards against humanity card too get.", ">\n\nScrew the Murdoch media empire and their failed trickle down ideologies.", ">\n\nOf course, the poorest haven’t paid over 400+ billion for decades. Not sure about the rich, we haven’t checked.", ">\n\nThis is not a surprise. With the recent inflation reduction act, the IRS an additional $80B over 10 years or $8B per year. The IRS budget for 2021 was $13.7B. The additional $8B over the year would be an increase of 58% to their budget. They will be looking to get a lot more money from taxpayers, due to this very large increase in their budget.", ">\n\nFox reported this? I'm in shock", ">\n\nAll propagandists publish clickbaity stuff that makes them sound like maybe they've let up on the evil. Unfortunately it works, since people just upvote headlines.", ">\n\nIt’s only going to get worse in 2023. Those 87k new IRS agents will not be going after the wealthy.", ">\n\nWhy?\nThat’s literally why they were being added. The IRS goes after the poorer taxpayers because they are low-hanging fruit and don’t have the lawyers and accountants to protect them. \nThe additional IRS employees were to give the personnel staffing sufficient to go after the wealthy.", ">\n\nIt doesn’t matter how many IRS agents there are. It will always be easier and more profitable for the IRS to nickel and dime the average taxpayer rather than go after the wealthy, who have the resources to lawyer up with the best lawyers and challenge the IRS in court.", ">\n\nEasier? Yes. More profitable? Doubtful.", ">\n\nIf Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nBut in 2022 ( when Biden was president and the House belonged to the Dems) they didn’t did they.", ">\n\nIt takes time to refactor an organization. It’s still full of Trump appointees.", ">\n\n2020 was a long time ago", ">\n\nNot on organizational time scales. It takes several months to safely restructure an organization as big as the federal government, and when it is the federal government it takes years. Congress gets a say in every political appointment, budget change, and organization change. It’s designed to be slow to assure continuity. \nThere is a saying that every president gets credited and blamed for what the prior administration put in motion. There is a lot of truth to that, and this organizational inertia is a big reason why. There are similar long lags in changing laws, re-writing policies, modifying rules, and so on. It’s a “feature” of having checks and balances.", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns." ]
> The changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.	[ "If Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nAnd when Barry was president they targeted conservative groups. I think phone calls can be made to tell them to back off of the little guy.", ">\n\n\nthey targeted conservative groups.\n\nNo. They went after specifically anti-tax tea party groups. The groups who openly flaunted tax laws", ">\n\nThey also went after progressive, left leaning groups - how do you explain that ? it was political", ">\n\nWait, did they target conservatives or progressives? Lol", ">\n\nBoth- it was quite clear they were involving themselves in politics - that’s what the IG found", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.", ">\n\nYep!\nAlso this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious.\nThe real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade.", ">\n\nThanks for the informative reply.\nYou make great points which I don't doubt. But there are times when I think it's important to consider both the letter and spirit of law at times.\nEven though it is perfectly by the letter of the law that people should be checked, it also seems against the intended spirit of said law that only a certain group of people are checked.\nI am not familiar with US law, but I think most of us can feel some degree of injustice with how things currently are.", ">\n\nThe point is to automate more checking of income common to wealthier people, and devote more resources to auditing those people. The Fox News article is disingenuous in how it describes the automated checking that goes on. It’s not great that rich people aren’t really audited, but there’s no reason to stop the automated checking of income where it’s already being done and essentially free to continue.\nIf you feel differently, explain yourself.", ">\n\nNo, we are in alignment concerning this.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nFUCK FOX NEWS\nFox is pretending to care about us poors. \nDon't reward these fascist fucks with upvotes for a disingenuous clickbait headline. They still hate us for not voting gop.", ">\n\nThey want people to hate the IRS and help defund it so they don’t go after the rich, which was the purpose of the additional funding", ">\n\nThey want people to link this to “87000” new agents, which is obviously happening on social media posts, but it’s not even a thing.", ">\n\nArticle is trash. The author is including correspondence audits (which means the IRS asked for some documentation by mail) for low income filers but not for millionaires when comparing their audit rates. Here are actual numbers according to their own source:\nAudit rates including correspondence audits\nlow income 1.27%\nmillionaires 2.38% \nAudit rates excluding correspondence audits\nlow income 0.0376%\nmillionaires 1.24%\n.\nFor low income filers, nearly all their audits were correspondence audits.", ">\n\nIt's hilarious when Fox News and the GOP pretend they care about poor people.\nNo amount of hypocrisy is too much to try to make democrats look bad.", ">\n\nIts unfortunately far easier to prove married couples who live together filed HoH for extra earned income credit than it is to prove complicated returns were incorrect.", ">\n\nIt's also trivially easy to prove the same child was claimed by two parents which is a lot of correspondence audits.", ">\n\nSo can my back taxes please just get forgiven already. 20% income being taxed is not livable", ">\n\nRepublican love flat rate taxes, you should talk to them.", ">\n\nThey’re required to audit the president and vice president, and that didn’t happen either.", ">\n\nThis isn't new, it's been been having for the last 5 - 6 years.", ">\n\nHopefully some wake up and realize its all just preparing us for the inevitable destruction of our economy. I imagine its almost too late to realize this. If we all realized this wed sell our 401Ks and not lean on money and use it to help our neighbors.", ">\n\nK bro.", ">\n\nMy wife and I are on social security. She works part time to keep us afloat. All in, we earned $50K in 2022. iRS wants $4500 from us. Really? 5X what Trump paid? Don't know if anyone is paying attention but $50k ain't rich. Oh, and out of that comes almost $4k in Medicare premiums. A program we paid into for 40+ years.\nEveryone of these arrogant, unqualified,, spoon fed assholes in Congress should be made to live on SSI or welfare, with no medical coverage, for a year. Then tell me I am acting entitled.\nSelf serving bastards.", ">\n\nDon't upvote this crap.\nDo you really think Fox cares about the working class??\nThis is just right wing propaganda, timed to coincide with McCarthy's promise to get rid of the new IRS agents who make it possible to audit the rich.\nDon't be used.", ">\n\nWhatever happened to \"dont shoot the messenger?\"", ">\n\nIRS understaffing would naturally trend to go after low-lying fruit. Easy pickings. Too many man hours to go after super complex cases. These moneyed fuckers and their bullshit. It's outrageous.", ">\n\nThe vast majority of these audits are automatically generated correspondence audits that have to be issued. We can't just turn off the program that raises a red flag when two people claim the same child as a dependent because we don't have enough forensic accountants. If you mistype your W2 you'll get an \"audit\" showing the correct info from the copy your boss sent them and telling you they'll correct it unless you tell them otherwise and you don't have to do anything if the info they have is correct.", ">\n\nYeah, all the nonsense about the IRS \"going after\" low income people is so stupid. Low income people make money in a way that their reporting is easily verifiable by a computer. They're also most likely to mess up and claim child tax credits incorrectly, etc - all of which is verifiable and issued a letter by a computer. \n-\nOther than actually being able to get someone on the phone when you call the IRS, and increased budget isn't going to impact the average person in any way.", ">\n\nMy thing is even assuming the 87k don't successfully get more money out of the rich, that's still 87k jobs. That's a net positive. I just don't understand the conservative logic here. Do they think these 87k new jobs are specifically for being insidiously predatory toward the poor? Where's the logic here? (I know I'll get hyperbolic answers, but I genuinely would like to know)", ">\n\nIt's 87,000 jobs over 10 years, the majority of which are replacement during that period. It's just a budget supplemental to stop hemorrhaging agents as they retire or cycle out into other jobs.", ">\n\nso.. this is on fox, which I assume support republican efforts to ensure that this is the permanent state of affairs. I don't really get anything anymore.", ">\n\nAnd that is the way the GOP wants it.", ">\n\n💯 Exactly what this Fox article is trying to do.", ">\n\nIt's who can afford a lawyer", ">\n\nAs the article hints at, the IRS does not do a lot of actual auditing. What it does is computer matching, which automatically generates material for a correspondence audit. Most correspondence audits occur because som poor working Joe didn't know he/her was supposed to include or exclude something, and the IRS caught it in its matching. Of course, the problem is that we have a complex code and little help in actually helping people through the various forms, rules, and so on. But millionaires don't have these issues, so they can escape most of the traps that lead to a correspondence audit. If a lot of these 87,000 were in taxpayer service (which I expect) it would lead to fewer audits at the low end, more robust audits for large corporations, wealthy individuals, and those who actively use tax avoidance strategies. But of course that is not the dialogue that gets promoted when the 87,000 agents are discussed.", ">\n\nThis is exactly why Fox News needs to be dismantled and thrown in the garbage. Ugh, \"look poors! They're coming for yoU!!!\". Scare tactics. And guess what? It sadly works. Every time.\nThey're lower than scum.", ">\n\nExactly. It's when someone misreports a number from their W2, didn't report 1099s they received, both separated parents claim a tax credit for the same kid, etc. All stuff that's easily checked by a computer. The IRS isn't \"auditing\" random low to middle income people. That would be a complete waste of their time.", ">\n\nlooks at Trump You don't say.", ">\n\nThe poor can't defend themselves, it's easier to take a little bit of money from people that won't fight back than a lot of money from people that will.", ">\n\nThe mega rich seem like they’re on a mission to destroy America, as we know it.", ">\n\nHiring 87,000 new IRS agents makes it possible to audit billionaires. So they pay their share. Those audits require an actual person or team that knows what they are doing. But Kevin McCarthy's first item of business was to announce legislation to overturn the hiring of 87,000 IRS agents. Meaning only the little guy (who can be audited by computer software) pays taxes.\nSSDD", ">\n\nThe \"87,000\" agents budget is over a ten year period. It's not for 87,000 new positions.", ">\n\nThe title is so misleading. Im surprised fox even put the juicy bit in the article about how (this stat is due to there not being enough IRS workers because) these \"audits\" on low earners are just automated letters asking for more info.\nYet again, this is just millionairs paid by billionairs to mislead the masses into blaming the poor for crimes committed by said billionairs.", ">\n\nWhich is why the IRS needs more manpower and budget, so they can go after the big fish.\nFuck Fox News and their Republican propaganda pieces. This article coincides with McCarthy saying they’ll cut the IRS budget and that the IRS is coming for you.\nFuck off Republican propaganda rag!\nStop upvoting any Fox News story. Fox should not be on the white list.", ">\n\nThis is a terrible article. It seems to include questions about tax returns as audits. If a low income filer makes a mistake it should be corrected. Is that an audit? If anyone makes a mistake and is contacted, is that an audit? Also there is no reason to go after low income as they rarely pay tax or are required to. The money requested would also pay for people to answer a phone. Those against increasing funding lie when they say all of it goes to audits. If you tell the truth, who cares if you are audited? Are y’all aware you can track your personal return online? However a business cannot. Businesses have to rely on humans that can’t be reached. I’ve waited a year for a refund. Didn’t know if IRS received the return. Didn’t know if there was an issue. Didn’t know if it was mailed or lost. I’m getting tired of Republicans pushing their crap on people.", ">\n\nwho keeps upvoting this right wing propaganda", ">\n\nWhy would the GOP want to give the agency the power to go after their donors.", ">\n\nAnd it was trumps guy that mandated it while Biden replaced him", ">\n\nApparently the mere use of an accounting firm somehow protected corps and the rich from the IRS who still (mistakenly) believe the accounting firms are trustworthy. How naive.", ">\n\nThe \"audits\" talked about are mostly form letters requesting more info about specific items.", ">\n\nThe poor can't pay for top flight attorneys.", ">\n\nYep keep the IRS underfunded so they can only go after the poors at the same time telling all the poors that the IRS is bad cause it goes after them but leave out the fact that they do that cause the poors are low hanging fruit.\nRepublicans are evil.", ">\n\nWell the GOP wants to cut funding to the IRS for new agents, so I’m sure the poor folk will continue to get screwed. I say toss the 50,000+ page tax code out and replace with a percentage based on total revenue/income made. Took a loss? No write-offs. Oh well, better luck next year. It’ll never happen because the wealthy don’t want it to.", ">\n\nWhere did you get this info? I know GOPers have been slashing IRS budgets and staffing for years but can't find reliable sources for what this has done to the actual audits - like who gets audited.", ">\n\nTheir link is Fox. This is a bad faith post.", ">\n\nThis says a lot coming from fox “news”", ">\n\nTo paraphrase Gilbert K. Chesterton, \"The Poor have sometimes objected to being taxed too heavily; The Rich have always objected to being taxed at all.\"", ">\n\ndon't post Fox news here....", ">\n\nCorporations and millionaires have the means to hire accountants and attorneys. Our tax code is gray in several areas. It’s easy to go after the poor that do not have the resources and will have no choice but to pay anything the IRS says. The additional agents will continue to target the poor and middle class because they are easy, It’s happened before, it will continue to happen.", ">\n\nI think it's funny/sad that a poor person can win the lottery and they get taxed at a higher rate than any billionaire has ever been taxed at. The system is built to keep the rich - rich and the poor - poor.", ">\n\nThe poorest can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nThe current system cannot be sustained. We are hurtling towards disaster.", ">\n\nThe only reason the bastards have the majority is because the corrupt SCOTUS allowed illegal gerrymanders to stand while they were fought in the courts.", ">\n\nThe I.R.S. goes after the poorer people because it's easier. They can't afford lawyers and accountants. So the poor can do nothing but roll over and take it up the rump. The Inflation Reduction Act that Biden signed into law in August is supposed to give $80 Billion to the I.R.S. so they can go after the millionaires. But we know that won't happen. More poor people are going to get screwed.", ">\n\nI'm confused. For decades, Faux news and the conservatives have been saying that millionaires deserve to keep more of their money than we do. That was a huge part of the 2017 tax scam that Trump signed. Now Faux is saying it's a problem? And they are rightly detailing that Republicans are the cause, along with Biden trying to fix the same issue that Fox has helped create?", ">\n\nFox News", ">\n\nHey IRS, don't forget to crawl up my ass this year because I sold some old stuff on eBay for a loss but make sure you put a few man hours into figuring out if it is legit or not.", ">\n\nlol, and the people opposed to IRS funding will say they are anti-establishment.", ">\n\nImagine how much they could squeeze the middle class with 87,000 more agents! But really, it’ll be good to see if the increase in officers actually increases tax revenue without changing the underlying laws.", ">\n\nSo, this is the newest Republican boogeyman, the IRS.\nWell, better than Drag Queens I guess.", ">\n\nOh hey just like last year, and the year before that, I think there might be a pattern", ">\n\nThank you republicans, always sticking up in the back on the small guys…", ">\n\nFox News saying this like it’s not something Rupert Murdoch’s network supports is pretty funny.", ">\n\nFox News. Ignore it.", ">\n\nFox News is still allowed in here?", ">\n\nFake news. This is Republican propaganda coming from Fox News.", ">\n\nFox News is NOT news", ">\n\nHmm sounds like it was underfunded then. Good thing now we helped ease that problem. Thanks Biden", ">\n\nIt's simply laziness by the IRS. Lower-income households have less complicated returns and easier to process. I'm sure IRS runs a non-effective but management-pleasing metric like \"how many returns were corrected\" opposed to how much money was recouped.", ">\n\nWe know. They don't have the resources to do anything. That was the point of increasing the staffing at the IRS so they had even the slightest hope of going after the big offenders with their armies or lawyers.", ">\n\nThere's less millionaires and billionaires than there are us. I'm not sure that answer fits the accuracy on hiring more workers but I'll go ahead and amuse that", ">\n\nIt's not a game of tax guy vs rich guy. The rich literally have armies of lawyers. You need the staff to overcome all the paper and challenges they'll throw at you. \nIf you throw one person to audit a millionaire, their lawyers can make it so it'll take a year to review a week of operations. Investigations will never finish unless there's sufficient staff to overcome their obstruction.", ">\n\nTo this day I do not understand why the IRS can demand our documents every year without a warrant. The 16th amendment does not alter the 4th, and the 4th does not apply only to criminal actions (as the 5th explicitly does). Yet no one seems to care about this annual violations.", ">\n\nReminder, Fox News is not news. It's entertainment, and should be regarded as such.", ">\n\nNo shit, poor ppl tend to file their own taxes and screw up where as millionaires hire expensive accountants to exploit all the legal loopholes without getting their clients in trouble.\nI don't think it's an intentional targeting as the article may be implying.", ">\n\nOne might imagine the resources of agents would be better put to use by focusing on returns that might produce more revenue, however it may be just a lot easier to collect a few bucks from easier targets.", ">\n\nThey are short staffed and accountants make it so difficult to find wrongdoing, if there is even wrongdoing to be found, that it would take a decent chunk of their workforce just to tackle it. It's like trying to find needle in a haystack but you don't know if there's a needle or not.", ">\n\nSo true....", ">\n\nShocked pikachu face.", ">\n\nYeah I’d believe this if it weren’t Fox News. They could give a fuck about the poor and middle class.", ">\n\nI would literally rather the IRS spend its time auditing 5 extraordinarily rich people or a single business than anyone who makes less than 100k per year\nETA: I’m aware that this article represents part of the Republican agenda to just gut the IRS and welfare spending generally. And I understand the difficulties in auditing the rich/businesses v lower income people claiming tax credits, etc", ">\n\nAlmost all of the little people \"audits\" are just a computer issuing a correspondence \"audit\" because the person misreported something from their W2, didn't report as much 1099 income as was reported to the IRS by others, or separated parents both trying to claim kids for tax credits or something. \n-\nThey don't really pull from the same resources. The rich people audits require human beings. Little people \"audits\" aren't really audits and a computer can do it. So if we want to audit more rich people, they need actual budget for human beings. The little people are going to be caught anyways because a computer can do it.", ">\n\nI interned at the IRS during the summer of 2012 when Lois Lerner made batshit crazy commrnts that they were targetting conservative groups", ">\n\nI say this every time it gets brought up. This is by design. I used to work in auditing and also used to do tax stuff. It’s super easy to find tax fraud on someone who only has a simple W-2 and no other income. You could find those people through a basic algorithm. Meanwhile, auditing a multi millionaire is expensive, time consuming, and often fruitless. If I was in charge of an underfunded, understaffed IRS I would tell my staff to go for the easy wins too.", ">\n\nUnpopular opinion - More funding won't resolve this. \nThe IRS will keep doing this. Unless rules & regulations forbid or disincentivize this practice, the IRS will keep this stupid practice", ">\n\nI make $40,000 a year and the IRS froze my bank accounts until I paid them $1000 in taxes I owed them because of an error I made filling my taxes. They froze my bank accounts for $1000. I was fucked for a month. I had to borrow cash from people just for food and gas money to get to work to get paid money that I couldn’t access. It was a scary time for me. Meanwhile millionaires are purposely avoiding taxes worth more than what I make in a year and nothing happens to them.", ">\n\nThe IRS sends no less than a dozen letters to a taxpayer prior to leaving a bank account. Why didn't you just put it into a repayment plan? Takes about ten minutes online.", ">\n\nDon't you just hate autocorrect?", ">\n\nIf true, its a holdover from jrbush who slashed IRS staff and budget and told them to spend more time auditing tip jars and busboys than millionaires because the millionaires had better lawyers than the IRS and service workers were unlikely to have any lawyers at all.", ">\n\nFox News solution: remove the IRS", ">\n\nAbsolutely. They’ll NEVER target the rich, adding more agents just made them a lot more capable to target all the lower class.", ">\n\nWhat people don't realize..Those 87K \"Agents\" aren't that. It's 87K employees over 25 years. Clerks etc. People are so fucking stupid when they just believe these clowns.", ">\n\nThose numbers also count it as an \"audit\" when a person misreports a number from a W2, 1099s, etc and the irs number matching software sends an automatically generated correspondence letter that basically says \"we actually show this number, this is what your tax return would have been if you reported that number correctly\". \nThe IRS isn't wasting time doing random \"audits\" as people think of them for low to middle income people. It would be a complete waste of their time. The computer just catches obvious verifiable mistakes and it counts as an audit in those numbers.", ">\n\n“those in the lowest income bracket hit 12.7 per 1,000….. The odds of a millionaire facing an audit were around 1.1%.”\nSo they’re saying 1.27% vs 1.1%!!! And acting like that’s a scandal 🙄", ">\n\nWhich means millionaires REALLY don't want more IRS auditors which means when our new resident house fascist fires five thousand auditors, said fascist (McCarthy) is making sure those millionaires aren't going to get audited. \nCha CHING !!! Go the \"donations\" into house rat republican's pockets. \nThe grift will be in full swing shortly.\nAnd with putin whispering in their ears and telling them EXACTLY how break the law - how can they lose?", ">\n\n💯 Exactly why theres a Fox link here pushing for that same reason.", ">\n\nTwo things. First of all, this is from a far right-wing propaganda outlet which should immediately raise red flags. They're trying to scare you into allowing a republican-initiated movement to entirely remove all remaining power from the IRS by making it seem like they're coming after you.\nSecond, the reason the IRS is already already virtually powerless against the rich is because the republicans have already eviscerated them in the past several decades, largely through defunding them leading to not only staffing cuts, but the inability to pursue the wealthiest people who have the resources for endless litigation. So as a result, the FBI can only really afford to go after people who cannot financially defend themselves.", ">\n\nThird, you might as well throw in that the aiming low guidance was under a Trump appointee who is no longer in that position.", ">\n\nThe GOP intentionally defunded the IRS so that it could not audit the wealthy. It takes a great deal more money upfront to audit them but the payback is far greater.", ">\n\nI'm not sure why dems voted against an amendment that would have mandated the giant infusion of cash into the IRS couldn't be used to audit folks making >$400k.", ">\n\nHrm this is pretty fucked I'd like to hear about why the Dems voted nay.", ">\n\nBecause they work for the same people as Republicans. \nThey are different but only when their owners allow them to be. \nI don't know how many times we are going to have to learn this lesson before it sticks.", ">\n\nDemocrats are responsible for this", ">\n\nThe rich returns are just too hard, enough lower class errors you can leave the rich alone. Love to see it… sigh", ">\n\nIt takes money to police the wealthy. Can't have that can we?!", ">\n\nr/noshitsherlock", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised?\nI’m not even American and this seemed obvious to me. All you have to do is look at how the poor live and compare that to the news about someone like Elon musk or Donald trump.", ">\n\nThis is why the IRS needs to go.", ">\n\nFox News helped make that happen.", ">\n\nThey'll never change,all the time when the guys in charge benefit from doing the same shit.", ">\n\nAnd yet the republicans dont submit or pass legislations to change the rules to favor targeting rich people. Curious.", ">\n\nThen 78,000 new, armed tax collectors should be able to extract even more money from the poor, middle-class and small business owners.", ">\n\nWhy did they focus on the Poorest? The thought of 87,000 more of them will actually do what? If the existing can’t focus on the wealthy! Then what makes anybody think more can?", ">\n\nMillionaires and billionaires make the government more money by creating lobbying loopholes and exploiting the economy to bilk the 99%. It's really cheap to go after the poorest who are struggling to pay day to day obligations and don't have loopholes or government sanctioned exploitation to take advantage of.", ">\n\nI could have told you this would happen. You think millionaires get $600 Venmo transactions?", ">\n\nThat's a move democrats should not make. That's one month of rent for me. What of folks worse-off?", ">\n\nHonestly it’s like squeezing blood from the stone over here anyway.", ">\n\nDuh lmfao theyve already stated it costs too much to tax weathy people previously and its most cost effective to audit the poor due to many factors...", ">\n\nI mean 99% of us are poor compared to the other 1%", ">\n\nColor me surprised", ">\n\nWe need some laws for equitable auditing.", ">\n\nYou are an Army commander about to attack the enemy. Do you prefer to attack where they have experienced career solders backed up by artillery, tanks, and airplanes, or do you attack where there are poorly armed and equipped untrained conscripts?", ">\n\nThey must be upset someone replaced their sign with a card from Cards Against Humanity", ">\n\nMay it ever be so…. Don’t reproduce if you only consume and can’t accumulate or help a Dow Jones winter water witch. Like snow, weathermen.", ">\n\nIt’s weirdly fitting how much their building sign in the photo looks like a cards against humanity card.", ">\n\nTypical", ">\n\nWow? How unusual.", ">\n\nI’d support double the number of IRS agents", ">\n\nI was low income and won about 3,000 gambling, the irs went after me", ">\n\nThe IRS came after me hard for 8$", ">\n\nAudit frequency should correlate to income, someone with a million in income should be audited 10x those with 100k income", ">\n\nSomeone should explain Pareto charts to the IRS.", ">\n\nI've been audited three times. First when I was 27, did some consulting and didn't do the 1099 prepayments. Ended up owing $17k. Second audit was after moving across country for a job. The tax preparer we hired made a mistake with the move expense deductions, owed a few thousand. Third audit was another tax preparer mistake, but this time we overpaid and were owed money we credited to the next year. \nIf you assume for discussion that the average audit on an ordinary tax payer returns $10,000, it would take 100,000,000 audits to make $1 trillion. By just doing the easy work, the IRS is leaving the real money on the table.", ">\n\nRepublicans are famous for giving rich breaks while middle class etc close the gaps", ">\n\nThe last line, \"The Inflation Reduction Act provides the IRS with $80 billion in future funding to ramp up its audits and potentially target the wealthiest taxpayers.\"", ">\n\nThe cure is not the root cause, but the middle class and the poor will eventually bear the burden after the capital operation", ">\n\nIt’s like they timed the “research” and the drop of the article with the speech. Sad man.", ">\n\nWatch Madoff. The wealthy skate and steal billions. The poor are in prison over thousands.", ">\n\nWhy does their sign look like a Card Against Humanity", ">\n\nFucking Trump, still at it.", ">\n\nOh you mean the thing people said would happen once they got massive funding actually happened? Checks out", ">\n\nOf course they did, because millionaires will lawyer up.", ">\n\nBecause the poor can't afford to fight back.", ">\n\nIt's so unfair the poor and the middle class taxpayers suffer so much while the millionaries got away with not paying the taxes It's really hurting the poor. The middle class is fading", ">\n\nAll of this can be fixed if we just use no-exemption graduated income", ">\n\nYeah we know", ">\n\nShow of hands for all surprised.\ncrickets\nHmm. Seems like Reddit suffers from a plague of double amputees...", ">\n\nWhat the actual fuck", ">\n\nAnd 2021, 2020, 2019, …", ">\n\nSounds about right.", ">\n\nOf course. Poor people can’t afford attorneys.", ">\n\nI made a mistake on my forms while I was overseas and ticked “self-employed” instead of “employed”. I was on a student visa and had two children and was making less than 10k a year. They hounded me for years. By the time I figured out what had happened I could not amend the forms and had paid thousands in penalties and interest.\nMeanwhile I knew lots of people who were there fully employed not reporting their income.\nFuck them.", ">\n\nYep! During the pandemic, even while I wasn't working didn't come after me the entire time that I was working but the minute that I wasn't nobody was cuz we were in lockdown they started popping up", ">\n\nI just now realized that the Cards Against Humanity box looks like the IRS sign", ">\n\nWhy is the sign a Cards Against Humanity question?", ">\n\nI am shocked and appalled. clutches pearls", ">\n\nRich should be taxed more than the average not right at all. Or at least there is a tier system based on pay only makes sense. Come on now", ">\n\nSounds about right, make the rich richer again.", ">\n\nWho are we going to vote for in the future ,all of them are decayed , corrupted and useless , the “most rich country in the world , governed by the most ignorant an corrupted. What a contrast .", ">\n\nGod bless America", ">\n\nno way. wait until you see those people responds. Those people are chipping away.", ">\n\nSounds about right", ">\n\nWe know.", ">\n\nI find it rather comical that Fox news is reporting on this since they are all about pushing the Republican agenda and that is all about pushing everyone else down that isn't rich and keeping them there. Not to mention they had no problem with Trump not paying taxes for years.", ">\n\nCan fucking confirm.", ">\n\nYeah, they (millionaires) have accountants who generally do things right and due to their millions being in investments it's not like it's taxable all the time. \nThen there's the ability to sell any stocks when they're down to build up losses on paper can reinvest them at a loss that can carry over across multiple years.", ">\n\nsounds about right. i don’t have a pot to piss in but they’re all over me for someone stealing my identity and filing a double tax return one year.", ">\n\nDuh", ">\n\nThere’s a reason why FOX is posting this article. The less people at the IRS, the more likely they come after folks who can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nIn order to pursue wealthy tax cheats, the IRS needs more resources and personnel. Otherwise it’s business as usual, picking on the low hanging fruit that earns under 6 figures.", ">\n\nSo wrong ....people need to be fired", ">\n\nIt’s because they can’t afford to take them to court", ">\n\nOf course it is about protecting the rich like Trump who lies ,lies , and about his tax returns . No wonder he did not want them released .", ">\n\nEasy prey bc most ppl can not lawyer up. Pretty heart breaking system we have at times.", ">\n\nWhy does the irs sign look like it's from cards against humanity?", ">\n\nCurrently getting audited over \\~$1500, which they owe me, when the rich get away with murder. Fucking unbelievably and unnecessarily stressful for me.", ">\n\nHas t this been know for a while?", ">\n\nyep and they are the same people getting tax cuts while everyone else does it tough ....\nAny one with too much money is your enemy .... not a hero of democracy", ">\n\nGet rid of taxes and the gov’t should just do stuff for free, or what ever.", ">\n\nYou have to be careful when you get one of those CP2000 notices from the IRS. The way they are written is a trap.\nIf you dispute it you are supposed to indicate that you disagree and send it back with documents supporting your dispute.\nYou are only supposed to sign it if you agree with them and when you sign it you are signing away your rights to dispute the back taxes and penalties they are demanding.\nMere worker bees like us can expect to be getting a lot of those from this years tax returns considering how the threshold for 1099k forms has been dropped to $600.\nGuys like Trump? The IRS doesn't even know where to begin.", ">\n\nThanks Biden", ">\n\nI presume those lower-income bracket filers might be more likely to reach out to 1-800-infomercial [quickie settlement/long-term penalties most favorable to gov/proprietor] than retain proper legal counsel?\nRegardless it’s got to be a lot less work for IRS agent to go after under-represented citizen(s), rather than someone who can afford to appeal, properly negotiate on their own terms?", ">\n\nLmfao Dems tax and spend. But I have to admit there Republicans that tax and spend to. Where do these Politicians get off taxing me or business and give to people who don't work what do you cause d the inflation. You can not print money \nI am Conservative not a Republican. To much money is wasted and put in pockets of people ot don't belong.\nBut all dems know how to tax tax tax. \nIts all great and good until you run out if other peoples money. \nMillionaire just like Berny he hated Millionaires until he became one now he hates Trillionaires. Funny how the gold post changes. And good old Nancy her I side stock trading. So I think you need to rethink.", ">\n\nThe IRS is only doing as directed by whomever controls the White House.", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised by this? Really?", ">\n\nThe sign in the thumbnail looks like a Cards Against Humanity card.", ">\n\nWhile this is mostly true, don’t believe everything you read. I’m no more an accountant than I am a ladies man, but someone (said they’re an accountant) posted a few days ago about this. They explained that the most likely people getting audited are trying to, fraudulently or mistakenly, claim the EITC. \nYES, it’s super easy to “bust” these people for an easy “mistake”. This is who the IRS is cracking down on. \nDo I think it’s better to bust poor people for claiming a few thousand in tax credits vs billionaires who avoid taxes altogether? Of course not, but don’t think they’re actively targeting people who fudge their mileage deductions or miss a decimal point in their calculations as small business owners. It’s simply not happening. \nAnd the reported “87,000 new IRS agents” are replacing the 10’s of 1,000’s of employees set to retire or quit over the next 10 years which doesn’t even begin to fill the gaps we’ve been growing for decades by not hiring and training more willing workers. Not to mention they’re not even close to all employees who will actively audit tax payers. They’re people who answer phones, file papers, assist others, etc… They’re mostly just average people with average jobs so of course the GOP wants to end this. They hate upward mobility and job creation unless that means tax breaks for their billionaire friends.", ">\n\nI wish everyone wasn’t a sheep and would understand this.", ">\n\nI can see the Media doing their best to turn the public against the IRS.", ">\n\nPicking on the week and helpless. That’s what we humans do. We suck. I’m waiting for that big meteor reset button.", ">\n\nAnd Fox news loves this.", ">\n\nLove it, Faux 'News' taking the piss, for 4 years under Dear Leader they campaigned for tax breaks for the rich, now they're pretending to care about the poor !", ">\n\nEvery millionaire should be audited yearly. Period.", ">\n\nAND now the gqp cult promises to rescind the money Biden set aside to aid the IRS to recover taxes from mega millionaire tax cheats like benedict donald, who paid less taxes than most working Americans.", ">\n\nRepublicans want to stop the IRS and Congress from taxing rich people, making the burden of maintaining civilization fall more heavily on poorer people. This is why Republicans vote for tax cuts for the rich and against funding for the IRS.\nAnd since Republican beliefs are based on wishful thinking, Republicans can screw over poor, rural Republicans while simultaneously taking credit for doing it to make Republicans happy about it and blaming it on Democrats to make those same Republicans resentful against Democrats for it. And what else would we expect from a Republican Party that blames Democrats for tricking them into attacking the Capitol to make Trump look bad and justifies and approves of assaulting Capitol police while brandishing their \"thin blue line\" flags.", ">\n\nThe IRS is like any other law enforcement agency, they prefer pursuing the poor because they don't have the resources to protect themselves.", ">\n\nThe IRS building sign looks like its from cards against humanity.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nNot a reliable news source.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nThat picture looks like the worst cards against humanity card too get.", ">\n\nScrew the Murdoch media empire and their failed trickle down ideologies.", ">\n\nOf course, the poorest haven’t paid over 400+ billion for decades. Not sure about the rich, we haven’t checked.", ">\n\nThis is not a surprise. With the recent inflation reduction act, the IRS an additional $80B over 10 years or $8B per year. The IRS budget for 2021 was $13.7B. The additional $8B over the year would be an increase of 58% to their budget. They will be looking to get a lot more money from taxpayers, due to this very large increase in their budget.", ">\n\nFox reported this? I'm in shock", ">\n\nAll propagandists publish clickbaity stuff that makes them sound like maybe they've let up on the evil. Unfortunately it works, since people just upvote headlines.", ">\n\nIt’s only going to get worse in 2023. Those 87k new IRS agents will not be going after the wealthy.", ">\n\nWhy?\nThat’s literally why they were being added. The IRS goes after the poorer taxpayers because they are low-hanging fruit and don’t have the lawyers and accountants to protect them. \nThe additional IRS employees were to give the personnel staffing sufficient to go after the wealthy.", ">\n\nIt doesn’t matter how many IRS agents there are. It will always be easier and more profitable for the IRS to nickel and dime the average taxpayer rather than go after the wealthy, who have the resources to lawyer up with the best lawyers and challenge the IRS in court.", ">\n\nEasier? Yes. More profitable? Doubtful.", ">\n\nIf Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nBut in 2022 ( when Biden was president and the House belonged to the Dems) they didn’t did they.", ">\n\nIt takes time to refactor an organization. It’s still full of Trump appointees.", ">\n\n2020 was a long time ago", ">\n\nNot on organizational time scales. It takes several months to safely restructure an organization as big as the federal government, and when it is the federal government it takes years. Congress gets a say in every political appointment, budget change, and organization change. It’s designed to be slow to assure continuity. \nThere is a saying that every president gets credited and blamed for what the prior administration put in motion. There is a lot of truth to that, and this organizational inertia is a big reason why. There are similar long lags in changing laws, re-writing policies, modifying rules, and so on. It’s a “feature” of having checks and balances.", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again" ]
> The funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.	[ "If Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nAnd when Barry was president they targeted conservative groups. I think phone calls can be made to tell them to back off of the little guy.", ">\n\n\nthey targeted conservative groups.\n\nNo. They went after specifically anti-tax tea party groups. The groups who openly flaunted tax laws", ">\n\nThey also went after progressive, left leaning groups - how do you explain that ? it was political", ">\n\nWait, did they target conservatives or progressives? Lol", ">\n\nBoth- it was quite clear they were involving themselves in politics - that’s what the IG found", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.", ">\n\nYep!\nAlso this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious.\nThe real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade.", ">\n\nThanks for the informative reply.\nYou make great points which I don't doubt. But there are times when I think it's important to consider both the letter and spirit of law at times.\nEven though it is perfectly by the letter of the law that people should be checked, it also seems against the intended spirit of said law that only a certain group of people are checked.\nI am not familiar with US law, but I think most of us can feel some degree of injustice with how things currently are.", ">\n\nThe point is to automate more checking of income common to wealthier people, and devote more resources to auditing those people. The Fox News article is disingenuous in how it describes the automated checking that goes on. It’s not great that rich people aren’t really audited, but there’s no reason to stop the automated checking of income where it’s already being done and essentially free to continue.\nIf you feel differently, explain yourself.", ">\n\nNo, we are in alignment concerning this.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nFUCK FOX NEWS\nFox is pretending to care about us poors. \nDon't reward these fascist fucks with upvotes for a disingenuous clickbait headline. They still hate us for not voting gop.", ">\n\nThey want people to hate the IRS and help defund it so they don’t go after the rich, which was the purpose of the additional funding", ">\n\nThey want people to link this to “87000” new agents, which is obviously happening on social media posts, but it’s not even a thing.", ">\n\nArticle is trash. The author is including correspondence audits (which means the IRS asked for some documentation by mail) for low income filers but not for millionaires when comparing their audit rates. Here are actual numbers according to their own source:\nAudit rates including correspondence audits\nlow income 1.27%\nmillionaires 2.38% \nAudit rates excluding correspondence audits\nlow income 0.0376%\nmillionaires 1.24%\n.\nFor low income filers, nearly all their audits were correspondence audits.", ">\n\nIt's hilarious when Fox News and the GOP pretend they care about poor people.\nNo amount of hypocrisy is too much to try to make democrats look bad.", ">\n\nIts unfortunately far easier to prove married couples who live together filed HoH for extra earned income credit than it is to prove complicated returns were incorrect.", ">\n\nIt's also trivially easy to prove the same child was claimed by two parents which is a lot of correspondence audits.", ">\n\nSo can my back taxes please just get forgiven already. 20% income being taxed is not livable", ">\n\nRepublican love flat rate taxes, you should talk to them.", ">\n\nThey’re required to audit the president and vice president, and that didn’t happen either.", ">\n\nThis isn't new, it's been been having for the last 5 - 6 years.", ">\n\nHopefully some wake up and realize its all just preparing us for the inevitable destruction of our economy. I imagine its almost too late to realize this. If we all realized this wed sell our 401Ks and not lean on money and use it to help our neighbors.", ">\n\nK bro.", ">\n\nMy wife and I are on social security. She works part time to keep us afloat. All in, we earned $50K in 2022. iRS wants $4500 from us. Really? 5X what Trump paid? Don't know if anyone is paying attention but $50k ain't rich. Oh, and out of that comes almost $4k in Medicare premiums. A program we paid into for 40+ years.\nEveryone of these arrogant, unqualified,, spoon fed assholes in Congress should be made to live on SSI or welfare, with no medical coverage, for a year. Then tell me I am acting entitled.\nSelf serving bastards.", ">\n\nDon't upvote this crap.\nDo you really think Fox cares about the working class??\nThis is just right wing propaganda, timed to coincide with McCarthy's promise to get rid of the new IRS agents who make it possible to audit the rich.\nDon't be used.", ">\n\nWhatever happened to \"dont shoot the messenger?\"", ">\n\nIRS understaffing would naturally trend to go after low-lying fruit. Easy pickings. Too many man hours to go after super complex cases. These moneyed fuckers and their bullshit. It's outrageous.", ">\n\nThe vast majority of these audits are automatically generated correspondence audits that have to be issued. We can't just turn off the program that raises a red flag when two people claim the same child as a dependent because we don't have enough forensic accountants. If you mistype your W2 you'll get an \"audit\" showing the correct info from the copy your boss sent them and telling you they'll correct it unless you tell them otherwise and you don't have to do anything if the info they have is correct.", ">\n\nYeah, all the nonsense about the IRS \"going after\" low income people is so stupid. Low income people make money in a way that their reporting is easily verifiable by a computer. They're also most likely to mess up and claim child tax credits incorrectly, etc - all of which is verifiable and issued a letter by a computer. \n-\nOther than actually being able to get someone on the phone when you call the IRS, and increased budget isn't going to impact the average person in any way.", ">\n\nMy thing is even assuming the 87k don't successfully get more money out of the rich, that's still 87k jobs. That's a net positive. I just don't understand the conservative logic here. Do they think these 87k new jobs are specifically for being insidiously predatory toward the poor? Where's the logic here? (I know I'll get hyperbolic answers, but I genuinely would like to know)", ">\n\nIt's 87,000 jobs over 10 years, the majority of which are replacement during that period. It's just a budget supplemental to stop hemorrhaging agents as they retire or cycle out into other jobs.", ">\n\nso.. this is on fox, which I assume support republican efforts to ensure that this is the permanent state of affairs. I don't really get anything anymore.", ">\n\nAnd that is the way the GOP wants it.", ">\n\n💯 Exactly what this Fox article is trying to do.", ">\n\nIt's who can afford a lawyer", ">\n\nAs the article hints at, the IRS does not do a lot of actual auditing. What it does is computer matching, which automatically generates material for a correspondence audit. Most correspondence audits occur because som poor working Joe didn't know he/her was supposed to include or exclude something, and the IRS caught it in its matching. Of course, the problem is that we have a complex code and little help in actually helping people through the various forms, rules, and so on. But millionaires don't have these issues, so they can escape most of the traps that lead to a correspondence audit. If a lot of these 87,000 were in taxpayer service (which I expect) it would lead to fewer audits at the low end, more robust audits for large corporations, wealthy individuals, and those who actively use tax avoidance strategies. But of course that is not the dialogue that gets promoted when the 87,000 agents are discussed.", ">\n\nThis is exactly why Fox News needs to be dismantled and thrown in the garbage. Ugh, \"look poors! They're coming for yoU!!!\". Scare tactics. And guess what? It sadly works. Every time.\nThey're lower than scum.", ">\n\nExactly. It's when someone misreports a number from their W2, didn't report 1099s they received, both separated parents claim a tax credit for the same kid, etc. All stuff that's easily checked by a computer. The IRS isn't \"auditing\" random low to middle income people. That would be a complete waste of their time.", ">\n\nlooks at Trump You don't say.", ">\n\nThe poor can't defend themselves, it's easier to take a little bit of money from people that won't fight back than a lot of money from people that will.", ">\n\nThe mega rich seem like they’re on a mission to destroy America, as we know it.", ">\n\nHiring 87,000 new IRS agents makes it possible to audit billionaires. So they pay their share. Those audits require an actual person or team that knows what they are doing. But Kevin McCarthy's first item of business was to announce legislation to overturn the hiring of 87,000 IRS agents. Meaning only the little guy (who can be audited by computer software) pays taxes.\nSSDD", ">\n\nThe \"87,000\" agents budget is over a ten year period. It's not for 87,000 new positions.", ">\n\nThe title is so misleading. Im surprised fox even put the juicy bit in the article about how (this stat is due to there not being enough IRS workers because) these \"audits\" on low earners are just automated letters asking for more info.\nYet again, this is just millionairs paid by billionairs to mislead the masses into blaming the poor for crimes committed by said billionairs.", ">\n\nWhich is why the IRS needs more manpower and budget, so they can go after the big fish.\nFuck Fox News and their Republican propaganda pieces. This article coincides with McCarthy saying they’ll cut the IRS budget and that the IRS is coming for you.\nFuck off Republican propaganda rag!\nStop upvoting any Fox News story. Fox should not be on the white list.", ">\n\nThis is a terrible article. It seems to include questions about tax returns as audits. If a low income filer makes a mistake it should be corrected. Is that an audit? If anyone makes a mistake and is contacted, is that an audit? Also there is no reason to go after low income as they rarely pay tax or are required to. The money requested would also pay for people to answer a phone. Those against increasing funding lie when they say all of it goes to audits. If you tell the truth, who cares if you are audited? Are y’all aware you can track your personal return online? However a business cannot. Businesses have to rely on humans that can’t be reached. I’ve waited a year for a refund. Didn’t know if IRS received the return. Didn’t know if there was an issue. Didn’t know if it was mailed or lost. I’m getting tired of Republicans pushing their crap on people.", ">\n\nwho keeps upvoting this right wing propaganda", ">\n\nWhy would the GOP want to give the agency the power to go after their donors.", ">\n\nAnd it was trumps guy that mandated it while Biden replaced him", ">\n\nApparently the mere use of an accounting firm somehow protected corps and the rich from the IRS who still (mistakenly) believe the accounting firms are trustworthy. How naive.", ">\n\nThe \"audits\" talked about are mostly form letters requesting more info about specific items.", ">\n\nThe poor can't pay for top flight attorneys.", ">\n\nYep keep the IRS underfunded so they can only go after the poors at the same time telling all the poors that the IRS is bad cause it goes after them but leave out the fact that they do that cause the poors are low hanging fruit.\nRepublicans are evil.", ">\n\nWell the GOP wants to cut funding to the IRS for new agents, so I’m sure the poor folk will continue to get screwed. I say toss the 50,000+ page tax code out and replace with a percentage based on total revenue/income made. Took a loss? No write-offs. Oh well, better luck next year. It’ll never happen because the wealthy don’t want it to.", ">\n\nWhere did you get this info? I know GOPers have been slashing IRS budgets and staffing for years but can't find reliable sources for what this has done to the actual audits - like who gets audited.", ">\n\nTheir link is Fox. This is a bad faith post.", ">\n\nThis says a lot coming from fox “news”", ">\n\nTo paraphrase Gilbert K. Chesterton, \"The Poor have sometimes objected to being taxed too heavily; The Rich have always objected to being taxed at all.\"", ">\n\ndon't post Fox news here....", ">\n\nCorporations and millionaires have the means to hire accountants and attorneys. Our tax code is gray in several areas. It’s easy to go after the poor that do not have the resources and will have no choice but to pay anything the IRS says. The additional agents will continue to target the poor and middle class because they are easy, It’s happened before, it will continue to happen.", ">\n\nI think it's funny/sad that a poor person can win the lottery and they get taxed at a higher rate than any billionaire has ever been taxed at. The system is built to keep the rich - rich and the poor - poor.", ">\n\nThe poorest can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nThe current system cannot be sustained. We are hurtling towards disaster.", ">\n\nThe only reason the bastards have the majority is because the corrupt SCOTUS allowed illegal gerrymanders to stand while they were fought in the courts.", ">\n\nThe I.R.S. goes after the poorer people because it's easier. They can't afford lawyers and accountants. So the poor can do nothing but roll over and take it up the rump. The Inflation Reduction Act that Biden signed into law in August is supposed to give $80 Billion to the I.R.S. so they can go after the millionaires. But we know that won't happen. More poor people are going to get screwed.", ">\n\nI'm confused. For decades, Faux news and the conservatives have been saying that millionaires deserve to keep more of their money than we do. That was a huge part of the 2017 tax scam that Trump signed. Now Faux is saying it's a problem? And they are rightly detailing that Republicans are the cause, along with Biden trying to fix the same issue that Fox has helped create?", ">\n\nFox News", ">\n\nHey IRS, don't forget to crawl up my ass this year because I sold some old stuff on eBay for a loss but make sure you put a few man hours into figuring out if it is legit or not.", ">\n\nlol, and the people opposed to IRS funding will say they are anti-establishment.", ">\n\nImagine how much they could squeeze the middle class with 87,000 more agents! But really, it’ll be good to see if the increase in officers actually increases tax revenue without changing the underlying laws.", ">\n\nSo, this is the newest Republican boogeyman, the IRS.\nWell, better than Drag Queens I guess.", ">\n\nOh hey just like last year, and the year before that, I think there might be a pattern", ">\n\nThank you republicans, always sticking up in the back on the small guys…", ">\n\nFox News saying this like it’s not something Rupert Murdoch’s network supports is pretty funny.", ">\n\nFox News. Ignore it.", ">\n\nFox News is still allowed in here?", ">\n\nFake news. This is Republican propaganda coming from Fox News.", ">\n\nFox News is NOT news", ">\n\nHmm sounds like it was underfunded then. Good thing now we helped ease that problem. Thanks Biden", ">\n\nIt's simply laziness by the IRS. Lower-income households have less complicated returns and easier to process. I'm sure IRS runs a non-effective but management-pleasing metric like \"how many returns were corrected\" opposed to how much money was recouped.", ">\n\nWe know. They don't have the resources to do anything. That was the point of increasing the staffing at the IRS so they had even the slightest hope of going after the big offenders with their armies or lawyers.", ">\n\nThere's less millionaires and billionaires than there are us. I'm not sure that answer fits the accuracy on hiring more workers but I'll go ahead and amuse that", ">\n\nIt's not a game of tax guy vs rich guy. The rich literally have armies of lawyers. You need the staff to overcome all the paper and challenges they'll throw at you. \nIf you throw one person to audit a millionaire, their lawyers can make it so it'll take a year to review a week of operations. Investigations will never finish unless there's sufficient staff to overcome their obstruction.", ">\n\nTo this day I do not understand why the IRS can demand our documents every year without a warrant. The 16th amendment does not alter the 4th, and the 4th does not apply only to criminal actions (as the 5th explicitly does). Yet no one seems to care about this annual violations.", ">\n\nReminder, Fox News is not news. It's entertainment, and should be regarded as such.", ">\n\nNo shit, poor ppl tend to file their own taxes and screw up where as millionaires hire expensive accountants to exploit all the legal loopholes without getting their clients in trouble.\nI don't think it's an intentional targeting as the article may be implying.", ">\n\nOne might imagine the resources of agents would be better put to use by focusing on returns that might produce more revenue, however it may be just a lot easier to collect a few bucks from easier targets.", ">\n\nThey are short staffed and accountants make it so difficult to find wrongdoing, if there is even wrongdoing to be found, that it would take a decent chunk of their workforce just to tackle it. It's like trying to find needle in a haystack but you don't know if there's a needle or not.", ">\n\nSo true....", ">\n\nShocked pikachu face.", ">\n\nYeah I’d believe this if it weren’t Fox News. They could give a fuck about the poor and middle class.", ">\n\nI would literally rather the IRS spend its time auditing 5 extraordinarily rich people or a single business than anyone who makes less than 100k per year\nETA: I’m aware that this article represents part of the Republican agenda to just gut the IRS and welfare spending generally. And I understand the difficulties in auditing the rich/businesses v lower income people claiming tax credits, etc", ">\n\nAlmost all of the little people \"audits\" are just a computer issuing a correspondence \"audit\" because the person misreported something from their W2, didn't report as much 1099 income as was reported to the IRS by others, or separated parents both trying to claim kids for tax credits or something. \n-\nThey don't really pull from the same resources. The rich people audits require human beings. Little people \"audits\" aren't really audits and a computer can do it. So if we want to audit more rich people, they need actual budget for human beings. The little people are going to be caught anyways because a computer can do it.", ">\n\nI interned at the IRS during the summer of 2012 when Lois Lerner made batshit crazy commrnts that they were targetting conservative groups", ">\n\nI say this every time it gets brought up. This is by design. I used to work in auditing and also used to do tax stuff. It’s super easy to find tax fraud on someone who only has a simple W-2 and no other income. You could find those people through a basic algorithm. Meanwhile, auditing a multi millionaire is expensive, time consuming, and often fruitless. If I was in charge of an underfunded, understaffed IRS I would tell my staff to go for the easy wins too.", ">\n\nUnpopular opinion - More funding won't resolve this. \nThe IRS will keep doing this. Unless rules & regulations forbid or disincentivize this practice, the IRS will keep this stupid practice", ">\n\nI make $40,000 a year and the IRS froze my bank accounts until I paid them $1000 in taxes I owed them because of an error I made filling my taxes. They froze my bank accounts for $1000. I was fucked for a month. I had to borrow cash from people just for food and gas money to get to work to get paid money that I couldn’t access. It was a scary time for me. Meanwhile millionaires are purposely avoiding taxes worth more than what I make in a year and nothing happens to them.", ">\n\nThe IRS sends no less than a dozen letters to a taxpayer prior to leaving a bank account. Why didn't you just put it into a repayment plan? Takes about ten minutes online.", ">\n\nDon't you just hate autocorrect?", ">\n\nIf true, its a holdover from jrbush who slashed IRS staff and budget and told them to spend more time auditing tip jars and busboys than millionaires because the millionaires had better lawyers than the IRS and service workers were unlikely to have any lawyers at all.", ">\n\nFox News solution: remove the IRS", ">\n\nAbsolutely. They’ll NEVER target the rich, adding more agents just made them a lot more capable to target all the lower class.", ">\n\nWhat people don't realize..Those 87K \"Agents\" aren't that. It's 87K employees over 25 years. Clerks etc. People are so fucking stupid when they just believe these clowns.", ">\n\nThose numbers also count it as an \"audit\" when a person misreports a number from a W2, 1099s, etc and the irs number matching software sends an automatically generated correspondence letter that basically says \"we actually show this number, this is what your tax return would have been if you reported that number correctly\". \nThe IRS isn't wasting time doing random \"audits\" as people think of them for low to middle income people. It would be a complete waste of their time. The computer just catches obvious verifiable mistakes and it counts as an audit in those numbers.", ">\n\n“those in the lowest income bracket hit 12.7 per 1,000….. The odds of a millionaire facing an audit were around 1.1%.”\nSo they’re saying 1.27% vs 1.1%!!! And acting like that’s a scandal 🙄", ">\n\nWhich means millionaires REALLY don't want more IRS auditors which means when our new resident house fascist fires five thousand auditors, said fascist (McCarthy) is making sure those millionaires aren't going to get audited. \nCha CHING !!! Go the \"donations\" into house rat republican's pockets. \nThe grift will be in full swing shortly.\nAnd with putin whispering in their ears and telling them EXACTLY how break the law - how can they lose?", ">\n\n💯 Exactly why theres a Fox link here pushing for that same reason.", ">\n\nTwo things. First of all, this is from a far right-wing propaganda outlet which should immediately raise red flags. They're trying to scare you into allowing a republican-initiated movement to entirely remove all remaining power from the IRS by making it seem like they're coming after you.\nSecond, the reason the IRS is already already virtually powerless against the rich is because the republicans have already eviscerated them in the past several decades, largely through defunding them leading to not only staffing cuts, but the inability to pursue the wealthiest people who have the resources for endless litigation. So as a result, the FBI can only really afford to go after people who cannot financially defend themselves.", ">\n\nThird, you might as well throw in that the aiming low guidance was under a Trump appointee who is no longer in that position.", ">\n\nThe GOP intentionally defunded the IRS so that it could not audit the wealthy. It takes a great deal more money upfront to audit them but the payback is far greater.", ">\n\nI'm not sure why dems voted against an amendment that would have mandated the giant infusion of cash into the IRS couldn't be used to audit folks making >$400k.", ">\n\nHrm this is pretty fucked I'd like to hear about why the Dems voted nay.", ">\n\nBecause they work for the same people as Republicans. \nThey are different but only when their owners allow them to be. \nI don't know how many times we are going to have to learn this lesson before it sticks.", ">\n\nDemocrats are responsible for this", ">\n\nThe rich returns are just too hard, enough lower class errors you can leave the rich alone. Love to see it… sigh", ">\n\nIt takes money to police the wealthy. Can't have that can we?!", ">\n\nr/noshitsherlock", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised?\nI’m not even American and this seemed obvious to me. All you have to do is look at how the poor live and compare that to the news about someone like Elon musk or Donald trump.", ">\n\nThis is why the IRS needs to go.", ">\n\nFox News helped make that happen.", ">\n\nThey'll never change,all the time when the guys in charge benefit from doing the same shit.", ">\n\nAnd yet the republicans dont submit or pass legislations to change the rules to favor targeting rich people. Curious.", ">\n\nThen 78,000 new, armed tax collectors should be able to extract even more money from the poor, middle-class and small business owners.", ">\n\nWhy did they focus on the Poorest? The thought of 87,000 more of them will actually do what? If the existing can’t focus on the wealthy! Then what makes anybody think more can?", ">\n\nMillionaires and billionaires make the government more money by creating lobbying loopholes and exploiting the economy to bilk the 99%. It's really cheap to go after the poorest who are struggling to pay day to day obligations and don't have loopholes or government sanctioned exploitation to take advantage of.", ">\n\nI could have told you this would happen. You think millionaires get $600 Venmo transactions?", ">\n\nThat's a move democrats should not make. That's one month of rent for me. What of folks worse-off?", ">\n\nHonestly it’s like squeezing blood from the stone over here anyway.", ">\n\nDuh lmfao theyve already stated it costs too much to tax weathy people previously and its most cost effective to audit the poor due to many factors...", ">\n\nI mean 99% of us are poor compared to the other 1%", ">\n\nColor me surprised", ">\n\nWe need some laws for equitable auditing.", ">\n\nYou are an Army commander about to attack the enemy. Do you prefer to attack where they have experienced career solders backed up by artillery, tanks, and airplanes, or do you attack where there are poorly armed and equipped untrained conscripts?", ">\n\nThey must be upset someone replaced their sign with a card from Cards Against Humanity", ">\n\nMay it ever be so…. Don’t reproduce if you only consume and can’t accumulate or help a Dow Jones winter water witch. Like snow, weathermen.", ">\n\nIt’s weirdly fitting how much their building sign in the photo looks like a cards against humanity card.", ">\n\nTypical", ">\n\nWow? How unusual.", ">\n\nI’d support double the number of IRS agents", ">\n\nI was low income and won about 3,000 gambling, the irs went after me", ">\n\nThe IRS came after me hard for 8$", ">\n\nAudit frequency should correlate to income, someone with a million in income should be audited 10x those with 100k income", ">\n\nSomeone should explain Pareto charts to the IRS.", ">\n\nI've been audited three times. First when I was 27, did some consulting and didn't do the 1099 prepayments. Ended up owing $17k. Second audit was after moving across country for a job. The tax preparer we hired made a mistake with the move expense deductions, owed a few thousand. Third audit was another tax preparer mistake, but this time we overpaid and were owed money we credited to the next year. \nIf you assume for discussion that the average audit on an ordinary tax payer returns $10,000, it would take 100,000,000 audits to make $1 trillion. By just doing the easy work, the IRS is leaving the real money on the table.", ">\n\nRepublicans are famous for giving rich breaks while middle class etc close the gaps", ">\n\nThe last line, \"The Inflation Reduction Act provides the IRS with $80 billion in future funding to ramp up its audits and potentially target the wealthiest taxpayers.\"", ">\n\nThe cure is not the root cause, but the middle class and the poor will eventually bear the burden after the capital operation", ">\n\nIt’s like they timed the “research” and the drop of the article with the speech. Sad man.", ">\n\nWatch Madoff. The wealthy skate and steal billions. The poor are in prison over thousands.", ">\n\nWhy does their sign look like a Card Against Humanity", ">\n\nFucking Trump, still at it.", ">\n\nOh you mean the thing people said would happen once they got massive funding actually happened? Checks out", ">\n\nOf course they did, because millionaires will lawyer up.", ">\n\nBecause the poor can't afford to fight back.", ">\n\nIt's so unfair the poor and the middle class taxpayers suffer so much while the millionaries got away with not paying the taxes It's really hurting the poor. The middle class is fading", ">\n\nAll of this can be fixed if we just use no-exemption graduated income", ">\n\nYeah we know", ">\n\nShow of hands for all surprised.\ncrickets\nHmm. Seems like Reddit suffers from a plague of double amputees...", ">\n\nWhat the actual fuck", ">\n\nAnd 2021, 2020, 2019, …", ">\n\nSounds about right.", ">\n\nOf course. Poor people can’t afford attorneys.", ">\n\nI made a mistake on my forms while I was overseas and ticked “self-employed” instead of “employed”. I was on a student visa and had two children and was making less than 10k a year. They hounded me for years. By the time I figured out what had happened I could not amend the forms and had paid thousands in penalties and interest.\nMeanwhile I knew lots of people who were there fully employed not reporting their income.\nFuck them.", ">\n\nYep! During the pandemic, even while I wasn't working didn't come after me the entire time that I was working but the minute that I wasn't nobody was cuz we were in lockdown they started popping up", ">\n\nI just now realized that the Cards Against Humanity box looks like the IRS sign", ">\n\nWhy is the sign a Cards Against Humanity question?", ">\n\nI am shocked and appalled. clutches pearls", ">\n\nRich should be taxed more than the average not right at all. Or at least there is a tier system based on pay only makes sense. Come on now", ">\n\nSounds about right, make the rich richer again.", ">\n\nWho are we going to vote for in the future ,all of them are decayed , corrupted and useless , the “most rich country in the world , governed by the most ignorant an corrupted. What a contrast .", ">\n\nGod bless America", ">\n\nno way. wait until you see those people responds. Those people are chipping away.", ">\n\nSounds about right", ">\n\nWe know.", ">\n\nI find it rather comical that Fox news is reporting on this since they are all about pushing the Republican agenda and that is all about pushing everyone else down that isn't rich and keeping them there. Not to mention they had no problem with Trump not paying taxes for years.", ">\n\nCan fucking confirm.", ">\n\nYeah, they (millionaires) have accountants who generally do things right and due to their millions being in investments it's not like it's taxable all the time. \nThen there's the ability to sell any stocks when they're down to build up losses on paper can reinvest them at a loss that can carry over across multiple years.", ">\n\nsounds about right. i don’t have a pot to piss in but they’re all over me for someone stealing my identity and filing a double tax return one year.", ">\n\nDuh", ">\n\nThere’s a reason why FOX is posting this article. The less people at the IRS, the more likely they come after folks who can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nIn order to pursue wealthy tax cheats, the IRS needs more resources and personnel. Otherwise it’s business as usual, picking on the low hanging fruit that earns under 6 figures.", ">\n\nSo wrong ....people need to be fired", ">\n\nIt’s because they can’t afford to take them to court", ">\n\nOf course it is about protecting the rich like Trump who lies ,lies , and about his tax returns . No wonder he did not want them released .", ">\n\nEasy prey bc most ppl can not lawyer up. Pretty heart breaking system we have at times.", ">\n\nWhy does the irs sign look like it's from cards against humanity?", ">\n\nCurrently getting audited over \\~$1500, which they owe me, when the rich get away with murder. Fucking unbelievably and unnecessarily stressful for me.", ">\n\nHas t this been know for a while?", ">\n\nyep and they are the same people getting tax cuts while everyone else does it tough ....\nAny one with too much money is your enemy .... not a hero of democracy", ">\n\nGet rid of taxes and the gov’t should just do stuff for free, or what ever.", ">\n\nYou have to be careful when you get one of those CP2000 notices from the IRS. The way they are written is a trap.\nIf you dispute it you are supposed to indicate that you disagree and send it back with documents supporting your dispute.\nYou are only supposed to sign it if you agree with them and when you sign it you are signing away your rights to dispute the back taxes and penalties they are demanding.\nMere worker bees like us can expect to be getting a lot of those from this years tax returns considering how the threshold for 1099k forms has been dropped to $600.\nGuys like Trump? The IRS doesn't even know where to begin.", ">\n\nThanks Biden", ">\n\nI presume those lower-income bracket filers might be more likely to reach out to 1-800-infomercial [quickie settlement/long-term penalties most favorable to gov/proprietor] than retain proper legal counsel?\nRegardless it’s got to be a lot less work for IRS agent to go after under-represented citizen(s), rather than someone who can afford to appeal, properly negotiate on their own terms?", ">\n\nLmfao Dems tax and spend. But I have to admit there Republicans that tax and spend to. Where do these Politicians get off taxing me or business and give to people who don't work what do you cause d the inflation. You can not print money \nI am Conservative not a Republican. To much money is wasted and put in pockets of people ot don't belong.\nBut all dems know how to tax tax tax. \nIts all great and good until you run out if other peoples money. \nMillionaire just like Berny he hated Millionaires until he became one now he hates Trillionaires. Funny how the gold post changes. And good old Nancy her I side stock trading. So I think you need to rethink.", ">\n\nThe IRS is only doing as directed by whomever controls the White House.", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised by this? Really?", ">\n\nThe sign in the thumbnail looks like a Cards Against Humanity card.", ">\n\nWhile this is mostly true, don’t believe everything you read. I’m no more an accountant than I am a ladies man, but someone (said they’re an accountant) posted a few days ago about this. They explained that the most likely people getting audited are trying to, fraudulently or mistakenly, claim the EITC. \nYES, it’s super easy to “bust” these people for an easy “mistake”. This is who the IRS is cracking down on. \nDo I think it’s better to bust poor people for claiming a few thousand in tax credits vs billionaires who avoid taxes altogether? Of course not, but don’t think they’re actively targeting people who fudge their mileage deductions or miss a decimal point in their calculations as small business owners. It’s simply not happening. \nAnd the reported “87,000 new IRS agents” are replacing the 10’s of 1,000’s of employees set to retire or quit over the next 10 years which doesn’t even begin to fill the gaps we’ve been growing for decades by not hiring and training more willing workers. Not to mention they’re not even close to all employees who will actively audit tax payers. They’re people who answer phones, file papers, assist others, etc… They’re mostly just average people with average jobs so of course the GOP wants to end this. They hate upward mobility and job creation unless that means tax breaks for their billionaire friends.", ">\n\nI wish everyone wasn’t a sheep and would understand this.", ">\n\nI can see the Media doing their best to turn the public against the IRS.", ">\n\nPicking on the week and helpless. That’s what we humans do. We suck. I’m waiting for that big meteor reset button.", ">\n\nAnd Fox news loves this.", ">\n\nLove it, Faux 'News' taking the piss, for 4 years under Dear Leader they campaigned for tax breaks for the rich, now they're pretending to care about the poor !", ">\n\nEvery millionaire should be audited yearly. Period.", ">\n\nAND now the gqp cult promises to rescind the money Biden set aside to aid the IRS to recover taxes from mega millionaire tax cheats like benedict donald, who paid less taxes than most working Americans.", ">\n\nRepublicans want to stop the IRS and Congress from taxing rich people, making the burden of maintaining civilization fall more heavily on poorer people. This is why Republicans vote for tax cuts for the rich and against funding for the IRS.\nAnd since Republican beliefs are based on wishful thinking, Republicans can screw over poor, rural Republicans while simultaneously taking credit for doing it to make Republicans happy about it and blaming it on Democrats to make those same Republicans resentful against Democrats for it. And what else would we expect from a Republican Party that blames Democrats for tricking them into attacking the Capitol to make Trump look bad and justifies and approves of assaulting Capitol police while brandishing their \"thin blue line\" flags.", ">\n\nThe IRS is like any other law enforcement agency, they prefer pursuing the poor because they don't have the resources to protect themselves.", ">\n\nThe IRS building sign looks like its from cards against humanity.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nNot a reliable news source.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nThat picture looks like the worst cards against humanity card too get.", ">\n\nScrew the Murdoch media empire and their failed trickle down ideologies.", ">\n\nOf course, the poorest haven’t paid over 400+ billion for decades. Not sure about the rich, we haven’t checked.", ">\n\nThis is not a surprise. With the recent inflation reduction act, the IRS an additional $80B over 10 years or $8B per year. The IRS budget for 2021 was $13.7B. The additional $8B over the year would be an increase of 58% to their budget. They will be looking to get a lot more money from taxpayers, due to this very large increase in their budget.", ">\n\nFox reported this? I'm in shock", ">\n\nAll propagandists publish clickbaity stuff that makes them sound like maybe they've let up on the evil. Unfortunately it works, since people just upvote headlines.", ">\n\nIt’s only going to get worse in 2023. Those 87k new IRS agents will not be going after the wealthy.", ">\n\nWhy?\nThat’s literally why they were being added. The IRS goes after the poorer taxpayers because they are low-hanging fruit and don’t have the lawyers and accountants to protect them. \nThe additional IRS employees were to give the personnel staffing sufficient to go after the wealthy.", ">\n\nIt doesn’t matter how many IRS agents there are. It will always be easier and more profitable for the IRS to nickel and dime the average taxpayer rather than go after the wealthy, who have the resources to lawyer up with the best lawyers and challenge the IRS in court.", ">\n\nEasier? Yes. More profitable? Doubtful.", ">\n\nIf Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nBut in 2022 ( when Biden was president and the House belonged to the Dems) they didn’t did they.", ">\n\nIt takes time to refactor an organization. It’s still full of Trump appointees.", ">\n\n2020 was a long time ago", ">\n\nNot on organizational time scales. It takes several months to safely restructure an organization as big as the federal government, and when it is the federal government it takes years. Congress gets a say in every political appointment, budget change, and organization change. It’s designed to be slow to assure continuity. \nThere is a saying that every president gets credited and blamed for what the prior administration put in motion. There is a lot of truth to that, and this organizational inertia is a big reason why. There are similar long lags in changing laws, re-writing policies, modifying rules, and so on. It’s a “feature” of having checks and balances.", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference." ]
> This is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along. The Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain. The sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.	[ "If Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nAnd when Barry was president they targeted conservative groups. I think phone calls can be made to tell them to back off of the little guy.", ">\n\n\nthey targeted conservative groups.\n\nNo. They went after specifically anti-tax tea party groups. The groups who openly flaunted tax laws", ">\n\nThey also went after progressive, left leaning groups - how do you explain that ? it was political", ">\n\nWait, did they target conservatives or progressives? Lol", ">\n\nBoth- it was quite clear they were involving themselves in politics - that’s what the IG found", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.", ">\n\nYep!\nAlso this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious.\nThe real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade.", ">\n\nThanks for the informative reply.\nYou make great points which I don't doubt. But there are times when I think it's important to consider both the letter and spirit of law at times.\nEven though it is perfectly by the letter of the law that people should be checked, it also seems against the intended spirit of said law that only a certain group of people are checked.\nI am not familiar with US law, but I think most of us can feel some degree of injustice with how things currently are.", ">\n\nThe point is to automate more checking of income common to wealthier people, and devote more resources to auditing those people. The Fox News article is disingenuous in how it describes the automated checking that goes on. It’s not great that rich people aren’t really audited, but there’s no reason to stop the automated checking of income where it’s already being done and essentially free to continue.\nIf you feel differently, explain yourself.", ">\n\nNo, we are in alignment concerning this.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nFUCK FOX NEWS\nFox is pretending to care about us poors. \nDon't reward these fascist fucks with upvotes for a disingenuous clickbait headline. They still hate us for not voting gop.", ">\n\nThey want people to hate the IRS and help defund it so they don’t go after the rich, which was the purpose of the additional funding", ">\n\nThey want people to link this to “87000” new agents, which is obviously happening on social media posts, but it’s not even a thing.", ">\n\nArticle is trash. The author is including correspondence audits (which means the IRS asked for some documentation by mail) for low income filers but not for millionaires when comparing their audit rates. Here are actual numbers according to their own source:\nAudit rates including correspondence audits\nlow income 1.27%\nmillionaires 2.38% \nAudit rates excluding correspondence audits\nlow income 0.0376%\nmillionaires 1.24%\n.\nFor low income filers, nearly all their audits were correspondence audits.", ">\n\nIt's hilarious when Fox News and the GOP pretend they care about poor people.\nNo amount of hypocrisy is too much to try to make democrats look bad.", ">\n\nIts unfortunately far easier to prove married couples who live together filed HoH for extra earned income credit than it is to prove complicated returns were incorrect.", ">\n\nIt's also trivially easy to prove the same child was claimed by two parents which is a lot of correspondence audits.", ">\n\nSo can my back taxes please just get forgiven already. 20% income being taxed is not livable", ">\n\nRepublican love flat rate taxes, you should talk to them.", ">\n\nThey’re required to audit the president and vice president, and that didn’t happen either.", ">\n\nThis isn't new, it's been been having for the last 5 - 6 years.", ">\n\nHopefully some wake up and realize its all just preparing us for the inevitable destruction of our economy. I imagine its almost too late to realize this. If we all realized this wed sell our 401Ks and not lean on money and use it to help our neighbors.", ">\n\nK bro.", ">\n\nMy wife and I are on social security. She works part time to keep us afloat. All in, we earned $50K in 2022. iRS wants $4500 from us. Really? 5X what Trump paid? Don't know if anyone is paying attention but $50k ain't rich. Oh, and out of that comes almost $4k in Medicare premiums. A program we paid into for 40+ years.\nEveryone of these arrogant, unqualified,, spoon fed assholes in Congress should be made to live on SSI or welfare, with no medical coverage, for a year. Then tell me I am acting entitled.\nSelf serving bastards.", ">\n\nDon't upvote this crap.\nDo you really think Fox cares about the working class??\nThis is just right wing propaganda, timed to coincide with McCarthy's promise to get rid of the new IRS agents who make it possible to audit the rich.\nDon't be used.", ">\n\nWhatever happened to \"dont shoot the messenger?\"", ">\n\nIRS understaffing would naturally trend to go after low-lying fruit. Easy pickings. Too many man hours to go after super complex cases. These moneyed fuckers and their bullshit. It's outrageous.", ">\n\nThe vast majority of these audits are automatically generated correspondence audits that have to be issued. We can't just turn off the program that raises a red flag when two people claim the same child as a dependent because we don't have enough forensic accountants. If you mistype your W2 you'll get an \"audit\" showing the correct info from the copy your boss sent them and telling you they'll correct it unless you tell them otherwise and you don't have to do anything if the info they have is correct.", ">\n\nYeah, all the nonsense about the IRS \"going after\" low income people is so stupid. Low income people make money in a way that their reporting is easily verifiable by a computer. They're also most likely to mess up and claim child tax credits incorrectly, etc - all of which is verifiable and issued a letter by a computer. \n-\nOther than actually being able to get someone on the phone when you call the IRS, and increased budget isn't going to impact the average person in any way.", ">\n\nMy thing is even assuming the 87k don't successfully get more money out of the rich, that's still 87k jobs. That's a net positive. I just don't understand the conservative logic here. Do they think these 87k new jobs are specifically for being insidiously predatory toward the poor? Where's the logic here? (I know I'll get hyperbolic answers, but I genuinely would like to know)", ">\n\nIt's 87,000 jobs over 10 years, the majority of which are replacement during that period. It's just a budget supplemental to stop hemorrhaging agents as they retire or cycle out into other jobs.", ">\n\nso.. this is on fox, which I assume support republican efforts to ensure that this is the permanent state of affairs. I don't really get anything anymore.", ">\n\nAnd that is the way the GOP wants it.", ">\n\n💯 Exactly what this Fox article is trying to do.", ">\n\nIt's who can afford a lawyer", ">\n\nAs the article hints at, the IRS does not do a lot of actual auditing. What it does is computer matching, which automatically generates material for a correspondence audit. Most correspondence audits occur because som poor working Joe didn't know he/her was supposed to include or exclude something, and the IRS caught it in its matching. Of course, the problem is that we have a complex code and little help in actually helping people through the various forms, rules, and so on. But millionaires don't have these issues, so they can escape most of the traps that lead to a correspondence audit. If a lot of these 87,000 were in taxpayer service (which I expect) it would lead to fewer audits at the low end, more robust audits for large corporations, wealthy individuals, and those who actively use tax avoidance strategies. But of course that is not the dialogue that gets promoted when the 87,000 agents are discussed.", ">\n\nThis is exactly why Fox News needs to be dismantled and thrown in the garbage. Ugh, \"look poors! They're coming for yoU!!!\". Scare tactics. And guess what? It sadly works. Every time.\nThey're lower than scum.", ">\n\nExactly. It's when someone misreports a number from their W2, didn't report 1099s they received, both separated parents claim a tax credit for the same kid, etc. All stuff that's easily checked by a computer. The IRS isn't \"auditing\" random low to middle income people. That would be a complete waste of their time.", ">\n\nlooks at Trump You don't say.", ">\n\nThe poor can't defend themselves, it's easier to take a little bit of money from people that won't fight back than a lot of money from people that will.", ">\n\nThe mega rich seem like they’re on a mission to destroy America, as we know it.", ">\n\nHiring 87,000 new IRS agents makes it possible to audit billionaires. So they pay their share. Those audits require an actual person or team that knows what they are doing. But Kevin McCarthy's first item of business was to announce legislation to overturn the hiring of 87,000 IRS agents. Meaning only the little guy (who can be audited by computer software) pays taxes.\nSSDD", ">\n\nThe \"87,000\" agents budget is over a ten year period. It's not for 87,000 new positions.", ">\n\nThe title is so misleading. Im surprised fox even put the juicy bit in the article about how (this stat is due to there not being enough IRS workers because) these \"audits\" on low earners are just automated letters asking for more info.\nYet again, this is just millionairs paid by billionairs to mislead the masses into blaming the poor for crimes committed by said billionairs.", ">\n\nWhich is why the IRS needs more manpower and budget, so they can go after the big fish.\nFuck Fox News and their Republican propaganda pieces. This article coincides with McCarthy saying they’ll cut the IRS budget and that the IRS is coming for you.\nFuck off Republican propaganda rag!\nStop upvoting any Fox News story. Fox should not be on the white list.", ">\n\nThis is a terrible article. It seems to include questions about tax returns as audits. If a low income filer makes a mistake it should be corrected. Is that an audit? If anyone makes a mistake and is contacted, is that an audit? Also there is no reason to go after low income as they rarely pay tax or are required to. The money requested would also pay for people to answer a phone. Those against increasing funding lie when they say all of it goes to audits. If you tell the truth, who cares if you are audited? Are y’all aware you can track your personal return online? However a business cannot. Businesses have to rely on humans that can’t be reached. I’ve waited a year for a refund. Didn’t know if IRS received the return. Didn’t know if there was an issue. Didn’t know if it was mailed or lost. I’m getting tired of Republicans pushing their crap on people.", ">\n\nwho keeps upvoting this right wing propaganda", ">\n\nWhy would the GOP want to give the agency the power to go after their donors.", ">\n\nAnd it was trumps guy that mandated it while Biden replaced him", ">\n\nApparently the mere use of an accounting firm somehow protected corps and the rich from the IRS who still (mistakenly) believe the accounting firms are trustworthy. How naive.", ">\n\nThe \"audits\" talked about are mostly form letters requesting more info about specific items.", ">\n\nThe poor can't pay for top flight attorneys.", ">\n\nYep keep the IRS underfunded so they can only go after the poors at the same time telling all the poors that the IRS is bad cause it goes after them but leave out the fact that they do that cause the poors are low hanging fruit.\nRepublicans are evil.", ">\n\nWell the GOP wants to cut funding to the IRS for new agents, so I’m sure the poor folk will continue to get screwed. I say toss the 50,000+ page tax code out and replace with a percentage based on total revenue/income made. Took a loss? No write-offs. Oh well, better luck next year. It’ll never happen because the wealthy don’t want it to.", ">\n\nWhere did you get this info? I know GOPers have been slashing IRS budgets and staffing for years but can't find reliable sources for what this has done to the actual audits - like who gets audited.", ">\n\nTheir link is Fox. This is a bad faith post.", ">\n\nThis says a lot coming from fox “news”", ">\n\nTo paraphrase Gilbert K. Chesterton, \"The Poor have sometimes objected to being taxed too heavily; The Rich have always objected to being taxed at all.\"", ">\n\ndon't post Fox news here....", ">\n\nCorporations and millionaires have the means to hire accountants and attorneys. Our tax code is gray in several areas. It’s easy to go after the poor that do not have the resources and will have no choice but to pay anything the IRS says. The additional agents will continue to target the poor and middle class because they are easy, It’s happened before, it will continue to happen.", ">\n\nI think it's funny/sad that a poor person can win the lottery and they get taxed at a higher rate than any billionaire has ever been taxed at. The system is built to keep the rich - rich and the poor - poor.", ">\n\nThe poorest can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nThe current system cannot be sustained. We are hurtling towards disaster.", ">\n\nThe only reason the bastards have the majority is because the corrupt SCOTUS allowed illegal gerrymanders to stand while they were fought in the courts.", ">\n\nThe I.R.S. goes after the poorer people because it's easier. They can't afford lawyers and accountants. So the poor can do nothing but roll over and take it up the rump. The Inflation Reduction Act that Biden signed into law in August is supposed to give $80 Billion to the I.R.S. so they can go after the millionaires. But we know that won't happen. More poor people are going to get screwed.", ">\n\nI'm confused. For decades, Faux news and the conservatives have been saying that millionaires deserve to keep more of their money than we do. That was a huge part of the 2017 tax scam that Trump signed. Now Faux is saying it's a problem? And they are rightly detailing that Republicans are the cause, along with Biden trying to fix the same issue that Fox has helped create?", ">\n\nFox News", ">\n\nHey IRS, don't forget to crawl up my ass this year because I sold some old stuff on eBay for a loss but make sure you put a few man hours into figuring out if it is legit or not.", ">\n\nlol, and the people opposed to IRS funding will say they are anti-establishment.", ">\n\nImagine how much they could squeeze the middle class with 87,000 more agents! But really, it’ll be good to see if the increase in officers actually increases tax revenue without changing the underlying laws.", ">\n\nSo, this is the newest Republican boogeyman, the IRS.\nWell, better than Drag Queens I guess.", ">\n\nOh hey just like last year, and the year before that, I think there might be a pattern", ">\n\nThank you republicans, always sticking up in the back on the small guys…", ">\n\nFox News saying this like it’s not something Rupert Murdoch’s network supports is pretty funny.", ">\n\nFox News. Ignore it.", ">\n\nFox News is still allowed in here?", ">\n\nFake news. This is Republican propaganda coming from Fox News.", ">\n\nFox News is NOT news", ">\n\nHmm sounds like it was underfunded then. Good thing now we helped ease that problem. Thanks Biden", ">\n\nIt's simply laziness by the IRS. Lower-income households have less complicated returns and easier to process. I'm sure IRS runs a non-effective but management-pleasing metric like \"how many returns were corrected\" opposed to how much money was recouped.", ">\n\nWe know. They don't have the resources to do anything. That was the point of increasing the staffing at the IRS so they had even the slightest hope of going after the big offenders with their armies or lawyers.", ">\n\nThere's less millionaires and billionaires than there are us. I'm not sure that answer fits the accuracy on hiring more workers but I'll go ahead and amuse that", ">\n\nIt's not a game of tax guy vs rich guy. The rich literally have armies of lawyers. You need the staff to overcome all the paper and challenges they'll throw at you. \nIf you throw one person to audit a millionaire, their lawyers can make it so it'll take a year to review a week of operations. Investigations will never finish unless there's sufficient staff to overcome their obstruction.", ">\n\nTo this day I do not understand why the IRS can demand our documents every year without a warrant. The 16th amendment does not alter the 4th, and the 4th does not apply only to criminal actions (as the 5th explicitly does). Yet no one seems to care about this annual violations.", ">\n\nReminder, Fox News is not news. It's entertainment, and should be regarded as such.", ">\n\nNo shit, poor ppl tend to file their own taxes and screw up where as millionaires hire expensive accountants to exploit all the legal loopholes without getting their clients in trouble.\nI don't think it's an intentional targeting as the article may be implying.", ">\n\nOne might imagine the resources of agents would be better put to use by focusing on returns that might produce more revenue, however it may be just a lot easier to collect a few bucks from easier targets.", ">\n\nThey are short staffed and accountants make it so difficult to find wrongdoing, if there is even wrongdoing to be found, that it would take a decent chunk of their workforce just to tackle it. It's like trying to find needle in a haystack but you don't know if there's a needle or not.", ">\n\nSo true....", ">\n\nShocked pikachu face.", ">\n\nYeah I’d believe this if it weren’t Fox News. They could give a fuck about the poor and middle class.", ">\n\nI would literally rather the IRS spend its time auditing 5 extraordinarily rich people or a single business than anyone who makes less than 100k per year\nETA: I’m aware that this article represents part of the Republican agenda to just gut the IRS and welfare spending generally. And I understand the difficulties in auditing the rich/businesses v lower income people claiming tax credits, etc", ">\n\nAlmost all of the little people \"audits\" are just a computer issuing a correspondence \"audit\" because the person misreported something from their W2, didn't report as much 1099 income as was reported to the IRS by others, or separated parents both trying to claim kids for tax credits or something. \n-\nThey don't really pull from the same resources. The rich people audits require human beings. Little people \"audits\" aren't really audits and a computer can do it. So if we want to audit more rich people, they need actual budget for human beings. The little people are going to be caught anyways because a computer can do it.", ">\n\nI interned at the IRS during the summer of 2012 when Lois Lerner made batshit crazy commrnts that they were targetting conservative groups", ">\n\nI say this every time it gets brought up. This is by design. I used to work in auditing and also used to do tax stuff. It’s super easy to find tax fraud on someone who only has a simple W-2 and no other income. You could find those people through a basic algorithm. Meanwhile, auditing a multi millionaire is expensive, time consuming, and often fruitless. If I was in charge of an underfunded, understaffed IRS I would tell my staff to go for the easy wins too.", ">\n\nUnpopular opinion - More funding won't resolve this. \nThe IRS will keep doing this. Unless rules & regulations forbid or disincentivize this practice, the IRS will keep this stupid practice", ">\n\nI make $40,000 a year and the IRS froze my bank accounts until I paid them $1000 in taxes I owed them because of an error I made filling my taxes. They froze my bank accounts for $1000. I was fucked for a month. I had to borrow cash from people just for food and gas money to get to work to get paid money that I couldn’t access. It was a scary time for me. Meanwhile millionaires are purposely avoiding taxes worth more than what I make in a year and nothing happens to them.", ">\n\nThe IRS sends no less than a dozen letters to a taxpayer prior to leaving a bank account. Why didn't you just put it into a repayment plan? Takes about ten minutes online.", ">\n\nDon't you just hate autocorrect?", ">\n\nIf true, its a holdover from jrbush who slashed IRS staff and budget and told them to spend more time auditing tip jars and busboys than millionaires because the millionaires had better lawyers than the IRS and service workers were unlikely to have any lawyers at all.", ">\n\nFox News solution: remove the IRS", ">\n\nAbsolutely. They’ll NEVER target the rich, adding more agents just made them a lot more capable to target all the lower class.", ">\n\nWhat people don't realize..Those 87K \"Agents\" aren't that. It's 87K employees over 25 years. Clerks etc. People are so fucking stupid when they just believe these clowns.", ">\n\nThose numbers also count it as an \"audit\" when a person misreports a number from a W2, 1099s, etc and the irs number matching software sends an automatically generated correspondence letter that basically says \"we actually show this number, this is what your tax return would have been if you reported that number correctly\". \nThe IRS isn't wasting time doing random \"audits\" as people think of them for low to middle income people. It would be a complete waste of their time. The computer just catches obvious verifiable mistakes and it counts as an audit in those numbers.", ">\n\n“those in the lowest income bracket hit 12.7 per 1,000….. The odds of a millionaire facing an audit were around 1.1%.”\nSo they’re saying 1.27% vs 1.1%!!! And acting like that’s a scandal 🙄", ">\n\nWhich means millionaires REALLY don't want more IRS auditors which means when our new resident house fascist fires five thousand auditors, said fascist (McCarthy) is making sure those millionaires aren't going to get audited. \nCha CHING !!! Go the \"donations\" into house rat republican's pockets. \nThe grift will be in full swing shortly.\nAnd with putin whispering in their ears and telling them EXACTLY how break the law - how can they lose?", ">\n\n💯 Exactly why theres a Fox link here pushing for that same reason.", ">\n\nTwo things. First of all, this is from a far right-wing propaganda outlet which should immediately raise red flags. They're trying to scare you into allowing a republican-initiated movement to entirely remove all remaining power from the IRS by making it seem like they're coming after you.\nSecond, the reason the IRS is already already virtually powerless against the rich is because the republicans have already eviscerated them in the past several decades, largely through defunding them leading to not only staffing cuts, but the inability to pursue the wealthiest people who have the resources for endless litigation. So as a result, the FBI can only really afford to go after people who cannot financially defend themselves.", ">\n\nThird, you might as well throw in that the aiming low guidance was under a Trump appointee who is no longer in that position.", ">\n\nThe GOP intentionally defunded the IRS so that it could not audit the wealthy. It takes a great deal more money upfront to audit them but the payback is far greater.", ">\n\nI'm not sure why dems voted against an amendment that would have mandated the giant infusion of cash into the IRS couldn't be used to audit folks making >$400k.", ">\n\nHrm this is pretty fucked I'd like to hear about why the Dems voted nay.", ">\n\nBecause they work for the same people as Republicans. \nThey are different but only when their owners allow them to be. \nI don't know how many times we are going to have to learn this lesson before it sticks.", ">\n\nDemocrats are responsible for this", ">\n\nThe rich returns are just too hard, enough lower class errors you can leave the rich alone. Love to see it… sigh", ">\n\nIt takes money to police the wealthy. Can't have that can we?!", ">\n\nr/noshitsherlock", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised?\nI’m not even American and this seemed obvious to me. All you have to do is look at how the poor live and compare that to the news about someone like Elon musk or Donald trump.", ">\n\nThis is why the IRS needs to go.", ">\n\nFox News helped make that happen.", ">\n\nThey'll never change,all the time when the guys in charge benefit from doing the same shit.", ">\n\nAnd yet the republicans dont submit or pass legislations to change the rules to favor targeting rich people. Curious.", ">\n\nThen 78,000 new, armed tax collectors should be able to extract even more money from the poor, middle-class and small business owners.", ">\n\nWhy did they focus on the Poorest? The thought of 87,000 more of them will actually do what? If the existing can’t focus on the wealthy! Then what makes anybody think more can?", ">\n\nMillionaires and billionaires make the government more money by creating lobbying loopholes and exploiting the economy to bilk the 99%. It's really cheap to go after the poorest who are struggling to pay day to day obligations and don't have loopholes or government sanctioned exploitation to take advantage of.", ">\n\nI could have told you this would happen. You think millionaires get $600 Venmo transactions?", ">\n\nThat's a move democrats should not make. That's one month of rent for me. What of folks worse-off?", ">\n\nHonestly it’s like squeezing blood from the stone over here anyway.", ">\n\nDuh lmfao theyve already stated it costs too much to tax weathy people previously and its most cost effective to audit the poor due to many factors...", ">\n\nI mean 99% of us are poor compared to the other 1%", ">\n\nColor me surprised", ">\n\nWe need some laws for equitable auditing.", ">\n\nYou are an Army commander about to attack the enemy. Do you prefer to attack where they have experienced career solders backed up by artillery, tanks, and airplanes, or do you attack where there are poorly armed and equipped untrained conscripts?", ">\n\nThey must be upset someone replaced their sign with a card from Cards Against Humanity", ">\n\nMay it ever be so…. Don’t reproduce if you only consume and can’t accumulate or help a Dow Jones winter water witch. Like snow, weathermen.", ">\n\nIt’s weirdly fitting how much their building sign in the photo looks like a cards against humanity card.", ">\n\nTypical", ">\n\nWow? How unusual.", ">\n\nI’d support double the number of IRS agents", ">\n\nI was low income and won about 3,000 gambling, the irs went after me", ">\n\nThe IRS came after me hard for 8$", ">\n\nAudit frequency should correlate to income, someone with a million in income should be audited 10x those with 100k income", ">\n\nSomeone should explain Pareto charts to the IRS.", ">\n\nI've been audited three times. First when I was 27, did some consulting and didn't do the 1099 prepayments. Ended up owing $17k. Second audit was after moving across country for a job. The tax preparer we hired made a mistake with the move expense deductions, owed a few thousand. Third audit was another tax preparer mistake, but this time we overpaid and were owed money we credited to the next year. \nIf you assume for discussion that the average audit on an ordinary tax payer returns $10,000, it would take 100,000,000 audits to make $1 trillion. By just doing the easy work, the IRS is leaving the real money on the table.", ">\n\nRepublicans are famous for giving rich breaks while middle class etc close the gaps", ">\n\nThe last line, \"The Inflation Reduction Act provides the IRS with $80 billion in future funding to ramp up its audits and potentially target the wealthiest taxpayers.\"", ">\n\nThe cure is not the root cause, but the middle class and the poor will eventually bear the burden after the capital operation", ">\n\nIt’s like they timed the “research” and the drop of the article with the speech. Sad man.", ">\n\nWatch Madoff. The wealthy skate and steal billions. The poor are in prison over thousands.", ">\n\nWhy does their sign look like a Card Against Humanity", ">\n\nFucking Trump, still at it.", ">\n\nOh you mean the thing people said would happen once they got massive funding actually happened? Checks out", ">\n\nOf course they did, because millionaires will lawyer up.", ">\n\nBecause the poor can't afford to fight back.", ">\n\nIt's so unfair the poor and the middle class taxpayers suffer so much while the millionaries got away with not paying the taxes It's really hurting the poor. The middle class is fading", ">\n\nAll of this can be fixed if we just use no-exemption graduated income", ">\n\nYeah we know", ">\n\nShow of hands for all surprised.\ncrickets\nHmm. Seems like Reddit suffers from a plague of double amputees...", ">\n\nWhat the actual fuck", ">\n\nAnd 2021, 2020, 2019, …", ">\n\nSounds about right.", ">\n\nOf course. Poor people can’t afford attorneys.", ">\n\nI made a mistake on my forms while I was overseas and ticked “self-employed” instead of “employed”. I was on a student visa and had two children and was making less than 10k a year. They hounded me for years. By the time I figured out what had happened I could not amend the forms and had paid thousands in penalties and interest.\nMeanwhile I knew lots of people who were there fully employed not reporting their income.\nFuck them.", ">\n\nYep! During the pandemic, even while I wasn't working didn't come after me the entire time that I was working but the minute that I wasn't nobody was cuz we were in lockdown they started popping up", ">\n\nI just now realized that the Cards Against Humanity box looks like the IRS sign", ">\n\nWhy is the sign a Cards Against Humanity question?", ">\n\nI am shocked and appalled. clutches pearls", ">\n\nRich should be taxed more than the average not right at all. Or at least there is a tier system based on pay only makes sense. Come on now", ">\n\nSounds about right, make the rich richer again.", ">\n\nWho are we going to vote for in the future ,all of them are decayed , corrupted and useless , the “most rich country in the world , governed by the most ignorant an corrupted. What a contrast .", ">\n\nGod bless America", ">\n\nno way. wait until you see those people responds. Those people are chipping away.", ">\n\nSounds about right", ">\n\nWe know.", ">\n\nI find it rather comical that Fox news is reporting on this since they are all about pushing the Republican agenda and that is all about pushing everyone else down that isn't rich and keeping them there. Not to mention they had no problem with Trump not paying taxes for years.", ">\n\nCan fucking confirm.", ">\n\nYeah, they (millionaires) have accountants who generally do things right and due to their millions being in investments it's not like it's taxable all the time. \nThen there's the ability to sell any stocks when they're down to build up losses on paper can reinvest them at a loss that can carry over across multiple years.", ">\n\nsounds about right. i don’t have a pot to piss in but they’re all over me for someone stealing my identity and filing a double tax return one year.", ">\n\nDuh", ">\n\nThere’s a reason why FOX is posting this article. The less people at the IRS, the more likely they come after folks who can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nIn order to pursue wealthy tax cheats, the IRS needs more resources and personnel. Otherwise it’s business as usual, picking on the low hanging fruit that earns under 6 figures.", ">\n\nSo wrong ....people need to be fired", ">\n\nIt’s because they can’t afford to take them to court", ">\n\nOf course it is about protecting the rich like Trump who lies ,lies , and about his tax returns . No wonder he did not want them released .", ">\n\nEasy prey bc most ppl can not lawyer up. Pretty heart breaking system we have at times.", ">\n\nWhy does the irs sign look like it's from cards against humanity?", ">\n\nCurrently getting audited over \\~$1500, which they owe me, when the rich get away with murder. Fucking unbelievably and unnecessarily stressful for me.", ">\n\nHas t this been know for a while?", ">\n\nyep and they are the same people getting tax cuts while everyone else does it tough ....\nAny one with too much money is your enemy .... not a hero of democracy", ">\n\nGet rid of taxes and the gov’t should just do stuff for free, or what ever.", ">\n\nYou have to be careful when you get one of those CP2000 notices from the IRS. The way they are written is a trap.\nIf you dispute it you are supposed to indicate that you disagree and send it back with documents supporting your dispute.\nYou are only supposed to sign it if you agree with them and when you sign it you are signing away your rights to dispute the back taxes and penalties they are demanding.\nMere worker bees like us can expect to be getting a lot of those from this years tax returns considering how the threshold for 1099k forms has been dropped to $600.\nGuys like Trump? The IRS doesn't even know where to begin.", ">\n\nThanks Biden", ">\n\nI presume those lower-income bracket filers might be more likely to reach out to 1-800-infomercial [quickie settlement/long-term penalties most favorable to gov/proprietor] than retain proper legal counsel?\nRegardless it’s got to be a lot less work for IRS agent to go after under-represented citizen(s), rather than someone who can afford to appeal, properly negotiate on their own terms?", ">\n\nLmfao Dems tax and spend. But I have to admit there Republicans that tax and spend to. Where do these Politicians get off taxing me or business and give to people who don't work what do you cause d the inflation. You can not print money \nI am Conservative not a Republican. To much money is wasted and put in pockets of people ot don't belong.\nBut all dems know how to tax tax tax. \nIts all great and good until you run out if other peoples money. \nMillionaire just like Berny he hated Millionaires until he became one now he hates Trillionaires. Funny how the gold post changes. And good old Nancy her I side stock trading. So I think you need to rethink.", ">\n\nThe IRS is only doing as directed by whomever controls the White House.", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised by this? Really?", ">\n\nThe sign in the thumbnail looks like a Cards Against Humanity card.", ">\n\nWhile this is mostly true, don’t believe everything you read. I’m no more an accountant than I am a ladies man, but someone (said they’re an accountant) posted a few days ago about this. They explained that the most likely people getting audited are trying to, fraudulently or mistakenly, claim the EITC. \nYES, it’s super easy to “bust” these people for an easy “mistake”. This is who the IRS is cracking down on. \nDo I think it’s better to bust poor people for claiming a few thousand in tax credits vs billionaires who avoid taxes altogether? Of course not, but don’t think they’re actively targeting people who fudge their mileage deductions or miss a decimal point in their calculations as small business owners. It’s simply not happening. \nAnd the reported “87,000 new IRS agents” are replacing the 10’s of 1,000’s of employees set to retire or quit over the next 10 years which doesn’t even begin to fill the gaps we’ve been growing for decades by not hiring and training more willing workers. Not to mention they’re not even close to all employees who will actively audit tax payers. They’re people who answer phones, file papers, assist others, etc… They’re mostly just average people with average jobs so of course the GOP wants to end this. They hate upward mobility and job creation unless that means tax breaks for their billionaire friends.", ">\n\nI wish everyone wasn’t a sheep and would understand this.", ">\n\nI can see the Media doing their best to turn the public against the IRS.", ">\n\nPicking on the week and helpless. That’s what we humans do. We suck. I’m waiting for that big meteor reset button.", ">\n\nAnd Fox news loves this.", ">\n\nLove it, Faux 'News' taking the piss, for 4 years under Dear Leader they campaigned for tax breaks for the rich, now they're pretending to care about the poor !", ">\n\nEvery millionaire should be audited yearly. Period.", ">\n\nAND now the gqp cult promises to rescind the money Biden set aside to aid the IRS to recover taxes from mega millionaire tax cheats like benedict donald, who paid less taxes than most working Americans.", ">\n\nRepublicans want to stop the IRS and Congress from taxing rich people, making the burden of maintaining civilization fall more heavily on poorer people. This is why Republicans vote for tax cuts for the rich and against funding for the IRS.\nAnd since Republican beliefs are based on wishful thinking, Republicans can screw over poor, rural Republicans while simultaneously taking credit for doing it to make Republicans happy about it and blaming it on Democrats to make those same Republicans resentful against Democrats for it. And what else would we expect from a Republican Party that blames Democrats for tricking them into attacking the Capitol to make Trump look bad and justifies and approves of assaulting Capitol police while brandishing their \"thin blue line\" flags.", ">\n\nThe IRS is like any other law enforcement agency, they prefer pursuing the poor because they don't have the resources to protect themselves.", ">\n\nThe IRS building sign looks like its from cards against humanity.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nNot a reliable news source.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nThat picture looks like the worst cards against humanity card too get.", ">\n\nScrew the Murdoch media empire and their failed trickle down ideologies.", ">\n\nOf course, the poorest haven’t paid over 400+ billion for decades. Not sure about the rich, we haven’t checked.", ">\n\nThis is not a surprise. With the recent inflation reduction act, the IRS an additional $80B over 10 years or $8B per year. The IRS budget for 2021 was $13.7B. The additional $8B over the year would be an increase of 58% to their budget. They will be looking to get a lot more money from taxpayers, due to this very large increase in their budget.", ">\n\nFox reported this? I'm in shock", ">\n\nAll propagandists publish clickbaity stuff that makes them sound like maybe they've let up on the evil. Unfortunately it works, since people just upvote headlines.", ">\n\nIt’s only going to get worse in 2023. Those 87k new IRS agents will not be going after the wealthy.", ">\n\nWhy?\nThat’s literally why they were being added. The IRS goes after the poorer taxpayers because they are low-hanging fruit and don’t have the lawyers and accountants to protect them. \nThe additional IRS employees were to give the personnel staffing sufficient to go after the wealthy.", ">\n\nIt doesn’t matter how many IRS agents there are. It will always be easier and more profitable for the IRS to nickel and dime the average taxpayer rather than go after the wealthy, who have the resources to lawyer up with the best lawyers and challenge the IRS in court.", ">\n\nEasier? Yes. More profitable? Doubtful.", ">\n\nIf Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nBut in 2022 ( when Biden was president and the House belonged to the Dems) they didn’t did they.", ">\n\nIt takes time to refactor an organization. It’s still full of Trump appointees.", ">\n\n2020 was a long time ago", ">\n\nNot on organizational time scales. It takes several months to safely restructure an organization as big as the federal government, and when it is the federal government it takes years. Congress gets a say in every political appointment, budget change, and organization change. It’s designed to be slow to assure continuity. \nThere is a saying that every president gets credited and blamed for what the prior administration put in motion. There is a lot of truth to that, and this organizational inertia is a big reason why. There are similar long lags in changing laws, re-writing policies, modifying rules, and so on. It’s a “feature” of having checks and balances.", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything." ]
> Yep! Also this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious. The real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade.	[ "If Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nAnd when Barry was president they targeted conservative groups. I think phone calls can be made to tell them to back off of the little guy.", ">\n\n\nthey targeted conservative groups.\n\nNo. They went after specifically anti-tax tea party groups. The groups who openly flaunted tax laws", ">\n\nThey also went after progressive, left leaning groups - how do you explain that ? it was political", ">\n\nWait, did they target conservatives or progressives? Lol", ">\n\nBoth- it was quite clear they were involving themselves in politics - that’s what the IG found", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.", ">\n\nYep!\nAlso this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious.\nThe real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade.", ">\n\nThanks for the informative reply.\nYou make great points which I don't doubt. But there are times when I think it's important to consider both the letter and spirit of law at times.\nEven though it is perfectly by the letter of the law that people should be checked, it also seems against the intended spirit of said law that only a certain group of people are checked.\nI am not familiar with US law, but I think most of us can feel some degree of injustice with how things currently are.", ">\n\nThe point is to automate more checking of income common to wealthier people, and devote more resources to auditing those people. The Fox News article is disingenuous in how it describes the automated checking that goes on. It’s not great that rich people aren’t really audited, but there’s no reason to stop the automated checking of income where it’s already being done and essentially free to continue.\nIf you feel differently, explain yourself.", ">\n\nNo, we are in alignment concerning this.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nFUCK FOX NEWS\nFox is pretending to care about us poors. \nDon't reward these fascist fucks with upvotes for a disingenuous clickbait headline. They still hate us for not voting gop.", ">\n\nThey want people to hate the IRS and help defund it so they don’t go after the rich, which was the purpose of the additional funding", ">\n\nThey want people to link this to “87000” new agents, which is obviously happening on social media posts, but it’s not even a thing.", ">\n\nArticle is trash. The author is including correspondence audits (which means the IRS asked for some documentation by mail) for low income filers but not for millionaires when comparing their audit rates. Here are actual numbers according to their own source:\nAudit rates including correspondence audits\nlow income 1.27%\nmillionaires 2.38% \nAudit rates excluding correspondence audits\nlow income 0.0376%\nmillionaires 1.24%\n.\nFor low income filers, nearly all their audits were correspondence audits.", ">\n\nIt's hilarious when Fox News and the GOP pretend they care about poor people.\nNo amount of hypocrisy is too much to try to make democrats look bad.", ">\n\nIts unfortunately far easier to prove married couples who live together filed HoH for extra earned income credit than it is to prove complicated returns were incorrect.", ">\n\nIt's also trivially easy to prove the same child was claimed by two parents which is a lot of correspondence audits.", ">\n\nSo can my back taxes please just get forgiven already. 20% income being taxed is not livable", ">\n\nRepublican love flat rate taxes, you should talk to them.", ">\n\nThey’re required to audit the president and vice president, and that didn’t happen either.", ">\n\nThis isn't new, it's been been having for the last 5 - 6 years.", ">\n\nHopefully some wake up and realize its all just preparing us for the inevitable destruction of our economy. I imagine its almost too late to realize this. If we all realized this wed sell our 401Ks and not lean on money and use it to help our neighbors.", ">\n\nK bro.", ">\n\nMy wife and I are on social security. She works part time to keep us afloat. All in, we earned $50K in 2022. iRS wants $4500 from us. Really? 5X what Trump paid? Don't know if anyone is paying attention but $50k ain't rich. Oh, and out of that comes almost $4k in Medicare premiums. A program we paid into for 40+ years.\nEveryone of these arrogant, unqualified,, spoon fed assholes in Congress should be made to live on SSI or welfare, with no medical coverage, for a year. Then tell me I am acting entitled.\nSelf serving bastards.", ">\n\nDon't upvote this crap.\nDo you really think Fox cares about the working class??\nThis is just right wing propaganda, timed to coincide with McCarthy's promise to get rid of the new IRS agents who make it possible to audit the rich.\nDon't be used.", ">\n\nWhatever happened to \"dont shoot the messenger?\"", ">\n\nIRS understaffing would naturally trend to go after low-lying fruit. Easy pickings. Too many man hours to go after super complex cases. These moneyed fuckers and their bullshit. It's outrageous.", ">\n\nThe vast majority of these audits are automatically generated correspondence audits that have to be issued. We can't just turn off the program that raises a red flag when two people claim the same child as a dependent because we don't have enough forensic accountants. If you mistype your W2 you'll get an \"audit\" showing the correct info from the copy your boss sent them and telling you they'll correct it unless you tell them otherwise and you don't have to do anything if the info they have is correct.", ">\n\nYeah, all the nonsense about the IRS \"going after\" low income people is so stupid. Low income people make money in a way that their reporting is easily verifiable by a computer. They're also most likely to mess up and claim child tax credits incorrectly, etc - all of which is verifiable and issued a letter by a computer. \n-\nOther than actually being able to get someone on the phone when you call the IRS, and increased budget isn't going to impact the average person in any way.", ">\n\nMy thing is even assuming the 87k don't successfully get more money out of the rich, that's still 87k jobs. That's a net positive. I just don't understand the conservative logic here. Do they think these 87k new jobs are specifically for being insidiously predatory toward the poor? Where's the logic here? (I know I'll get hyperbolic answers, but I genuinely would like to know)", ">\n\nIt's 87,000 jobs over 10 years, the majority of which are replacement during that period. It's just a budget supplemental to stop hemorrhaging agents as they retire or cycle out into other jobs.", ">\n\nso.. this is on fox, which I assume support republican efforts to ensure that this is the permanent state of affairs. I don't really get anything anymore.", ">\n\nAnd that is the way the GOP wants it.", ">\n\n💯 Exactly what this Fox article is trying to do.", ">\n\nIt's who can afford a lawyer", ">\n\nAs the article hints at, the IRS does not do a lot of actual auditing. What it does is computer matching, which automatically generates material for a correspondence audit. Most correspondence audits occur because som poor working Joe didn't know he/her was supposed to include or exclude something, and the IRS caught it in its matching. Of course, the problem is that we have a complex code and little help in actually helping people through the various forms, rules, and so on. But millionaires don't have these issues, so they can escape most of the traps that lead to a correspondence audit. If a lot of these 87,000 were in taxpayer service (which I expect) it would lead to fewer audits at the low end, more robust audits for large corporations, wealthy individuals, and those who actively use tax avoidance strategies. But of course that is not the dialogue that gets promoted when the 87,000 agents are discussed.", ">\n\nThis is exactly why Fox News needs to be dismantled and thrown in the garbage. Ugh, \"look poors! They're coming for yoU!!!\". Scare tactics. And guess what? It sadly works. Every time.\nThey're lower than scum.", ">\n\nExactly. It's when someone misreports a number from their W2, didn't report 1099s they received, both separated parents claim a tax credit for the same kid, etc. All stuff that's easily checked by a computer. The IRS isn't \"auditing\" random low to middle income people. That would be a complete waste of their time.", ">\n\nlooks at Trump You don't say.", ">\n\nThe poor can't defend themselves, it's easier to take a little bit of money from people that won't fight back than a lot of money from people that will.", ">\n\nThe mega rich seem like they’re on a mission to destroy America, as we know it.", ">\n\nHiring 87,000 new IRS agents makes it possible to audit billionaires. So they pay their share. Those audits require an actual person or team that knows what they are doing. But Kevin McCarthy's first item of business was to announce legislation to overturn the hiring of 87,000 IRS agents. Meaning only the little guy (who can be audited by computer software) pays taxes.\nSSDD", ">\n\nThe \"87,000\" agents budget is over a ten year period. It's not for 87,000 new positions.", ">\n\nThe title is so misleading. Im surprised fox even put the juicy bit in the article about how (this stat is due to there not being enough IRS workers because) these \"audits\" on low earners are just automated letters asking for more info.\nYet again, this is just millionairs paid by billionairs to mislead the masses into blaming the poor for crimes committed by said billionairs.", ">\n\nWhich is why the IRS needs more manpower and budget, so they can go after the big fish.\nFuck Fox News and their Republican propaganda pieces. This article coincides with McCarthy saying they’ll cut the IRS budget and that the IRS is coming for you.\nFuck off Republican propaganda rag!\nStop upvoting any Fox News story. Fox should not be on the white list.", ">\n\nThis is a terrible article. It seems to include questions about tax returns as audits. If a low income filer makes a mistake it should be corrected. Is that an audit? If anyone makes a mistake and is contacted, is that an audit? Also there is no reason to go after low income as they rarely pay tax or are required to. The money requested would also pay for people to answer a phone. Those against increasing funding lie when they say all of it goes to audits. If you tell the truth, who cares if you are audited? Are y’all aware you can track your personal return online? However a business cannot. Businesses have to rely on humans that can’t be reached. I’ve waited a year for a refund. Didn’t know if IRS received the return. Didn’t know if there was an issue. Didn’t know if it was mailed or lost. I’m getting tired of Republicans pushing their crap on people.", ">\n\nwho keeps upvoting this right wing propaganda", ">\n\nWhy would the GOP want to give the agency the power to go after their donors.", ">\n\nAnd it was trumps guy that mandated it while Biden replaced him", ">\n\nApparently the mere use of an accounting firm somehow protected corps and the rich from the IRS who still (mistakenly) believe the accounting firms are trustworthy. How naive.", ">\n\nThe \"audits\" talked about are mostly form letters requesting more info about specific items.", ">\n\nThe poor can't pay for top flight attorneys.", ">\n\nYep keep the IRS underfunded so they can only go after the poors at the same time telling all the poors that the IRS is bad cause it goes after them but leave out the fact that they do that cause the poors are low hanging fruit.\nRepublicans are evil.", ">\n\nWell the GOP wants to cut funding to the IRS for new agents, so I’m sure the poor folk will continue to get screwed. I say toss the 50,000+ page tax code out and replace with a percentage based on total revenue/income made. Took a loss? No write-offs. Oh well, better luck next year. It’ll never happen because the wealthy don’t want it to.", ">\n\nWhere did you get this info? I know GOPers have been slashing IRS budgets and staffing for years but can't find reliable sources for what this has done to the actual audits - like who gets audited.", ">\n\nTheir link is Fox. This is a bad faith post.", ">\n\nThis says a lot coming from fox “news”", ">\n\nTo paraphrase Gilbert K. Chesterton, \"The Poor have sometimes objected to being taxed too heavily; The Rich have always objected to being taxed at all.\"", ">\n\ndon't post Fox news here....", ">\n\nCorporations and millionaires have the means to hire accountants and attorneys. Our tax code is gray in several areas. It’s easy to go after the poor that do not have the resources and will have no choice but to pay anything the IRS says. The additional agents will continue to target the poor and middle class because they are easy, It’s happened before, it will continue to happen.", ">\n\nI think it's funny/sad that a poor person can win the lottery and they get taxed at a higher rate than any billionaire has ever been taxed at. The system is built to keep the rich - rich and the poor - poor.", ">\n\nThe poorest can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nThe current system cannot be sustained. We are hurtling towards disaster.", ">\n\nThe only reason the bastards have the majority is because the corrupt SCOTUS allowed illegal gerrymanders to stand while they were fought in the courts.", ">\n\nThe I.R.S. goes after the poorer people because it's easier. They can't afford lawyers and accountants. So the poor can do nothing but roll over and take it up the rump. The Inflation Reduction Act that Biden signed into law in August is supposed to give $80 Billion to the I.R.S. so they can go after the millionaires. But we know that won't happen. More poor people are going to get screwed.", ">\n\nI'm confused. For decades, Faux news and the conservatives have been saying that millionaires deserve to keep more of their money than we do. That was a huge part of the 2017 tax scam that Trump signed. Now Faux is saying it's a problem? And they are rightly detailing that Republicans are the cause, along with Biden trying to fix the same issue that Fox has helped create?", ">\n\nFox News", ">\n\nHey IRS, don't forget to crawl up my ass this year because I sold some old stuff on eBay for a loss but make sure you put a few man hours into figuring out if it is legit or not.", ">\n\nlol, and the people opposed to IRS funding will say they are anti-establishment.", ">\n\nImagine how much they could squeeze the middle class with 87,000 more agents! But really, it’ll be good to see if the increase in officers actually increases tax revenue without changing the underlying laws.", ">\n\nSo, this is the newest Republican boogeyman, the IRS.\nWell, better than Drag Queens I guess.", ">\n\nOh hey just like last year, and the year before that, I think there might be a pattern", ">\n\nThank you republicans, always sticking up in the back on the small guys…", ">\n\nFox News saying this like it’s not something Rupert Murdoch’s network supports is pretty funny.", ">\n\nFox News. Ignore it.", ">\n\nFox News is still allowed in here?", ">\n\nFake news. This is Republican propaganda coming from Fox News.", ">\n\nFox News is NOT news", ">\n\nHmm sounds like it was underfunded then. Good thing now we helped ease that problem. Thanks Biden", ">\n\nIt's simply laziness by the IRS. Lower-income households have less complicated returns and easier to process. I'm sure IRS runs a non-effective but management-pleasing metric like \"how many returns were corrected\" opposed to how much money was recouped.", ">\n\nWe know. They don't have the resources to do anything. That was the point of increasing the staffing at the IRS so they had even the slightest hope of going after the big offenders with their armies or lawyers.", ">\n\nThere's less millionaires and billionaires than there are us. I'm not sure that answer fits the accuracy on hiring more workers but I'll go ahead and amuse that", ">\n\nIt's not a game of tax guy vs rich guy. The rich literally have armies of lawyers. You need the staff to overcome all the paper and challenges they'll throw at you. \nIf you throw one person to audit a millionaire, their lawyers can make it so it'll take a year to review a week of operations. Investigations will never finish unless there's sufficient staff to overcome their obstruction.", ">\n\nTo this day I do not understand why the IRS can demand our documents every year without a warrant. The 16th amendment does not alter the 4th, and the 4th does not apply only to criminal actions (as the 5th explicitly does). Yet no one seems to care about this annual violations.", ">\n\nReminder, Fox News is not news. It's entertainment, and should be regarded as such.", ">\n\nNo shit, poor ppl tend to file their own taxes and screw up where as millionaires hire expensive accountants to exploit all the legal loopholes without getting their clients in trouble.\nI don't think it's an intentional targeting as the article may be implying.", ">\n\nOne might imagine the resources of agents would be better put to use by focusing on returns that might produce more revenue, however it may be just a lot easier to collect a few bucks from easier targets.", ">\n\nThey are short staffed and accountants make it so difficult to find wrongdoing, if there is even wrongdoing to be found, that it would take a decent chunk of their workforce just to tackle it. It's like trying to find needle in a haystack but you don't know if there's a needle or not.", ">\n\nSo true....", ">\n\nShocked pikachu face.", ">\n\nYeah I’d believe this if it weren’t Fox News. They could give a fuck about the poor and middle class.", ">\n\nI would literally rather the IRS spend its time auditing 5 extraordinarily rich people or a single business than anyone who makes less than 100k per year\nETA: I’m aware that this article represents part of the Republican agenda to just gut the IRS and welfare spending generally. And I understand the difficulties in auditing the rich/businesses v lower income people claiming tax credits, etc", ">\n\nAlmost all of the little people \"audits\" are just a computer issuing a correspondence \"audit\" because the person misreported something from their W2, didn't report as much 1099 income as was reported to the IRS by others, or separated parents both trying to claim kids for tax credits or something. \n-\nThey don't really pull from the same resources. The rich people audits require human beings. Little people \"audits\" aren't really audits and a computer can do it. So if we want to audit more rich people, they need actual budget for human beings. The little people are going to be caught anyways because a computer can do it.", ">\n\nI interned at the IRS during the summer of 2012 when Lois Lerner made batshit crazy commrnts that they were targetting conservative groups", ">\n\nI say this every time it gets brought up. This is by design. I used to work in auditing and also used to do tax stuff. It’s super easy to find tax fraud on someone who only has a simple W-2 and no other income. You could find those people through a basic algorithm. Meanwhile, auditing a multi millionaire is expensive, time consuming, and often fruitless. If I was in charge of an underfunded, understaffed IRS I would tell my staff to go for the easy wins too.", ">\n\nUnpopular opinion - More funding won't resolve this. \nThe IRS will keep doing this. Unless rules & regulations forbid or disincentivize this practice, the IRS will keep this stupid practice", ">\n\nI make $40,000 a year and the IRS froze my bank accounts until I paid them $1000 in taxes I owed them because of an error I made filling my taxes. They froze my bank accounts for $1000. I was fucked for a month. I had to borrow cash from people just for food and gas money to get to work to get paid money that I couldn’t access. It was a scary time for me. Meanwhile millionaires are purposely avoiding taxes worth more than what I make in a year and nothing happens to them.", ">\n\nThe IRS sends no less than a dozen letters to a taxpayer prior to leaving a bank account. Why didn't you just put it into a repayment plan? Takes about ten minutes online.", ">\n\nDon't you just hate autocorrect?", ">\n\nIf true, its a holdover from jrbush who slashed IRS staff and budget and told them to spend more time auditing tip jars and busboys than millionaires because the millionaires had better lawyers than the IRS and service workers were unlikely to have any lawyers at all.", ">\n\nFox News solution: remove the IRS", ">\n\nAbsolutely. They’ll NEVER target the rich, adding more agents just made them a lot more capable to target all the lower class.", ">\n\nWhat people don't realize..Those 87K \"Agents\" aren't that. It's 87K employees over 25 years. Clerks etc. People are so fucking stupid when they just believe these clowns.", ">\n\nThose numbers also count it as an \"audit\" when a person misreports a number from a W2, 1099s, etc and the irs number matching software sends an automatically generated correspondence letter that basically says \"we actually show this number, this is what your tax return would have been if you reported that number correctly\". \nThe IRS isn't wasting time doing random \"audits\" as people think of them for low to middle income people. It would be a complete waste of their time. The computer just catches obvious verifiable mistakes and it counts as an audit in those numbers.", ">\n\n“those in the lowest income bracket hit 12.7 per 1,000….. The odds of a millionaire facing an audit were around 1.1%.”\nSo they’re saying 1.27% vs 1.1%!!! And acting like that’s a scandal 🙄", ">\n\nWhich means millionaires REALLY don't want more IRS auditors which means when our new resident house fascist fires five thousand auditors, said fascist (McCarthy) is making sure those millionaires aren't going to get audited. \nCha CHING !!! Go the \"donations\" into house rat republican's pockets. \nThe grift will be in full swing shortly.\nAnd with putin whispering in their ears and telling them EXACTLY how break the law - how can they lose?", ">\n\n💯 Exactly why theres a Fox link here pushing for that same reason.", ">\n\nTwo things. First of all, this is from a far right-wing propaganda outlet which should immediately raise red flags. They're trying to scare you into allowing a republican-initiated movement to entirely remove all remaining power from the IRS by making it seem like they're coming after you.\nSecond, the reason the IRS is already already virtually powerless against the rich is because the republicans have already eviscerated them in the past several decades, largely through defunding them leading to not only staffing cuts, but the inability to pursue the wealthiest people who have the resources for endless litigation. So as a result, the FBI can only really afford to go after people who cannot financially defend themselves.", ">\n\nThird, you might as well throw in that the aiming low guidance was under a Trump appointee who is no longer in that position.", ">\n\nThe GOP intentionally defunded the IRS so that it could not audit the wealthy. It takes a great deal more money upfront to audit them but the payback is far greater.", ">\n\nI'm not sure why dems voted against an amendment that would have mandated the giant infusion of cash into the IRS couldn't be used to audit folks making >$400k.", ">\n\nHrm this is pretty fucked I'd like to hear about why the Dems voted nay.", ">\n\nBecause they work for the same people as Republicans. \nThey are different but only when their owners allow them to be. \nI don't know how many times we are going to have to learn this lesson before it sticks.", ">\n\nDemocrats are responsible for this", ">\n\nThe rich returns are just too hard, enough lower class errors you can leave the rich alone. Love to see it… sigh", ">\n\nIt takes money to police the wealthy. Can't have that can we?!", ">\n\nr/noshitsherlock", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised?\nI’m not even American and this seemed obvious to me. All you have to do is look at how the poor live and compare that to the news about someone like Elon musk or Donald trump.", ">\n\nThis is why the IRS needs to go.", ">\n\nFox News helped make that happen.", ">\n\nThey'll never change,all the time when the guys in charge benefit from doing the same shit.", ">\n\nAnd yet the republicans dont submit or pass legislations to change the rules to favor targeting rich people. Curious.", ">\n\nThen 78,000 new, armed tax collectors should be able to extract even more money from the poor, middle-class and small business owners.", ">\n\nWhy did they focus on the Poorest? The thought of 87,000 more of them will actually do what? If the existing can’t focus on the wealthy! Then what makes anybody think more can?", ">\n\nMillionaires and billionaires make the government more money by creating lobbying loopholes and exploiting the economy to bilk the 99%. It's really cheap to go after the poorest who are struggling to pay day to day obligations and don't have loopholes or government sanctioned exploitation to take advantage of.", ">\n\nI could have told you this would happen. You think millionaires get $600 Venmo transactions?", ">\n\nThat's a move democrats should not make. That's one month of rent for me. What of folks worse-off?", ">\n\nHonestly it’s like squeezing blood from the stone over here anyway.", ">\n\nDuh lmfao theyve already stated it costs too much to tax weathy people previously and its most cost effective to audit the poor due to many factors...", ">\n\nI mean 99% of us are poor compared to the other 1%", ">\n\nColor me surprised", ">\n\nWe need some laws for equitable auditing.", ">\n\nYou are an Army commander about to attack the enemy. Do you prefer to attack where they have experienced career solders backed up by artillery, tanks, and airplanes, or do you attack where there are poorly armed and equipped untrained conscripts?", ">\n\nThey must be upset someone replaced their sign with a card from Cards Against Humanity", ">\n\nMay it ever be so…. Don’t reproduce if you only consume and can’t accumulate or help a Dow Jones winter water witch. Like snow, weathermen.", ">\n\nIt’s weirdly fitting how much their building sign in the photo looks like a cards against humanity card.", ">\n\nTypical", ">\n\nWow? How unusual.", ">\n\nI’d support double the number of IRS agents", ">\n\nI was low income and won about 3,000 gambling, the irs went after me", ">\n\nThe IRS came after me hard for 8$", ">\n\nAudit frequency should correlate to income, someone with a million in income should be audited 10x those with 100k income", ">\n\nSomeone should explain Pareto charts to the IRS.", ">\n\nI've been audited three times. First when I was 27, did some consulting and didn't do the 1099 prepayments. Ended up owing $17k. Second audit was after moving across country for a job. The tax preparer we hired made a mistake with the move expense deductions, owed a few thousand. Third audit was another tax preparer mistake, but this time we overpaid and were owed money we credited to the next year. \nIf you assume for discussion that the average audit on an ordinary tax payer returns $10,000, it would take 100,000,000 audits to make $1 trillion. By just doing the easy work, the IRS is leaving the real money on the table.", ">\n\nRepublicans are famous for giving rich breaks while middle class etc close the gaps", ">\n\nThe last line, \"The Inflation Reduction Act provides the IRS with $80 billion in future funding to ramp up its audits and potentially target the wealthiest taxpayers.\"", ">\n\nThe cure is not the root cause, but the middle class and the poor will eventually bear the burden after the capital operation", ">\n\nIt’s like they timed the “research” and the drop of the article with the speech. Sad man.", ">\n\nWatch Madoff. The wealthy skate and steal billions. The poor are in prison over thousands.", ">\n\nWhy does their sign look like a Card Against Humanity", ">\n\nFucking Trump, still at it.", ">\n\nOh you mean the thing people said would happen once they got massive funding actually happened? Checks out", ">\n\nOf course they did, because millionaires will lawyer up.", ">\n\nBecause the poor can't afford to fight back.", ">\n\nIt's so unfair the poor and the middle class taxpayers suffer so much while the millionaries got away with not paying the taxes It's really hurting the poor. The middle class is fading", ">\n\nAll of this can be fixed if we just use no-exemption graduated income", ">\n\nYeah we know", ">\n\nShow of hands for all surprised.\ncrickets\nHmm. Seems like Reddit suffers from a plague of double amputees...", ">\n\nWhat the actual fuck", ">\n\nAnd 2021, 2020, 2019, …", ">\n\nSounds about right.", ">\n\nOf course. Poor people can’t afford attorneys.", ">\n\nI made a mistake on my forms while I was overseas and ticked “self-employed” instead of “employed”. I was on a student visa and had two children and was making less than 10k a year. They hounded me for years. By the time I figured out what had happened I could not amend the forms and had paid thousands in penalties and interest.\nMeanwhile I knew lots of people who were there fully employed not reporting their income.\nFuck them.", ">\n\nYep! During the pandemic, even while I wasn't working didn't come after me the entire time that I was working but the minute that I wasn't nobody was cuz we were in lockdown they started popping up", ">\n\nI just now realized that the Cards Against Humanity box looks like the IRS sign", ">\n\nWhy is the sign a Cards Against Humanity question?", ">\n\nI am shocked and appalled. clutches pearls", ">\n\nRich should be taxed more than the average not right at all. Or at least there is a tier system based on pay only makes sense. Come on now", ">\n\nSounds about right, make the rich richer again.", ">\n\nWho are we going to vote for in the future ,all of them are decayed , corrupted and useless , the “most rich country in the world , governed by the most ignorant an corrupted. What a contrast .", ">\n\nGod bless America", ">\n\nno way. wait until you see those people responds. Those people are chipping away.", ">\n\nSounds about right", ">\n\nWe know.", ">\n\nI find it rather comical that Fox news is reporting on this since they are all about pushing the Republican agenda and that is all about pushing everyone else down that isn't rich and keeping them there. Not to mention they had no problem with Trump not paying taxes for years.", ">\n\nCan fucking confirm.", ">\n\nYeah, they (millionaires) have accountants who generally do things right and due to their millions being in investments it's not like it's taxable all the time. \nThen there's the ability to sell any stocks when they're down to build up losses on paper can reinvest them at a loss that can carry over across multiple years.", ">\n\nsounds about right. i don’t have a pot to piss in but they’re all over me for someone stealing my identity and filing a double tax return one year.", ">\n\nDuh", ">\n\nThere’s a reason why FOX is posting this article. The less people at the IRS, the more likely they come after folks who can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nIn order to pursue wealthy tax cheats, the IRS needs more resources and personnel. Otherwise it’s business as usual, picking on the low hanging fruit that earns under 6 figures.", ">\n\nSo wrong ....people need to be fired", ">\n\nIt’s because they can’t afford to take them to court", ">\n\nOf course it is about protecting the rich like Trump who lies ,lies , and about his tax returns . No wonder he did not want them released .", ">\n\nEasy prey bc most ppl can not lawyer up. Pretty heart breaking system we have at times.", ">\n\nWhy does the irs sign look like it's from cards against humanity?", ">\n\nCurrently getting audited over \\~$1500, which they owe me, when the rich get away with murder. Fucking unbelievably and unnecessarily stressful for me.", ">\n\nHas t this been know for a while?", ">\n\nyep and they are the same people getting tax cuts while everyone else does it tough ....\nAny one with too much money is your enemy .... not a hero of democracy", ">\n\nGet rid of taxes and the gov’t should just do stuff for free, or what ever.", ">\n\nYou have to be careful when you get one of those CP2000 notices from the IRS. The way they are written is a trap.\nIf you dispute it you are supposed to indicate that you disagree and send it back with documents supporting your dispute.\nYou are only supposed to sign it if you agree with them and when you sign it you are signing away your rights to dispute the back taxes and penalties they are demanding.\nMere worker bees like us can expect to be getting a lot of those from this years tax returns considering how the threshold for 1099k forms has been dropped to $600.\nGuys like Trump? The IRS doesn't even know where to begin.", ">\n\nThanks Biden", ">\n\nI presume those lower-income bracket filers might be more likely to reach out to 1-800-infomercial [quickie settlement/long-term penalties most favorable to gov/proprietor] than retain proper legal counsel?\nRegardless it’s got to be a lot less work for IRS agent to go after under-represented citizen(s), rather than someone who can afford to appeal, properly negotiate on their own terms?", ">\n\nLmfao Dems tax and spend. But I have to admit there Republicans that tax and spend to. Where do these Politicians get off taxing me or business and give to people who don't work what do you cause d the inflation. You can not print money \nI am Conservative not a Republican. To much money is wasted and put in pockets of people ot don't belong.\nBut all dems know how to tax tax tax. \nIts all great and good until you run out if other peoples money. \nMillionaire just like Berny he hated Millionaires until he became one now he hates Trillionaires. Funny how the gold post changes. And good old Nancy her I side stock trading. So I think you need to rethink.", ">\n\nThe IRS is only doing as directed by whomever controls the White House.", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised by this? Really?", ">\n\nThe sign in the thumbnail looks like a Cards Against Humanity card.", ">\n\nWhile this is mostly true, don’t believe everything you read. I’m no more an accountant than I am a ladies man, but someone (said they’re an accountant) posted a few days ago about this. They explained that the most likely people getting audited are trying to, fraudulently or mistakenly, claim the EITC. \nYES, it’s super easy to “bust” these people for an easy “mistake”. This is who the IRS is cracking down on. \nDo I think it’s better to bust poor people for claiming a few thousand in tax credits vs billionaires who avoid taxes altogether? Of course not, but don’t think they’re actively targeting people who fudge their mileage deductions or miss a decimal point in their calculations as small business owners. It’s simply not happening. \nAnd the reported “87,000 new IRS agents” are replacing the 10’s of 1,000’s of employees set to retire or quit over the next 10 years which doesn’t even begin to fill the gaps we’ve been growing for decades by not hiring and training more willing workers. Not to mention they’re not even close to all employees who will actively audit tax payers. They’re people who answer phones, file papers, assist others, etc… They’re mostly just average people with average jobs so of course the GOP wants to end this. They hate upward mobility and job creation unless that means tax breaks for their billionaire friends.", ">\n\nI wish everyone wasn’t a sheep and would understand this.", ">\n\nI can see the Media doing their best to turn the public against the IRS.", ">\n\nPicking on the week and helpless. That’s what we humans do. We suck. I’m waiting for that big meteor reset button.", ">\n\nAnd Fox news loves this.", ">\n\nLove it, Faux 'News' taking the piss, for 4 years under Dear Leader they campaigned for tax breaks for the rich, now they're pretending to care about the poor !", ">\n\nEvery millionaire should be audited yearly. Period.", ">\n\nAND now the gqp cult promises to rescind the money Biden set aside to aid the IRS to recover taxes from mega millionaire tax cheats like benedict donald, who paid less taxes than most working Americans.", ">\n\nRepublicans want to stop the IRS and Congress from taxing rich people, making the burden of maintaining civilization fall more heavily on poorer people. This is why Republicans vote for tax cuts for the rich and against funding for the IRS.\nAnd since Republican beliefs are based on wishful thinking, Republicans can screw over poor, rural Republicans while simultaneously taking credit for doing it to make Republicans happy about it and blaming it on Democrats to make those same Republicans resentful against Democrats for it. And what else would we expect from a Republican Party that blames Democrats for tricking them into attacking the Capitol to make Trump look bad and justifies and approves of assaulting Capitol police while brandishing their \"thin blue line\" flags.", ">\n\nThe IRS is like any other law enforcement agency, they prefer pursuing the poor because they don't have the resources to protect themselves.", ">\n\nThe IRS building sign looks like its from cards against humanity.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nNot a reliable news source.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nThat picture looks like the worst cards against humanity card too get.", ">\n\nScrew the Murdoch media empire and their failed trickle down ideologies.", ">\n\nOf course, the poorest haven’t paid over 400+ billion for decades. Not sure about the rich, we haven’t checked.", ">\n\nThis is not a surprise. With the recent inflation reduction act, the IRS an additional $80B over 10 years or $8B per year. The IRS budget for 2021 was $13.7B. The additional $8B over the year would be an increase of 58% to their budget. They will be looking to get a lot more money from taxpayers, due to this very large increase in their budget.", ">\n\nFox reported this? I'm in shock", ">\n\nAll propagandists publish clickbaity stuff that makes them sound like maybe they've let up on the evil. Unfortunately it works, since people just upvote headlines.", ">\n\nIt’s only going to get worse in 2023. Those 87k new IRS agents will not be going after the wealthy.", ">\n\nWhy?\nThat’s literally why they were being added. The IRS goes after the poorer taxpayers because they are low-hanging fruit and don’t have the lawyers and accountants to protect them. \nThe additional IRS employees were to give the personnel staffing sufficient to go after the wealthy.", ">\n\nIt doesn’t matter how many IRS agents there are. It will always be easier and more profitable for the IRS to nickel and dime the average taxpayer rather than go after the wealthy, who have the resources to lawyer up with the best lawyers and challenge the IRS in court.", ">\n\nEasier? Yes. More profitable? Doubtful.", ">\n\nIf Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nBut in 2022 ( when Biden was president and the House belonged to the Dems) they didn’t did they.", ">\n\nIt takes time to refactor an organization. It’s still full of Trump appointees.", ">\n\n2020 was a long time ago", ">\n\nNot on organizational time scales. It takes several months to safely restructure an organization as big as the federal government, and when it is the federal government it takes years. Congress gets a say in every political appointment, budget change, and organization change. It’s designed to be slow to assure continuity. \nThere is a saying that every president gets credited and blamed for what the prior administration put in motion. There is a lot of truth to that, and this organizational inertia is a big reason why. There are similar long lags in changing laws, re-writing policies, modifying rules, and so on. It’s a “feature” of having checks and balances.", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered." ]
> Thanks for the informative reply. You make great points which I don't doubt. But there are times when I think it's important to consider both the letter and spirit of law at times. Even though it is perfectly by the letter of the law that people should be checked, it also seems against the intended spirit of said law that only a certain group of people are checked. I am not familiar with US law, but I think most of us can feel some degree of injustice with how things currently are.	[ "If Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nAnd when Barry was president they targeted conservative groups. I think phone calls can be made to tell them to back off of the little guy.", ">\n\n\nthey targeted conservative groups.\n\nNo. They went after specifically anti-tax tea party groups. The groups who openly flaunted tax laws", ">\n\nThey also went after progressive, left leaning groups - how do you explain that ? it was political", ">\n\nWait, did they target conservatives or progressives? Lol", ">\n\nBoth- it was quite clear they were involving themselves in politics - that’s what the IG found", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.", ">\n\nYep!\nAlso this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious.\nThe real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade.", ">\n\nThanks for the informative reply.\nYou make great points which I don't doubt. But there are times when I think it's important to consider both the letter and spirit of law at times.\nEven though it is perfectly by the letter of the law that people should be checked, it also seems against the intended spirit of said law that only a certain group of people are checked.\nI am not familiar with US law, but I think most of us can feel some degree of injustice with how things currently are.", ">\n\nThe point is to automate more checking of income common to wealthier people, and devote more resources to auditing those people. The Fox News article is disingenuous in how it describes the automated checking that goes on. It’s not great that rich people aren’t really audited, but there’s no reason to stop the automated checking of income where it’s already being done and essentially free to continue.\nIf you feel differently, explain yourself.", ">\n\nNo, we are in alignment concerning this.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nFUCK FOX NEWS\nFox is pretending to care about us poors. \nDon't reward these fascist fucks with upvotes for a disingenuous clickbait headline. They still hate us for not voting gop.", ">\n\nThey want people to hate the IRS and help defund it so they don’t go after the rich, which was the purpose of the additional funding", ">\n\nThey want people to link this to “87000” new agents, which is obviously happening on social media posts, but it’s not even a thing.", ">\n\nArticle is trash. The author is including correspondence audits (which means the IRS asked for some documentation by mail) for low income filers but not for millionaires when comparing their audit rates. Here are actual numbers according to their own source:\nAudit rates including correspondence audits\nlow income 1.27%\nmillionaires 2.38% \nAudit rates excluding correspondence audits\nlow income 0.0376%\nmillionaires 1.24%\n.\nFor low income filers, nearly all their audits were correspondence audits.", ">\n\nIt's hilarious when Fox News and the GOP pretend they care about poor people.\nNo amount of hypocrisy is too much to try to make democrats look bad.", ">\n\nIts unfortunately far easier to prove married couples who live together filed HoH for extra earned income credit than it is to prove complicated returns were incorrect.", ">\n\nIt's also trivially easy to prove the same child was claimed by two parents which is a lot of correspondence audits.", ">\n\nSo can my back taxes please just get forgiven already. 20% income being taxed is not livable", ">\n\nRepublican love flat rate taxes, you should talk to them.", ">\n\nThey’re required to audit the president and vice president, and that didn’t happen either.", ">\n\nThis isn't new, it's been been having for the last 5 - 6 years.", ">\n\nHopefully some wake up and realize its all just preparing us for the inevitable destruction of our economy. I imagine its almost too late to realize this. If we all realized this wed sell our 401Ks and not lean on money and use it to help our neighbors.", ">\n\nK bro.", ">\n\nMy wife and I are on social security. She works part time to keep us afloat. All in, we earned $50K in 2022. iRS wants $4500 from us. Really? 5X what Trump paid? Don't know if anyone is paying attention but $50k ain't rich. Oh, and out of that comes almost $4k in Medicare premiums. A program we paid into for 40+ years.\nEveryone of these arrogant, unqualified,, spoon fed assholes in Congress should be made to live on SSI or welfare, with no medical coverage, for a year. Then tell me I am acting entitled.\nSelf serving bastards.", ">\n\nDon't upvote this crap.\nDo you really think Fox cares about the working class??\nThis is just right wing propaganda, timed to coincide with McCarthy's promise to get rid of the new IRS agents who make it possible to audit the rich.\nDon't be used.", ">\n\nWhatever happened to \"dont shoot the messenger?\"", ">\n\nIRS understaffing would naturally trend to go after low-lying fruit. Easy pickings. Too many man hours to go after super complex cases. These moneyed fuckers and their bullshit. It's outrageous.", ">\n\nThe vast majority of these audits are automatically generated correspondence audits that have to be issued. We can't just turn off the program that raises a red flag when two people claim the same child as a dependent because we don't have enough forensic accountants. If you mistype your W2 you'll get an \"audit\" showing the correct info from the copy your boss sent them and telling you they'll correct it unless you tell them otherwise and you don't have to do anything if the info they have is correct.", ">\n\nYeah, all the nonsense about the IRS \"going after\" low income people is so stupid. Low income people make money in a way that their reporting is easily verifiable by a computer. They're also most likely to mess up and claim child tax credits incorrectly, etc - all of which is verifiable and issued a letter by a computer. \n-\nOther than actually being able to get someone on the phone when you call the IRS, and increased budget isn't going to impact the average person in any way.", ">\n\nMy thing is even assuming the 87k don't successfully get more money out of the rich, that's still 87k jobs. That's a net positive. I just don't understand the conservative logic here. Do they think these 87k new jobs are specifically for being insidiously predatory toward the poor? Where's the logic here? (I know I'll get hyperbolic answers, but I genuinely would like to know)", ">\n\nIt's 87,000 jobs over 10 years, the majority of which are replacement during that period. It's just a budget supplemental to stop hemorrhaging agents as they retire or cycle out into other jobs.", ">\n\nso.. this is on fox, which I assume support republican efforts to ensure that this is the permanent state of affairs. I don't really get anything anymore.", ">\n\nAnd that is the way the GOP wants it.", ">\n\n💯 Exactly what this Fox article is trying to do.", ">\n\nIt's who can afford a lawyer", ">\n\nAs the article hints at, the IRS does not do a lot of actual auditing. What it does is computer matching, which automatically generates material for a correspondence audit. Most correspondence audits occur because som poor working Joe didn't know he/her was supposed to include or exclude something, and the IRS caught it in its matching. Of course, the problem is that we have a complex code and little help in actually helping people through the various forms, rules, and so on. But millionaires don't have these issues, so they can escape most of the traps that lead to a correspondence audit. If a lot of these 87,000 were in taxpayer service (which I expect) it would lead to fewer audits at the low end, more robust audits for large corporations, wealthy individuals, and those who actively use tax avoidance strategies. But of course that is not the dialogue that gets promoted when the 87,000 agents are discussed.", ">\n\nThis is exactly why Fox News needs to be dismantled and thrown in the garbage. Ugh, \"look poors! They're coming for yoU!!!\". Scare tactics. And guess what? It sadly works. Every time.\nThey're lower than scum.", ">\n\nExactly. It's when someone misreports a number from their W2, didn't report 1099s they received, both separated parents claim a tax credit for the same kid, etc. All stuff that's easily checked by a computer. The IRS isn't \"auditing\" random low to middle income people. That would be a complete waste of their time.", ">\n\nlooks at Trump You don't say.", ">\n\nThe poor can't defend themselves, it's easier to take a little bit of money from people that won't fight back than a lot of money from people that will.", ">\n\nThe mega rich seem like they’re on a mission to destroy America, as we know it.", ">\n\nHiring 87,000 new IRS agents makes it possible to audit billionaires. So they pay their share. Those audits require an actual person or team that knows what they are doing. But Kevin McCarthy's first item of business was to announce legislation to overturn the hiring of 87,000 IRS agents. Meaning only the little guy (who can be audited by computer software) pays taxes.\nSSDD", ">\n\nThe \"87,000\" agents budget is over a ten year period. It's not for 87,000 new positions.", ">\n\nThe title is so misleading. Im surprised fox even put the juicy bit in the article about how (this stat is due to there not being enough IRS workers because) these \"audits\" on low earners are just automated letters asking for more info.\nYet again, this is just millionairs paid by billionairs to mislead the masses into blaming the poor for crimes committed by said billionairs.", ">\n\nWhich is why the IRS needs more manpower and budget, so they can go after the big fish.\nFuck Fox News and their Republican propaganda pieces. This article coincides with McCarthy saying they’ll cut the IRS budget and that the IRS is coming for you.\nFuck off Republican propaganda rag!\nStop upvoting any Fox News story. Fox should not be on the white list.", ">\n\nThis is a terrible article. It seems to include questions about tax returns as audits. If a low income filer makes a mistake it should be corrected. Is that an audit? If anyone makes a mistake and is contacted, is that an audit? Also there is no reason to go after low income as they rarely pay tax or are required to. The money requested would also pay for people to answer a phone. Those against increasing funding lie when they say all of it goes to audits. If you tell the truth, who cares if you are audited? Are y’all aware you can track your personal return online? However a business cannot. Businesses have to rely on humans that can’t be reached. I’ve waited a year for a refund. Didn’t know if IRS received the return. Didn’t know if there was an issue. Didn’t know if it was mailed or lost. I’m getting tired of Republicans pushing their crap on people.", ">\n\nwho keeps upvoting this right wing propaganda", ">\n\nWhy would the GOP want to give the agency the power to go after their donors.", ">\n\nAnd it was trumps guy that mandated it while Biden replaced him", ">\n\nApparently the mere use of an accounting firm somehow protected corps and the rich from the IRS who still (mistakenly) believe the accounting firms are trustworthy. How naive.", ">\n\nThe \"audits\" talked about are mostly form letters requesting more info about specific items.", ">\n\nThe poor can't pay for top flight attorneys.", ">\n\nYep keep the IRS underfunded so they can only go after the poors at the same time telling all the poors that the IRS is bad cause it goes after them but leave out the fact that they do that cause the poors are low hanging fruit.\nRepublicans are evil.", ">\n\nWell the GOP wants to cut funding to the IRS for new agents, so I’m sure the poor folk will continue to get screwed. I say toss the 50,000+ page tax code out and replace with a percentage based on total revenue/income made. Took a loss? No write-offs. Oh well, better luck next year. It’ll never happen because the wealthy don’t want it to.", ">\n\nWhere did you get this info? I know GOPers have been slashing IRS budgets and staffing for years but can't find reliable sources for what this has done to the actual audits - like who gets audited.", ">\n\nTheir link is Fox. This is a bad faith post.", ">\n\nThis says a lot coming from fox “news”", ">\n\nTo paraphrase Gilbert K. Chesterton, \"The Poor have sometimes objected to being taxed too heavily; The Rich have always objected to being taxed at all.\"", ">\n\ndon't post Fox news here....", ">\n\nCorporations and millionaires have the means to hire accountants and attorneys. Our tax code is gray in several areas. It’s easy to go after the poor that do not have the resources and will have no choice but to pay anything the IRS says. The additional agents will continue to target the poor and middle class because they are easy, It’s happened before, it will continue to happen.", ">\n\nI think it's funny/sad that a poor person can win the lottery and they get taxed at a higher rate than any billionaire has ever been taxed at. The system is built to keep the rich - rich and the poor - poor.", ">\n\nThe poorest can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nThe current system cannot be sustained. We are hurtling towards disaster.", ">\n\nThe only reason the bastards have the majority is because the corrupt SCOTUS allowed illegal gerrymanders to stand while they were fought in the courts.", ">\n\nThe I.R.S. goes after the poorer people because it's easier. They can't afford lawyers and accountants. So the poor can do nothing but roll over and take it up the rump. The Inflation Reduction Act that Biden signed into law in August is supposed to give $80 Billion to the I.R.S. so they can go after the millionaires. But we know that won't happen. More poor people are going to get screwed.", ">\n\nI'm confused. For decades, Faux news and the conservatives have been saying that millionaires deserve to keep more of their money than we do. That was a huge part of the 2017 tax scam that Trump signed. Now Faux is saying it's a problem? And they are rightly detailing that Republicans are the cause, along with Biden trying to fix the same issue that Fox has helped create?", ">\n\nFox News", ">\n\nHey IRS, don't forget to crawl up my ass this year because I sold some old stuff on eBay for a loss but make sure you put a few man hours into figuring out if it is legit or not.", ">\n\nlol, and the people opposed to IRS funding will say they are anti-establishment.", ">\n\nImagine how much they could squeeze the middle class with 87,000 more agents! But really, it’ll be good to see if the increase in officers actually increases tax revenue without changing the underlying laws.", ">\n\nSo, this is the newest Republican boogeyman, the IRS.\nWell, better than Drag Queens I guess.", ">\n\nOh hey just like last year, and the year before that, I think there might be a pattern", ">\n\nThank you republicans, always sticking up in the back on the small guys…", ">\n\nFox News saying this like it’s not something Rupert Murdoch’s network supports is pretty funny.", ">\n\nFox News. Ignore it.", ">\n\nFox News is still allowed in here?", ">\n\nFake news. This is Republican propaganda coming from Fox News.", ">\n\nFox News is NOT news", ">\n\nHmm sounds like it was underfunded then. Good thing now we helped ease that problem. Thanks Biden", ">\n\nIt's simply laziness by the IRS. Lower-income households have less complicated returns and easier to process. I'm sure IRS runs a non-effective but management-pleasing metric like \"how many returns were corrected\" opposed to how much money was recouped.", ">\n\nWe know. They don't have the resources to do anything. That was the point of increasing the staffing at the IRS so they had even the slightest hope of going after the big offenders with their armies or lawyers.", ">\n\nThere's less millionaires and billionaires than there are us. I'm not sure that answer fits the accuracy on hiring more workers but I'll go ahead and amuse that", ">\n\nIt's not a game of tax guy vs rich guy. The rich literally have armies of lawyers. You need the staff to overcome all the paper and challenges they'll throw at you. \nIf you throw one person to audit a millionaire, their lawyers can make it so it'll take a year to review a week of operations. Investigations will never finish unless there's sufficient staff to overcome their obstruction.", ">\n\nTo this day I do not understand why the IRS can demand our documents every year without a warrant. The 16th amendment does not alter the 4th, and the 4th does not apply only to criminal actions (as the 5th explicitly does). Yet no one seems to care about this annual violations.", ">\n\nReminder, Fox News is not news. It's entertainment, and should be regarded as such.", ">\n\nNo shit, poor ppl tend to file their own taxes and screw up where as millionaires hire expensive accountants to exploit all the legal loopholes without getting their clients in trouble.\nI don't think it's an intentional targeting as the article may be implying.", ">\n\nOne might imagine the resources of agents would be better put to use by focusing on returns that might produce more revenue, however it may be just a lot easier to collect a few bucks from easier targets.", ">\n\nThey are short staffed and accountants make it so difficult to find wrongdoing, if there is even wrongdoing to be found, that it would take a decent chunk of their workforce just to tackle it. It's like trying to find needle in a haystack but you don't know if there's a needle or not.", ">\n\nSo true....", ">\n\nShocked pikachu face.", ">\n\nYeah I’d believe this if it weren’t Fox News. They could give a fuck about the poor and middle class.", ">\n\nI would literally rather the IRS spend its time auditing 5 extraordinarily rich people or a single business than anyone who makes less than 100k per year\nETA: I’m aware that this article represents part of the Republican agenda to just gut the IRS and welfare spending generally. And I understand the difficulties in auditing the rich/businesses v lower income people claiming tax credits, etc", ">\n\nAlmost all of the little people \"audits\" are just a computer issuing a correspondence \"audit\" because the person misreported something from their W2, didn't report as much 1099 income as was reported to the IRS by others, or separated parents both trying to claim kids for tax credits or something. \n-\nThey don't really pull from the same resources. The rich people audits require human beings. Little people \"audits\" aren't really audits and a computer can do it. So if we want to audit more rich people, they need actual budget for human beings. The little people are going to be caught anyways because a computer can do it.", ">\n\nI interned at the IRS during the summer of 2012 when Lois Lerner made batshit crazy commrnts that they were targetting conservative groups", ">\n\nI say this every time it gets brought up. This is by design. I used to work in auditing and also used to do tax stuff. It’s super easy to find tax fraud on someone who only has a simple W-2 and no other income. You could find those people through a basic algorithm. Meanwhile, auditing a multi millionaire is expensive, time consuming, and often fruitless. If I was in charge of an underfunded, understaffed IRS I would tell my staff to go for the easy wins too.", ">\n\nUnpopular opinion - More funding won't resolve this. \nThe IRS will keep doing this. Unless rules & regulations forbid or disincentivize this practice, the IRS will keep this stupid practice", ">\n\nI make $40,000 a year and the IRS froze my bank accounts until I paid them $1000 in taxes I owed them because of an error I made filling my taxes. They froze my bank accounts for $1000. I was fucked for a month. I had to borrow cash from people just for food and gas money to get to work to get paid money that I couldn’t access. It was a scary time for me. Meanwhile millionaires are purposely avoiding taxes worth more than what I make in a year and nothing happens to them.", ">\n\nThe IRS sends no less than a dozen letters to a taxpayer prior to leaving a bank account. Why didn't you just put it into a repayment plan? Takes about ten minutes online.", ">\n\nDon't you just hate autocorrect?", ">\n\nIf true, its a holdover from jrbush who slashed IRS staff and budget and told them to spend more time auditing tip jars and busboys than millionaires because the millionaires had better lawyers than the IRS and service workers were unlikely to have any lawyers at all.", ">\n\nFox News solution: remove the IRS", ">\n\nAbsolutely. They’ll NEVER target the rich, adding more agents just made them a lot more capable to target all the lower class.", ">\n\nWhat people don't realize..Those 87K \"Agents\" aren't that. It's 87K employees over 25 years. Clerks etc. People are so fucking stupid when they just believe these clowns.", ">\n\nThose numbers also count it as an \"audit\" when a person misreports a number from a W2, 1099s, etc and the irs number matching software sends an automatically generated correspondence letter that basically says \"we actually show this number, this is what your tax return would have been if you reported that number correctly\". \nThe IRS isn't wasting time doing random \"audits\" as people think of them for low to middle income people. It would be a complete waste of their time. The computer just catches obvious verifiable mistakes and it counts as an audit in those numbers.", ">\n\n“those in the lowest income bracket hit 12.7 per 1,000….. The odds of a millionaire facing an audit were around 1.1%.”\nSo they’re saying 1.27% vs 1.1%!!! And acting like that’s a scandal 🙄", ">\n\nWhich means millionaires REALLY don't want more IRS auditors which means when our new resident house fascist fires five thousand auditors, said fascist (McCarthy) is making sure those millionaires aren't going to get audited. \nCha CHING !!! Go the \"donations\" into house rat republican's pockets. \nThe grift will be in full swing shortly.\nAnd with putin whispering in their ears and telling them EXACTLY how break the law - how can they lose?", ">\n\n💯 Exactly why theres a Fox link here pushing for that same reason.", ">\n\nTwo things. First of all, this is from a far right-wing propaganda outlet which should immediately raise red flags. They're trying to scare you into allowing a republican-initiated movement to entirely remove all remaining power from the IRS by making it seem like they're coming after you.\nSecond, the reason the IRS is already already virtually powerless against the rich is because the republicans have already eviscerated them in the past several decades, largely through defunding them leading to not only staffing cuts, but the inability to pursue the wealthiest people who have the resources for endless litigation. So as a result, the FBI can only really afford to go after people who cannot financially defend themselves.", ">\n\nThird, you might as well throw in that the aiming low guidance was under a Trump appointee who is no longer in that position.", ">\n\nThe GOP intentionally defunded the IRS so that it could not audit the wealthy. It takes a great deal more money upfront to audit them but the payback is far greater.", ">\n\nI'm not sure why dems voted against an amendment that would have mandated the giant infusion of cash into the IRS couldn't be used to audit folks making >$400k.", ">\n\nHrm this is pretty fucked I'd like to hear about why the Dems voted nay.", ">\n\nBecause they work for the same people as Republicans. \nThey are different but only when their owners allow them to be. \nI don't know how many times we are going to have to learn this lesson before it sticks.", ">\n\nDemocrats are responsible for this", ">\n\nThe rich returns are just too hard, enough lower class errors you can leave the rich alone. Love to see it… sigh", ">\n\nIt takes money to police the wealthy. Can't have that can we?!", ">\n\nr/noshitsherlock", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised?\nI’m not even American and this seemed obvious to me. All you have to do is look at how the poor live and compare that to the news about someone like Elon musk or Donald trump.", ">\n\nThis is why the IRS needs to go.", ">\n\nFox News helped make that happen.", ">\n\nThey'll never change,all the time when the guys in charge benefit from doing the same shit.", ">\n\nAnd yet the republicans dont submit or pass legislations to change the rules to favor targeting rich people. Curious.", ">\n\nThen 78,000 new, armed tax collectors should be able to extract even more money from the poor, middle-class and small business owners.", ">\n\nWhy did they focus on the Poorest? The thought of 87,000 more of them will actually do what? If the existing can’t focus on the wealthy! Then what makes anybody think more can?", ">\n\nMillionaires and billionaires make the government more money by creating lobbying loopholes and exploiting the economy to bilk the 99%. It's really cheap to go after the poorest who are struggling to pay day to day obligations and don't have loopholes or government sanctioned exploitation to take advantage of.", ">\n\nI could have told you this would happen. You think millionaires get $600 Venmo transactions?", ">\n\nThat's a move democrats should not make. That's one month of rent for me. What of folks worse-off?", ">\n\nHonestly it’s like squeezing blood from the stone over here anyway.", ">\n\nDuh lmfao theyve already stated it costs too much to tax weathy people previously and its most cost effective to audit the poor due to many factors...", ">\n\nI mean 99% of us are poor compared to the other 1%", ">\n\nColor me surprised", ">\n\nWe need some laws for equitable auditing.", ">\n\nYou are an Army commander about to attack the enemy. Do you prefer to attack where they have experienced career solders backed up by artillery, tanks, and airplanes, or do you attack where there are poorly armed and equipped untrained conscripts?", ">\n\nThey must be upset someone replaced their sign with a card from Cards Against Humanity", ">\n\nMay it ever be so…. Don’t reproduce if you only consume and can’t accumulate or help a Dow Jones winter water witch. Like snow, weathermen.", ">\n\nIt’s weirdly fitting how much their building sign in the photo looks like a cards against humanity card.", ">\n\nTypical", ">\n\nWow? How unusual.", ">\n\nI’d support double the number of IRS agents", ">\n\nI was low income and won about 3,000 gambling, the irs went after me", ">\n\nThe IRS came after me hard for 8$", ">\n\nAudit frequency should correlate to income, someone with a million in income should be audited 10x those with 100k income", ">\n\nSomeone should explain Pareto charts to the IRS.", ">\n\nI've been audited three times. First when I was 27, did some consulting and didn't do the 1099 prepayments. Ended up owing $17k. Second audit was after moving across country for a job. The tax preparer we hired made a mistake with the move expense deductions, owed a few thousand. Third audit was another tax preparer mistake, but this time we overpaid and were owed money we credited to the next year. \nIf you assume for discussion that the average audit on an ordinary tax payer returns $10,000, it would take 100,000,000 audits to make $1 trillion. By just doing the easy work, the IRS is leaving the real money on the table.", ">\n\nRepublicans are famous for giving rich breaks while middle class etc close the gaps", ">\n\nThe last line, \"The Inflation Reduction Act provides the IRS with $80 billion in future funding to ramp up its audits and potentially target the wealthiest taxpayers.\"", ">\n\nThe cure is not the root cause, but the middle class and the poor will eventually bear the burden after the capital operation", ">\n\nIt’s like they timed the “research” and the drop of the article with the speech. Sad man.", ">\n\nWatch Madoff. The wealthy skate and steal billions. The poor are in prison over thousands.", ">\n\nWhy does their sign look like a Card Against Humanity", ">\n\nFucking Trump, still at it.", ">\n\nOh you mean the thing people said would happen once they got massive funding actually happened? Checks out", ">\n\nOf course they did, because millionaires will lawyer up.", ">\n\nBecause the poor can't afford to fight back.", ">\n\nIt's so unfair the poor and the middle class taxpayers suffer so much while the millionaries got away with not paying the taxes It's really hurting the poor. The middle class is fading", ">\n\nAll of this can be fixed if we just use no-exemption graduated income", ">\n\nYeah we know", ">\n\nShow of hands for all surprised.\ncrickets\nHmm. Seems like Reddit suffers from a plague of double amputees...", ">\n\nWhat the actual fuck", ">\n\nAnd 2021, 2020, 2019, …", ">\n\nSounds about right.", ">\n\nOf course. Poor people can’t afford attorneys.", ">\n\nI made a mistake on my forms while I was overseas and ticked “self-employed” instead of “employed”. I was on a student visa and had two children and was making less than 10k a year. They hounded me for years. By the time I figured out what had happened I could not amend the forms and had paid thousands in penalties and interest.\nMeanwhile I knew lots of people who were there fully employed not reporting their income.\nFuck them.", ">\n\nYep! During the pandemic, even while I wasn't working didn't come after me the entire time that I was working but the minute that I wasn't nobody was cuz we were in lockdown they started popping up", ">\n\nI just now realized that the Cards Against Humanity box looks like the IRS sign", ">\n\nWhy is the sign a Cards Against Humanity question?", ">\n\nI am shocked and appalled. clutches pearls", ">\n\nRich should be taxed more than the average not right at all. Or at least there is a tier system based on pay only makes sense. Come on now", ">\n\nSounds about right, make the rich richer again.", ">\n\nWho are we going to vote for in the future ,all of them are decayed , corrupted and useless , the “most rich country in the world , governed by the most ignorant an corrupted. What a contrast .", ">\n\nGod bless America", ">\n\nno way. wait until you see those people responds. Those people are chipping away.", ">\n\nSounds about right", ">\n\nWe know.", ">\n\nI find it rather comical that Fox news is reporting on this since they are all about pushing the Republican agenda and that is all about pushing everyone else down that isn't rich and keeping them there. Not to mention they had no problem with Trump not paying taxes for years.", ">\n\nCan fucking confirm.", ">\n\nYeah, they (millionaires) have accountants who generally do things right and due to their millions being in investments it's not like it's taxable all the time. \nThen there's the ability to sell any stocks when they're down to build up losses on paper can reinvest them at a loss that can carry over across multiple years.", ">\n\nsounds about right. i don’t have a pot to piss in but they’re all over me for someone stealing my identity and filing a double tax return one year.", ">\n\nDuh", ">\n\nThere’s a reason why FOX is posting this article. The less people at the IRS, the more likely they come after folks who can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nIn order to pursue wealthy tax cheats, the IRS needs more resources and personnel. Otherwise it’s business as usual, picking on the low hanging fruit that earns under 6 figures.", ">\n\nSo wrong ....people need to be fired", ">\n\nIt’s because they can’t afford to take them to court", ">\n\nOf course it is about protecting the rich like Trump who lies ,lies , and about his tax returns . No wonder he did not want them released .", ">\n\nEasy prey bc most ppl can not lawyer up. Pretty heart breaking system we have at times.", ">\n\nWhy does the irs sign look like it's from cards against humanity?", ">\n\nCurrently getting audited over \\~$1500, which they owe me, when the rich get away with murder. Fucking unbelievably and unnecessarily stressful for me.", ">\n\nHas t this been know for a while?", ">\n\nyep and they are the same people getting tax cuts while everyone else does it tough ....\nAny one with too much money is your enemy .... not a hero of democracy", ">\n\nGet rid of taxes and the gov’t should just do stuff for free, or what ever.", ">\n\nYou have to be careful when you get one of those CP2000 notices from the IRS. The way they are written is a trap.\nIf you dispute it you are supposed to indicate that you disagree and send it back with documents supporting your dispute.\nYou are only supposed to sign it if you agree with them and when you sign it you are signing away your rights to dispute the back taxes and penalties they are demanding.\nMere worker bees like us can expect to be getting a lot of those from this years tax returns considering how the threshold for 1099k forms has been dropped to $600.\nGuys like Trump? The IRS doesn't even know where to begin.", ">\n\nThanks Biden", ">\n\nI presume those lower-income bracket filers might be more likely to reach out to 1-800-infomercial [quickie settlement/long-term penalties most favorable to gov/proprietor] than retain proper legal counsel?\nRegardless it’s got to be a lot less work for IRS agent to go after under-represented citizen(s), rather than someone who can afford to appeal, properly negotiate on their own terms?", ">\n\nLmfao Dems tax and spend. But I have to admit there Republicans that tax and spend to. Where do these Politicians get off taxing me or business and give to people who don't work what do you cause d the inflation. You can not print money \nI am Conservative not a Republican. To much money is wasted and put in pockets of people ot don't belong.\nBut all dems know how to tax tax tax. \nIts all great and good until you run out if other peoples money. \nMillionaire just like Berny he hated Millionaires until he became one now he hates Trillionaires. Funny how the gold post changes. And good old Nancy her I side stock trading. So I think you need to rethink.", ">\n\nThe IRS is only doing as directed by whomever controls the White House.", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised by this? Really?", ">\n\nThe sign in the thumbnail looks like a Cards Against Humanity card.", ">\n\nWhile this is mostly true, don’t believe everything you read. I’m no more an accountant than I am a ladies man, but someone (said they’re an accountant) posted a few days ago about this. They explained that the most likely people getting audited are trying to, fraudulently or mistakenly, claim the EITC. \nYES, it’s super easy to “bust” these people for an easy “mistake”. This is who the IRS is cracking down on. \nDo I think it’s better to bust poor people for claiming a few thousand in tax credits vs billionaires who avoid taxes altogether? Of course not, but don’t think they’re actively targeting people who fudge their mileage deductions or miss a decimal point in their calculations as small business owners. It’s simply not happening. \nAnd the reported “87,000 new IRS agents” are replacing the 10’s of 1,000’s of employees set to retire or quit over the next 10 years which doesn’t even begin to fill the gaps we’ve been growing for decades by not hiring and training more willing workers. Not to mention they’re not even close to all employees who will actively audit tax payers. They’re people who answer phones, file papers, assist others, etc… They’re mostly just average people with average jobs so of course the GOP wants to end this. They hate upward mobility and job creation unless that means tax breaks for their billionaire friends.", ">\n\nI wish everyone wasn’t a sheep and would understand this.", ">\n\nI can see the Media doing their best to turn the public against the IRS.", ">\n\nPicking on the week and helpless. That’s what we humans do. We suck. I’m waiting for that big meteor reset button.", ">\n\nAnd Fox news loves this.", ">\n\nLove it, Faux 'News' taking the piss, for 4 years under Dear Leader they campaigned for tax breaks for the rich, now they're pretending to care about the poor !", ">\n\nEvery millionaire should be audited yearly. Period.", ">\n\nAND now the gqp cult promises to rescind the money Biden set aside to aid the IRS to recover taxes from mega millionaire tax cheats like benedict donald, who paid less taxes than most working Americans.", ">\n\nRepublicans want to stop the IRS and Congress from taxing rich people, making the burden of maintaining civilization fall more heavily on poorer people. This is why Republicans vote for tax cuts for the rich and against funding for the IRS.\nAnd since Republican beliefs are based on wishful thinking, Republicans can screw over poor, rural Republicans while simultaneously taking credit for doing it to make Republicans happy about it and blaming it on Democrats to make those same Republicans resentful against Democrats for it. And what else would we expect from a Republican Party that blames Democrats for tricking them into attacking the Capitol to make Trump look bad and justifies and approves of assaulting Capitol police while brandishing their \"thin blue line\" flags.", ">\n\nThe IRS is like any other law enforcement agency, they prefer pursuing the poor because they don't have the resources to protect themselves.", ">\n\nThe IRS building sign looks like its from cards against humanity.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nNot a reliable news source.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nThat picture looks like the worst cards against humanity card too get.", ">\n\nScrew the Murdoch media empire and their failed trickle down ideologies.", ">\n\nOf course, the poorest haven’t paid over 400+ billion for decades. Not sure about the rich, we haven’t checked.", ">\n\nThis is not a surprise. With the recent inflation reduction act, the IRS an additional $80B over 10 years or $8B per year. The IRS budget for 2021 was $13.7B. The additional $8B over the year would be an increase of 58% to their budget. They will be looking to get a lot more money from taxpayers, due to this very large increase in their budget.", ">\n\nFox reported this? I'm in shock", ">\n\nAll propagandists publish clickbaity stuff that makes them sound like maybe they've let up on the evil. Unfortunately it works, since people just upvote headlines.", ">\n\nIt’s only going to get worse in 2023. Those 87k new IRS agents will not be going after the wealthy.", ">\n\nWhy?\nThat’s literally why they were being added. The IRS goes after the poorer taxpayers because they are low-hanging fruit and don’t have the lawyers and accountants to protect them. \nThe additional IRS employees were to give the personnel staffing sufficient to go after the wealthy.", ">\n\nIt doesn’t matter how many IRS agents there are. It will always be easier and more profitable for the IRS to nickel and dime the average taxpayer rather than go after the wealthy, who have the resources to lawyer up with the best lawyers and challenge the IRS in court.", ">\n\nEasier? Yes. More profitable? Doubtful.", ">\n\nIf Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nBut in 2022 ( when Biden was president and the House belonged to the Dems) they didn’t did they.", ">\n\nIt takes time to refactor an organization. It’s still full of Trump appointees.", ">\n\n2020 was a long time ago", ">\n\nNot on organizational time scales. It takes several months to safely restructure an organization as big as the federal government, and when it is the federal government it takes years. Congress gets a say in every political appointment, budget change, and organization change. It’s designed to be slow to assure continuity. \nThere is a saying that every president gets credited and blamed for what the prior administration put in motion. There is a lot of truth to that, and this organizational inertia is a big reason why. There are similar long lags in changing laws, re-writing policies, modifying rules, and so on. It’s a “feature” of having checks and balances.", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.", ">\n\nYep!\nAlso this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious.\nThe real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade." ]
> The point is to automate more checking of income common to wealthier people, and devote more resources to auditing those people. The Fox News article is disingenuous in how it describes the automated checking that goes on. It’s not great that rich people aren’t really audited, but there’s no reason to stop the automated checking of income where it’s already being done and essentially free to continue. If you feel differently, explain yourself.	[ "If Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nAnd when Barry was president they targeted conservative groups. I think phone calls can be made to tell them to back off of the little guy.", ">\n\n\nthey targeted conservative groups.\n\nNo. They went after specifically anti-tax tea party groups. The groups who openly flaunted tax laws", ">\n\nThey also went after progressive, left leaning groups - how do you explain that ? it was political", ">\n\nWait, did they target conservatives or progressives? Lol", ">\n\nBoth- it was quite clear they were involving themselves in politics - that’s what the IG found", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.", ">\n\nYep!\nAlso this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious.\nThe real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade.", ">\n\nThanks for the informative reply.\nYou make great points which I don't doubt. But there are times when I think it's important to consider both the letter and spirit of law at times.\nEven though it is perfectly by the letter of the law that people should be checked, it also seems against the intended spirit of said law that only a certain group of people are checked.\nI am not familiar with US law, but I think most of us can feel some degree of injustice with how things currently are.", ">\n\nThe point is to automate more checking of income common to wealthier people, and devote more resources to auditing those people. The Fox News article is disingenuous in how it describes the automated checking that goes on. It’s not great that rich people aren’t really audited, but there’s no reason to stop the automated checking of income where it’s already being done and essentially free to continue.\nIf you feel differently, explain yourself.", ">\n\nNo, we are in alignment concerning this.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nFUCK FOX NEWS\nFox is pretending to care about us poors. \nDon't reward these fascist fucks with upvotes for a disingenuous clickbait headline. They still hate us for not voting gop.", ">\n\nThey want people to hate the IRS and help defund it so they don’t go after the rich, which was the purpose of the additional funding", ">\n\nThey want people to link this to “87000” new agents, which is obviously happening on social media posts, but it’s not even a thing.", ">\n\nArticle is trash. The author is including correspondence audits (which means the IRS asked for some documentation by mail) for low income filers but not for millionaires when comparing their audit rates. Here are actual numbers according to their own source:\nAudit rates including correspondence audits\nlow income 1.27%\nmillionaires 2.38% \nAudit rates excluding correspondence audits\nlow income 0.0376%\nmillionaires 1.24%\n.\nFor low income filers, nearly all their audits were correspondence audits.", ">\n\nIt's hilarious when Fox News and the GOP pretend they care about poor people.\nNo amount of hypocrisy is too much to try to make democrats look bad.", ">\n\nIts unfortunately far easier to prove married couples who live together filed HoH for extra earned income credit than it is to prove complicated returns were incorrect.", ">\n\nIt's also trivially easy to prove the same child was claimed by two parents which is a lot of correspondence audits.", ">\n\nSo can my back taxes please just get forgiven already. 20% income being taxed is not livable", ">\n\nRepublican love flat rate taxes, you should talk to them.", ">\n\nThey’re required to audit the president and vice president, and that didn’t happen either.", ">\n\nThis isn't new, it's been been having for the last 5 - 6 years.", ">\n\nHopefully some wake up and realize its all just preparing us for the inevitable destruction of our economy. I imagine its almost too late to realize this. If we all realized this wed sell our 401Ks and not lean on money and use it to help our neighbors.", ">\n\nK bro.", ">\n\nMy wife and I are on social security. She works part time to keep us afloat. All in, we earned $50K in 2022. iRS wants $4500 from us. Really? 5X what Trump paid? Don't know if anyone is paying attention but $50k ain't rich. Oh, and out of that comes almost $4k in Medicare premiums. A program we paid into for 40+ years.\nEveryone of these arrogant, unqualified,, spoon fed assholes in Congress should be made to live on SSI or welfare, with no medical coverage, for a year. Then tell me I am acting entitled.\nSelf serving bastards.", ">\n\nDon't upvote this crap.\nDo you really think Fox cares about the working class??\nThis is just right wing propaganda, timed to coincide with McCarthy's promise to get rid of the new IRS agents who make it possible to audit the rich.\nDon't be used.", ">\n\nWhatever happened to \"dont shoot the messenger?\"", ">\n\nIRS understaffing would naturally trend to go after low-lying fruit. Easy pickings. Too many man hours to go after super complex cases. These moneyed fuckers and their bullshit. It's outrageous.", ">\n\nThe vast majority of these audits are automatically generated correspondence audits that have to be issued. We can't just turn off the program that raises a red flag when two people claim the same child as a dependent because we don't have enough forensic accountants. If you mistype your W2 you'll get an \"audit\" showing the correct info from the copy your boss sent them and telling you they'll correct it unless you tell them otherwise and you don't have to do anything if the info they have is correct.", ">\n\nYeah, all the nonsense about the IRS \"going after\" low income people is so stupid. Low income people make money in a way that their reporting is easily verifiable by a computer. They're also most likely to mess up and claim child tax credits incorrectly, etc - all of which is verifiable and issued a letter by a computer. \n-\nOther than actually being able to get someone on the phone when you call the IRS, and increased budget isn't going to impact the average person in any way.", ">\n\nMy thing is even assuming the 87k don't successfully get more money out of the rich, that's still 87k jobs. That's a net positive. I just don't understand the conservative logic here. Do they think these 87k new jobs are specifically for being insidiously predatory toward the poor? Where's the logic here? (I know I'll get hyperbolic answers, but I genuinely would like to know)", ">\n\nIt's 87,000 jobs over 10 years, the majority of which are replacement during that period. It's just a budget supplemental to stop hemorrhaging agents as they retire or cycle out into other jobs.", ">\n\nso.. this is on fox, which I assume support republican efforts to ensure that this is the permanent state of affairs. I don't really get anything anymore.", ">\n\nAnd that is the way the GOP wants it.", ">\n\n💯 Exactly what this Fox article is trying to do.", ">\n\nIt's who can afford a lawyer", ">\n\nAs the article hints at, the IRS does not do a lot of actual auditing. What it does is computer matching, which automatically generates material for a correspondence audit. Most correspondence audits occur because som poor working Joe didn't know he/her was supposed to include or exclude something, and the IRS caught it in its matching. Of course, the problem is that we have a complex code and little help in actually helping people through the various forms, rules, and so on. But millionaires don't have these issues, so they can escape most of the traps that lead to a correspondence audit. If a lot of these 87,000 were in taxpayer service (which I expect) it would lead to fewer audits at the low end, more robust audits for large corporations, wealthy individuals, and those who actively use tax avoidance strategies. But of course that is not the dialogue that gets promoted when the 87,000 agents are discussed.", ">\n\nThis is exactly why Fox News needs to be dismantled and thrown in the garbage. Ugh, \"look poors! They're coming for yoU!!!\". Scare tactics. And guess what? It sadly works. Every time.\nThey're lower than scum.", ">\n\nExactly. It's when someone misreports a number from their W2, didn't report 1099s they received, both separated parents claim a tax credit for the same kid, etc. All stuff that's easily checked by a computer. The IRS isn't \"auditing\" random low to middle income people. That would be a complete waste of their time.", ">\n\nlooks at Trump You don't say.", ">\n\nThe poor can't defend themselves, it's easier to take a little bit of money from people that won't fight back than a lot of money from people that will.", ">\n\nThe mega rich seem like they’re on a mission to destroy America, as we know it.", ">\n\nHiring 87,000 new IRS agents makes it possible to audit billionaires. So they pay their share. Those audits require an actual person or team that knows what they are doing. But Kevin McCarthy's first item of business was to announce legislation to overturn the hiring of 87,000 IRS agents. Meaning only the little guy (who can be audited by computer software) pays taxes.\nSSDD", ">\n\nThe \"87,000\" agents budget is over a ten year period. It's not for 87,000 new positions.", ">\n\nThe title is so misleading. Im surprised fox even put the juicy bit in the article about how (this stat is due to there not being enough IRS workers because) these \"audits\" on low earners are just automated letters asking for more info.\nYet again, this is just millionairs paid by billionairs to mislead the masses into blaming the poor for crimes committed by said billionairs.", ">\n\nWhich is why the IRS needs more manpower and budget, so they can go after the big fish.\nFuck Fox News and their Republican propaganda pieces. This article coincides with McCarthy saying they’ll cut the IRS budget and that the IRS is coming for you.\nFuck off Republican propaganda rag!\nStop upvoting any Fox News story. Fox should not be on the white list.", ">\n\nThis is a terrible article. It seems to include questions about tax returns as audits. If a low income filer makes a mistake it should be corrected. Is that an audit? If anyone makes a mistake and is contacted, is that an audit? Also there is no reason to go after low income as they rarely pay tax or are required to. The money requested would also pay for people to answer a phone. Those against increasing funding lie when they say all of it goes to audits. If you tell the truth, who cares if you are audited? Are y’all aware you can track your personal return online? However a business cannot. Businesses have to rely on humans that can’t be reached. I’ve waited a year for a refund. Didn’t know if IRS received the return. Didn’t know if there was an issue. Didn’t know if it was mailed or lost. I’m getting tired of Republicans pushing their crap on people.", ">\n\nwho keeps upvoting this right wing propaganda", ">\n\nWhy would the GOP want to give the agency the power to go after their donors.", ">\n\nAnd it was trumps guy that mandated it while Biden replaced him", ">\n\nApparently the mere use of an accounting firm somehow protected corps and the rich from the IRS who still (mistakenly) believe the accounting firms are trustworthy. How naive.", ">\n\nThe \"audits\" talked about are mostly form letters requesting more info about specific items.", ">\n\nThe poor can't pay for top flight attorneys.", ">\n\nYep keep the IRS underfunded so they can only go after the poors at the same time telling all the poors that the IRS is bad cause it goes after them but leave out the fact that they do that cause the poors are low hanging fruit.\nRepublicans are evil.", ">\n\nWell the GOP wants to cut funding to the IRS for new agents, so I’m sure the poor folk will continue to get screwed. I say toss the 50,000+ page tax code out and replace with a percentage based on total revenue/income made. Took a loss? No write-offs. Oh well, better luck next year. It’ll never happen because the wealthy don’t want it to.", ">\n\nWhere did you get this info? I know GOPers have been slashing IRS budgets and staffing for years but can't find reliable sources for what this has done to the actual audits - like who gets audited.", ">\n\nTheir link is Fox. This is a bad faith post.", ">\n\nThis says a lot coming from fox “news”", ">\n\nTo paraphrase Gilbert K. Chesterton, \"The Poor have sometimes objected to being taxed too heavily; The Rich have always objected to being taxed at all.\"", ">\n\ndon't post Fox news here....", ">\n\nCorporations and millionaires have the means to hire accountants and attorneys. Our tax code is gray in several areas. It’s easy to go after the poor that do not have the resources and will have no choice but to pay anything the IRS says. The additional agents will continue to target the poor and middle class because they are easy, It’s happened before, it will continue to happen.", ">\n\nI think it's funny/sad that a poor person can win the lottery and they get taxed at a higher rate than any billionaire has ever been taxed at. The system is built to keep the rich - rich and the poor - poor.", ">\n\nThe poorest can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nThe current system cannot be sustained. We are hurtling towards disaster.", ">\n\nThe only reason the bastards have the majority is because the corrupt SCOTUS allowed illegal gerrymanders to stand while they were fought in the courts.", ">\n\nThe I.R.S. goes after the poorer people because it's easier. They can't afford lawyers and accountants. So the poor can do nothing but roll over and take it up the rump. The Inflation Reduction Act that Biden signed into law in August is supposed to give $80 Billion to the I.R.S. so they can go after the millionaires. But we know that won't happen. More poor people are going to get screwed.", ">\n\nI'm confused. For decades, Faux news and the conservatives have been saying that millionaires deserve to keep more of their money than we do. That was a huge part of the 2017 tax scam that Trump signed. Now Faux is saying it's a problem? And they are rightly detailing that Republicans are the cause, along with Biden trying to fix the same issue that Fox has helped create?", ">\n\nFox News", ">\n\nHey IRS, don't forget to crawl up my ass this year because I sold some old stuff on eBay for a loss but make sure you put a few man hours into figuring out if it is legit or not.", ">\n\nlol, and the people opposed to IRS funding will say they are anti-establishment.", ">\n\nImagine how much they could squeeze the middle class with 87,000 more agents! But really, it’ll be good to see if the increase in officers actually increases tax revenue without changing the underlying laws.", ">\n\nSo, this is the newest Republican boogeyman, the IRS.\nWell, better than Drag Queens I guess.", ">\n\nOh hey just like last year, and the year before that, I think there might be a pattern", ">\n\nThank you republicans, always sticking up in the back on the small guys…", ">\n\nFox News saying this like it’s not something Rupert Murdoch’s network supports is pretty funny.", ">\n\nFox News. Ignore it.", ">\n\nFox News is still allowed in here?", ">\n\nFake news. This is Republican propaganda coming from Fox News.", ">\n\nFox News is NOT news", ">\n\nHmm sounds like it was underfunded then. Good thing now we helped ease that problem. Thanks Biden", ">\n\nIt's simply laziness by the IRS. Lower-income households have less complicated returns and easier to process. I'm sure IRS runs a non-effective but management-pleasing metric like \"how many returns were corrected\" opposed to how much money was recouped.", ">\n\nWe know. They don't have the resources to do anything. That was the point of increasing the staffing at the IRS so they had even the slightest hope of going after the big offenders with their armies or lawyers.", ">\n\nThere's less millionaires and billionaires than there are us. I'm not sure that answer fits the accuracy on hiring more workers but I'll go ahead and amuse that", ">\n\nIt's not a game of tax guy vs rich guy. The rich literally have armies of lawyers. You need the staff to overcome all the paper and challenges they'll throw at you. \nIf you throw one person to audit a millionaire, their lawyers can make it so it'll take a year to review a week of operations. Investigations will never finish unless there's sufficient staff to overcome their obstruction.", ">\n\nTo this day I do not understand why the IRS can demand our documents every year without a warrant. The 16th amendment does not alter the 4th, and the 4th does not apply only to criminal actions (as the 5th explicitly does). Yet no one seems to care about this annual violations.", ">\n\nReminder, Fox News is not news. It's entertainment, and should be regarded as such.", ">\n\nNo shit, poor ppl tend to file their own taxes and screw up where as millionaires hire expensive accountants to exploit all the legal loopholes without getting their clients in trouble.\nI don't think it's an intentional targeting as the article may be implying.", ">\n\nOne might imagine the resources of agents would be better put to use by focusing on returns that might produce more revenue, however it may be just a lot easier to collect a few bucks from easier targets.", ">\n\nThey are short staffed and accountants make it so difficult to find wrongdoing, if there is even wrongdoing to be found, that it would take a decent chunk of their workforce just to tackle it. It's like trying to find needle in a haystack but you don't know if there's a needle or not.", ">\n\nSo true....", ">\n\nShocked pikachu face.", ">\n\nYeah I’d believe this if it weren’t Fox News. They could give a fuck about the poor and middle class.", ">\n\nI would literally rather the IRS spend its time auditing 5 extraordinarily rich people or a single business than anyone who makes less than 100k per year\nETA: I’m aware that this article represents part of the Republican agenda to just gut the IRS and welfare spending generally. And I understand the difficulties in auditing the rich/businesses v lower income people claiming tax credits, etc", ">\n\nAlmost all of the little people \"audits\" are just a computer issuing a correspondence \"audit\" because the person misreported something from their W2, didn't report as much 1099 income as was reported to the IRS by others, or separated parents both trying to claim kids for tax credits or something. \n-\nThey don't really pull from the same resources. The rich people audits require human beings. Little people \"audits\" aren't really audits and a computer can do it. So if we want to audit more rich people, they need actual budget for human beings. The little people are going to be caught anyways because a computer can do it.", ">\n\nI interned at the IRS during the summer of 2012 when Lois Lerner made batshit crazy commrnts that they were targetting conservative groups", ">\n\nI say this every time it gets brought up. This is by design. I used to work in auditing and also used to do tax stuff. It’s super easy to find tax fraud on someone who only has a simple W-2 and no other income. You could find those people through a basic algorithm. Meanwhile, auditing a multi millionaire is expensive, time consuming, and often fruitless. If I was in charge of an underfunded, understaffed IRS I would tell my staff to go for the easy wins too.", ">\n\nUnpopular opinion - More funding won't resolve this. \nThe IRS will keep doing this. Unless rules & regulations forbid or disincentivize this practice, the IRS will keep this stupid practice", ">\n\nI make $40,000 a year and the IRS froze my bank accounts until I paid them $1000 in taxes I owed them because of an error I made filling my taxes. They froze my bank accounts for $1000. I was fucked for a month. I had to borrow cash from people just for food and gas money to get to work to get paid money that I couldn’t access. It was a scary time for me. Meanwhile millionaires are purposely avoiding taxes worth more than what I make in a year and nothing happens to them.", ">\n\nThe IRS sends no less than a dozen letters to a taxpayer prior to leaving a bank account. Why didn't you just put it into a repayment plan? Takes about ten minutes online.", ">\n\nDon't you just hate autocorrect?", ">\n\nIf true, its a holdover from jrbush who slashed IRS staff and budget and told them to spend more time auditing tip jars and busboys than millionaires because the millionaires had better lawyers than the IRS and service workers were unlikely to have any lawyers at all.", ">\n\nFox News solution: remove the IRS", ">\n\nAbsolutely. They’ll NEVER target the rich, adding more agents just made them a lot more capable to target all the lower class.", ">\n\nWhat people don't realize..Those 87K \"Agents\" aren't that. It's 87K employees over 25 years. Clerks etc. People are so fucking stupid when they just believe these clowns.", ">\n\nThose numbers also count it as an \"audit\" when a person misreports a number from a W2, 1099s, etc and the irs number matching software sends an automatically generated correspondence letter that basically says \"we actually show this number, this is what your tax return would have been if you reported that number correctly\". \nThe IRS isn't wasting time doing random \"audits\" as people think of them for low to middle income people. It would be a complete waste of their time. The computer just catches obvious verifiable mistakes and it counts as an audit in those numbers.", ">\n\n“those in the lowest income bracket hit 12.7 per 1,000….. The odds of a millionaire facing an audit were around 1.1%.”\nSo they’re saying 1.27% vs 1.1%!!! And acting like that’s a scandal 🙄", ">\n\nWhich means millionaires REALLY don't want more IRS auditors which means when our new resident house fascist fires five thousand auditors, said fascist (McCarthy) is making sure those millionaires aren't going to get audited. \nCha CHING !!! Go the \"donations\" into house rat republican's pockets. \nThe grift will be in full swing shortly.\nAnd with putin whispering in their ears and telling them EXACTLY how break the law - how can they lose?", ">\n\n💯 Exactly why theres a Fox link here pushing for that same reason.", ">\n\nTwo things. First of all, this is from a far right-wing propaganda outlet which should immediately raise red flags. They're trying to scare you into allowing a republican-initiated movement to entirely remove all remaining power from the IRS by making it seem like they're coming after you.\nSecond, the reason the IRS is already already virtually powerless against the rich is because the republicans have already eviscerated them in the past several decades, largely through defunding them leading to not only staffing cuts, but the inability to pursue the wealthiest people who have the resources for endless litigation. So as a result, the FBI can only really afford to go after people who cannot financially defend themselves.", ">\n\nThird, you might as well throw in that the aiming low guidance was under a Trump appointee who is no longer in that position.", ">\n\nThe GOP intentionally defunded the IRS so that it could not audit the wealthy. It takes a great deal more money upfront to audit them but the payback is far greater.", ">\n\nI'm not sure why dems voted against an amendment that would have mandated the giant infusion of cash into the IRS couldn't be used to audit folks making >$400k.", ">\n\nHrm this is pretty fucked I'd like to hear about why the Dems voted nay.", ">\n\nBecause they work for the same people as Republicans. \nThey are different but only when their owners allow them to be. \nI don't know how many times we are going to have to learn this lesson before it sticks.", ">\n\nDemocrats are responsible for this", ">\n\nThe rich returns are just too hard, enough lower class errors you can leave the rich alone. Love to see it… sigh", ">\n\nIt takes money to police the wealthy. Can't have that can we?!", ">\n\nr/noshitsherlock", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised?\nI’m not even American and this seemed obvious to me. All you have to do is look at how the poor live and compare that to the news about someone like Elon musk or Donald trump.", ">\n\nThis is why the IRS needs to go.", ">\n\nFox News helped make that happen.", ">\n\nThey'll never change,all the time when the guys in charge benefit from doing the same shit.", ">\n\nAnd yet the republicans dont submit or pass legislations to change the rules to favor targeting rich people. Curious.", ">\n\nThen 78,000 new, armed tax collectors should be able to extract even more money from the poor, middle-class and small business owners.", ">\n\nWhy did they focus on the Poorest? The thought of 87,000 more of them will actually do what? If the existing can’t focus on the wealthy! Then what makes anybody think more can?", ">\n\nMillionaires and billionaires make the government more money by creating lobbying loopholes and exploiting the economy to bilk the 99%. It's really cheap to go after the poorest who are struggling to pay day to day obligations and don't have loopholes or government sanctioned exploitation to take advantage of.", ">\n\nI could have told you this would happen. You think millionaires get $600 Venmo transactions?", ">\n\nThat's a move democrats should not make. That's one month of rent for me. What of folks worse-off?", ">\n\nHonestly it’s like squeezing blood from the stone over here anyway.", ">\n\nDuh lmfao theyve already stated it costs too much to tax weathy people previously and its most cost effective to audit the poor due to many factors...", ">\n\nI mean 99% of us are poor compared to the other 1%", ">\n\nColor me surprised", ">\n\nWe need some laws for equitable auditing.", ">\n\nYou are an Army commander about to attack the enemy. Do you prefer to attack where they have experienced career solders backed up by artillery, tanks, and airplanes, or do you attack where there are poorly armed and equipped untrained conscripts?", ">\n\nThey must be upset someone replaced their sign with a card from Cards Against Humanity", ">\n\nMay it ever be so…. Don’t reproduce if you only consume and can’t accumulate or help a Dow Jones winter water witch. Like snow, weathermen.", ">\n\nIt’s weirdly fitting how much their building sign in the photo looks like a cards against humanity card.", ">\n\nTypical", ">\n\nWow? How unusual.", ">\n\nI’d support double the number of IRS agents", ">\n\nI was low income and won about 3,000 gambling, the irs went after me", ">\n\nThe IRS came after me hard for 8$", ">\n\nAudit frequency should correlate to income, someone with a million in income should be audited 10x those with 100k income", ">\n\nSomeone should explain Pareto charts to the IRS.", ">\n\nI've been audited three times. First when I was 27, did some consulting and didn't do the 1099 prepayments. Ended up owing $17k. Second audit was after moving across country for a job. The tax preparer we hired made a mistake with the move expense deductions, owed a few thousand. Third audit was another tax preparer mistake, but this time we overpaid and were owed money we credited to the next year. \nIf you assume for discussion that the average audit on an ordinary tax payer returns $10,000, it would take 100,000,000 audits to make $1 trillion. By just doing the easy work, the IRS is leaving the real money on the table.", ">\n\nRepublicans are famous for giving rich breaks while middle class etc close the gaps", ">\n\nThe last line, \"The Inflation Reduction Act provides the IRS with $80 billion in future funding to ramp up its audits and potentially target the wealthiest taxpayers.\"", ">\n\nThe cure is not the root cause, but the middle class and the poor will eventually bear the burden after the capital operation", ">\n\nIt’s like they timed the “research” and the drop of the article with the speech. Sad man.", ">\n\nWatch Madoff. The wealthy skate and steal billions. The poor are in prison over thousands.", ">\n\nWhy does their sign look like a Card Against Humanity", ">\n\nFucking Trump, still at it.", ">\n\nOh you mean the thing people said would happen once they got massive funding actually happened? Checks out", ">\n\nOf course they did, because millionaires will lawyer up.", ">\n\nBecause the poor can't afford to fight back.", ">\n\nIt's so unfair the poor and the middle class taxpayers suffer so much while the millionaries got away with not paying the taxes It's really hurting the poor. The middle class is fading", ">\n\nAll of this can be fixed if we just use no-exemption graduated income", ">\n\nYeah we know", ">\n\nShow of hands for all surprised.\ncrickets\nHmm. Seems like Reddit suffers from a plague of double amputees...", ">\n\nWhat the actual fuck", ">\n\nAnd 2021, 2020, 2019, …", ">\n\nSounds about right.", ">\n\nOf course. Poor people can’t afford attorneys.", ">\n\nI made a mistake on my forms while I was overseas and ticked “self-employed” instead of “employed”. I was on a student visa and had two children and was making less than 10k a year. They hounded me for years. By the time I figured out what had happened I could not amend the forms and had paid thousands in penalties and interest.\nMeanwhile I knew lots of people who were there fully employed not reporting their income.\nFuck them.", ">\n\nYep! During the pandemic, even while I wasn't working didn't come after me the entire time that I was working but the minute that I wasn't nobody was cuz we were in lockdown they started popping up", ">\n\nI just now realized that the Cards Against Humanity box looks like the IRS sign", ">\n\nWhy is the sign a Cards Against Humanity question?", ">\n\nI am shocked and appalled. clutches pearls", ">\n\nRich should be taxed more than the average not right at all. Or at least there is a tier system based on pay only makes sense. Come on now", ">\n\nSounds about right, make the rich richer again.", ">\n\nWho are we going to vote for in the future ,all of them are decayed , corrupted and useless , the “most rich country in the world , governed by the most ignorant an corrupted. What a contrast .", ">\n\nGod bless America", ">\n\nno way. wait until you see those people responds. Those people are chipping away.", ">\n\nSounds about right", ">\n\nWe know.", ">\n\nI find it rather comical that Fox news is reporting on this since they are all about pushing the Republican agenda and that is all about pushing everyone else down that isn't rich and keeping them there. Not to mention they had no problem with Trump not paying taxes for years.", ">\n\nCan fucking confirm.", ">\n\nYeah, they (millionaires) have accountants who generally do things right and due to their millions being in investments it's not like it's taxable all the time. \nThen there's the ability to sell any stocks when they're down to build up losses on paper can reinvest them at a loss that can carry over across multiple years.", ">\n\nsounds about right. i don’t have a pot to piss in but they’re all over me for someone stealing my identity and filing a double tax return one year.", ">\n\nDuh", ">\n\nThere’s a reason why FOX is posting this article. The less people at the IRS, the more likely they come after folks who can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nIn order to pursue wealthy tax cheats, the IRS needs more resources and personnel. Otherwise it’s business as usual, picking on the low hanging fruit that earns under 6 figures.", ">\n\nSo wrong ....people need to be fired", ">\n\nIt’s because they can’t afford to take them to court", ">\n\nOf course it is about protecting the rich like Trump who lies ,lies , and about his tax returns . No wonder he did not want them released .", ">\n\nEasy prey bc most ppl can not lawyer up. Pretty heart breaking system we have at times.", ">\n\nWhy does the irs sign look like it's from cards against humanity?", ">\n\nCurrently getting audited over \\~$1500, which they owe me, when the rich get away with murder. Fucking unbelievably and unnecessarily stressful for me.", ">\n\nHas t this been know for a while?", ">\n\nyep and they are the same people getting tax cuts while everyone else does it tough ....\nAny one with too much money is your enemy .... not a hero of democracy", ">\n\nGet rid of taxes and the gov’t should just do stuff for free, or what ever.", ">\n\nYou have to be careful when you get one of those CP2000 notices from the IRS. The way they are written is a trap.\nIf you dispute it you are supposed to indicate that you disagree and send it back with documents supporting your dispute.\nYou are only supposed to sign it if you agree with them and when you sign it you are signing away your rights to dispute the back taxes and penalties they are demanding.\nMere worker bees like us can expect to be getting a lot of those from this years tax returns considering how the threshold for 1099k forms has been dropped to $600.\nGuys like Trump? The IRS doesn't even know where to begin.", ">\n\nThanks Biden", ">\n\nI presume those lower-income bracket filers might be more likely to reach out to 1-800-infomercial [quickie settlement/long-term penalties most favorable to gov/proprietor] than retain proper legal counsel?\nRegardless it’s got to be a lot less work for IRS agent to go after under-represented citizen(s), rather than someone who can afford to appeal, properly negotiate on their own terms?", ">\n\nLmfao Dems tax and spend. But I have to admit there Republicans that tax and spend to. Where do these Politicians get off taxing me or business and give to people who don't work what do you cause d the inflation. You can not print money \nI am Conservative not a Republican. To much money is wasted and put in pockets of people ot don't belong.\nBut all dems know how to tax tax tax. \nIts all great and good until you run out if other peoples money. \nMillionaire just like Berny he hated Millionaires until he became one now he hates Trillionaires. Funny how the gold post changes. And good old Nancy her I side stock trading. So I think you need to rethink.", ">\n\nThe IRS is only doing as directed by whomever controls the White House.", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised by this? Really?", ">\n\nThe sign in the thumbnail looks like a Cards Against Humanity card.", ">\n\nWhile this is mostly true, don’t believe everything you read. I’m no more an accountant than I am a ladies man, but someone (said they’re an accountant) posted a few days ago about this. They explained that the most likely people getting audited are trying to, fraudulently or mistakenly, claim the EITC. \nYES, it’s super easy to “bust” these people for an easy “mistake”. This is who the IRS is cracking down on. \nDo I think it’s better to bust poor people for claiming a few thousand in tax credits vs billionaires who avoid taxes altogether? Of course not, but don’t think they’re actively targeting people who fudge their mileage deductions or miss a decimal point in their calculations as small business owners. It’s simply not happening. \nAnd the reported “87,000 new IRS agents” are replacing the 10’s of 1,000’s of employees set to retire or quit over the next 10 years which doesn’t even begin to fill the gaps we’ve been growing for decades by not hiring and training more willing workers. Not to mention they’re not even close to all employees who will actively audit tax payers. They’re people who answer phones, file papers, assist others, etc… They’re mostly just average people with average jobs so of course the GOP wants to end this. They hate upward mobility and job creation unless that means tax breaks for their billionaire friends.", ">\n\nI wish everyone wasn’t a sheep and would understand this.", ">\n\nI can see the Media doing their best to turn the public against the IRS.", ">\n\nPicking on the week and helpless. That’s what we humans do. We suck. I’m waiting for that big meteor reset button.", ">\n\nAnd Fox news loves this.", ">\n\nLove it, Faux 'News' taking the piss, for 4 years under Dear Leader they campaigned for tax breaks for the rich, now they're pretending to care about the poor !", ">\n\nEvery millionaire should be audited yearly. Period.", ">\n\nAND now the gqp cult promises to rescind the money Biden set aside to aid the IRS to recover taxes from mega millionaire tax cheats like benedict donald, who paid less taxes than most working Americans.", ">\n\nRepublicans want to stop the IRS and Congress from taxing rich people, making the burden of maintaining civilization fall more heavily on poorer people. This is why Republicans vote for tax cuts for the rich and against funding for the IRS.\nAnd since Republican beliefs are based on wishful thinking, Republicans can screw over poor, rural Republicans while simultaneously taking credit for doing it to make Republicans happy about it and blaming it on Democrats to make those same Republicans resentful against Democrats for it. And what else would we expect from a Republican Party that blames Democrats for tricking them into attacking the Capitol to make Trump look bad and justifies and approves of assaulting Capitol police while brandishing their \"thin blue line\" flags.", ">\n\nThe IRS is like any other law enforcement agency, they prefer pursuing the poor because they don't have the resources to protect themselves.", ">\n\nThe IRS building sign looks like its from cards against humanity.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nNot a reliable news source.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nThat picture looks like the worst cards against humanity card too get.", ">\n\nScrew the Murdoch media empire and their failed trickle down ideologies.", ">\n\nOf course, the poorest haven’t paid over 400+ billion for decades. Not sure about the rich, we haven’t checked.", ">\n\nThis is not a surprise. With the recent inflation reduction act, the IRS an additional $80B over 10 years or $8B per year. The IRS budget for 2021 was $13.7B. The additional $8B over the year would be an increase of 58% to their budget. They will be looking to get a lot more money from taxpayers, due to this very large increase in their budget.", ">\n\nFox reported this? I'm in shock", ">\n\nAll propagandists publish clickbaity stuff that makes them sound like maybe they've let up on the evil. Unfortunately it works, since people just upvote headlines.", ">\n\nIt’s only going to get worse in 2023. Those 87k new IRS agents will not be going after the wealthy.", ">\n\nWhy?\nThat’s literally why they were being added. The IRS goes after the poorer taxpayers because they are low-hanging fruit and don’t have the lawyers and accountants to protect them. \nThe additional IRS employees were to give the personnel staffing sufficient to go after the wealthy.", ">\n\nIt doesn’t matter how many IRS agents there are. It will always be easier and more profitable for the IRS to nickel and dime the average taxpayer rather than go after the wealthy, who have the resources to lawyer up with the best lawyers and challenge the IRS in court.", ">\n\nEasier? Yes. More profitable? Doubtful.", ">\n\nIf Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nBut in 2022 ( when Biden was president and the House belonged to the Dems) they didn’t did they.", ">\n\nIt takes time to refactor an organization. It’s still full of Trump appointees.", ">\n\n2020 was a long time ago", ">\n\nNot on organizational time scales. It takes several months to safely restructure an organization as big as the federal government, and when it is the federal government it takes years. Congress gets a say in every political appointment, budget change, and organization change. It’s designed to be slow to assure continuity. \nThere is a saying that every president gets credited and blamed for what the prior administration put in motion. There is a lot of truth to that, and this organizational inertia is a big reason why. There are similar long lags in changing laws, re-writing policies, modifying rules, and so on. It’s a “feature” of having checks and balances.", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.", ">\n\nYep!\nAlso this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious.\nThe real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade.", ">\n\nThanks for the informative reply.\nYou make great points which I don't doubt. But there are times when I think it's important to consider both the letter and spirit of law at times.\nEven though it is perfectly by the letter of the law that people should be checked, it also seems against the intended spirit of said law that only a certain group of people are checked.\nI am not familiar with US law, but I think most of us can feel some degree of injustice with how things currently are." ]
> No, we are in alignment concerning this.	[ "If Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nAnd when Barry was president they targeted conservative groups. I think phone calls can be made to tell them to back off of the little guy.", ">\n\n\nthey targeted conservative groups.\n\nNo. They went after specifically anti-tax tea party groups. The groups who openly flaunted tax laws", ">\n\nThey also went after progressive, left leaning groups - how do you explain that ? it was political", ">\n\nWait, did they target conservatives or progressives? Lol", ">\n\nBoth- it was quite clear they were involving themselves in politics - that’s what the IG found", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.", ">\n\nYep!\nAlso this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious.\nThe real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade.", ">\n\nThanks for the informative reply.\nYou make great points which I don't doubt. But there are times when I think it's important to consider both the letter and spirit of law at times.\nEven though it is perfectly by the letter of the law that people should be checked, it also seems against the intended spirit of said law that only a certain group of people are checked.\nI am not familiar with US law, but I think most of us can feel some degree of injustice with how things currently are.", ">\n\nThe point is to automate more checking of income common to wealthier people, and devote more resources to auditing those people. The Fox News article is disingenuous in how it describes the automated checking that goes on. It’s not great that rich people aren’t really audited, but there’s no reason to stop the automated checking of income where it’s already being done and essentially free to continue.\nIf you feel differently, explain yourself.", ">\n\nNo, we are in alignment concerning this.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nFUCK FOX NEWS\nFox is pretending to care about us poors. \nDon't reward these fascist fucks with upvotes for a disingenuous clickbait headline. They still hate us for not voting gop.", ">\n\nThey want people to hate the IRS and help defund it so they don’t go after the rich, which was the purpose of the additional funding", ">\n\nThey want people to link this to “87000” new agents, which is obviously happening on social media posts, but it’s not even a thing.", ">\n\nArticle is trash. The author is including correspondence audits (which means the IRS asked for some documentation by mail) for low income filers but not for millionaires when comparing their audit rates. Here are actual numbers according to their own source:\nAudit rates including correspondence audits\nlow income 1.27%\nmillionaires 2.38% \nAudit rates excluding correspondence audits\nlow income 0.0376%\nmillionaires 1.24%\n.\nFor low income filers, nearly all their audits were correspondence audits.", ">\n\nIt's hilarious when Fox News and the GOP pretend they care about poor people.\nNo amount of hypocrisy is too much to try to make democrats look bad.", ">\n\nIts unfortunately far easier to prove married couples who live together filed HoH for extra earned income credit than it is to prove complicated returns were incorrect.", ">\n\nIt's also trivially easy to prove the same child was claimed by two parents which is a lot of correspondence audits.", ">\n\nSo can my back taxes please just get forgiven already. 20% income being taxed is not livable", ">\n\nRepublican love flat rate taxes, you should talk to them.", ">\n\nThey’re required to audit the president and vice president, and that didn’t happen either.", ">\n\nThis isn't new, it's been been having for the last 5 - 6 years.", ">\n\nHopefully some wake up and realize its all just preparing us for the inevitable destruction of our economy. I imagine its almost too late to realize this. If we all realized this wed sell our 401Ks and not lean on money and use it to help our neighbors.", ">\n\nK bro.", ">\n\nMy wife and I are on social security. She works part time to keep us afloat. All in, we earned $50K in 2022. iRS wants $4500 from us. Really? 5X what Trump paid? Don't know if anyone is paying attention but $50k ain't rich. Oh, and out of that comes almost $4k in Medicare premiums. A program we paid into for 40+ years.\nEveryone of these arrogant, unqualified,, spoon fed assholes in Congress should be made to live on SSI or welfare, with no medical coverage, for a year. Then tell me I am acting entitled.\nSelf serving bastards.", ">\n\nDon't upvote this crap.\nDo you really think Fox cares about the working class??\nThis is just right wing propaganda, timed to coincide with McCarthy's promise to get rid of the new IRS agents who make it possible to audit the rich.\nDon't be used.", ">\n\nWhatever happened to \"dont shoot the messenger?\"", ">\n\nIRS understaffing would naturally trend to go after low-lying fruit. Easy pickings. Too many man hours to go after super complex cases. These moneyed fuckers and their bullshit. It's outrageous.", ">\n\nThe vast majority of these audits are automatically generated correspondence audits that have to be issued. We can't just turn off the program that raises a red flag when two people claim the same child as a dependent because we don't have enough forensic accountants. If you mistype your W2 you'll get an \"audit\" showing the correct info from the copy your boss sent them and telling you they'll correct it unless you tell them otherwise and you don't have to do anything if the info they have is correct.", ">\n\nYeah, all the nonsense about the IRS \"going after\" low income people is so stupid. Low income people make money in a way that their reporting is easily verifiable by a computer. They're also most likely to mess up and claim child tax credits incorrectly, etc - all of which is verifiable and issued a letter by a computer. \n-\nOther than actually being able to get someone on the phone when you call the IRS, and increased budget isn't going to impact the average person in any way.", ">\n\nMy thing is even assuming the 87k don't successfully get more money out of the rich, that's still 87k jobs. That's a net positive. I just don't understand the conservative logic here. Do they think these 87k new jobs are specifically for being insidiously predatory toward the poor? Where's the logic here? (I know I'll get hyperbolic answers, but I genuinely would like to know)", ">\n\nIt's 87,000 jobs over 10 years, the majority of which are replacement during that period. It's just a budget supplemental to stop hemorrhaging agents as they retire or cycle out into other jobs.", ">\n\nso.. this is on fox, which I assume support republican efforts to ensure that this is the permanent state of affairs. I don't really get anything anymore.", ">\n\nAnd that is the way the GOP wants it.", ">\n\n💯 Exactly what this Fox article is trying to do.", ">\n\nIt's who can afford a lawyer", ">\n\nAs the article hints at, the IRS does not do a lot of actual auditing. What it does is computer matching, which automatically generates material for a correspondence audit. Most correspondence audits occur because som poor working Joe didn't know he/her was supposed to include or exclude something, and the IRS caught it in its matching. Of course, the problem is that we have a complex code and little help in actually helping people through the various forms, rules, and so on. But millionaires don't have these issues, so they can escape most of the traps that lead to a correspondence audit. If a lot of these 87,000 were in taxpayer service (which I expect) it would lead to fewer audits at the low end, more robust audits for large corporations, wealthy individuals, and those who actively use tax avoidance strategies. But of course that is not the dialogue that gets promoted when the 87,000 agents are discussed.", ">\n\nThis is exactly why Fox News needs to be dismantled and thrown in the garbage. Ugh, \"look poors! They're coming for yoU!!!\". Scare tactics. And guess what? It sadly works. Every time.\nThey're lower than scum.", ">\n\nExactly. It's when someone misreports a number from their W2, didn't report 1099s they received, both separated parents claim a tax credit for the same kid, etc. All stuff that's easily checked by a computer. The IRS isn't \"auditing\" random low to middle income people. That would be a complete waste of their time.", ">\n\nlooks at Trump You don't say.", ">\n\nThe poor can't defend themselves, it's easier to take a little bit of money from people that won't fight back than a lot of money from people that will.", ">\n\nThe mega rich seem like they’re on a mission to destroy America, as we know it.", ">\n\nHiring 87,000 new IRS agents makes it possible to audit billionaires. So they pay their share. Those audits require an actual person or team that knows what they are doing. But Kevin McCarthy's first item of business was to announce legislation to overturn the hiring of 87,000 IRS agents. Meaning only the little guy (who can be audited by computer software) pays taxes.\nSSDD", ">\n\nThe \"87,000\" agents budget is over a ten year period. It's not for 87,000 new positions.", ">\n\nThe title is so misleading. Im surprised fox even put the juicy bit in the article about how (this stat is due to there not being enough IRS workers because) these \"audits\" on low earners are just automated letters asking for more info.\nYet again, this is just millionairs paid by billionairs to mislead the masses into blaming the poor for crimes committed by said billionairs.", ">\n\nWhich is why the IRS needs more manpower and budget, so they can go after the big fish.\nFuck Fox News and their Republican propaganda pieces. This article coincides with McCarthy saying they’ll cut the IRS budget and that the IRS is coming for you.\nFuck off Republican propaganda rag!\nStop upvoting any Fox News story. Fox should not be on the white list.", ">\n\nThis is a terrible article. It seems to include questions about tax returns as audits. If a low income filer makes a mistake it should be corrected. Is that an audit? If anyone makes a mistake and is contacted, is that an audit? Also there is no reason to go after low income as they rarely pay tax or are required to. The money requested would also pay for people to answer a phone. Those against increasing funding lie when they say all of it goes to audits. If you tell the truth, who cares if you are audited? Are y’all aware you can track your personal return online? However a business cannot. Businesses have to rely on humans that can’t be reached. I’ve waited a year for a refund. Didn’t know if IRS received the return. Didn’t know if there was an issue. Didn’t know if it was mailed or lost. I’m getting tired of Republicans pushing their crap on people.", ">\n\nwho keeps upvoting this right wing propaganda", ">\n\nWhy would the GOP want to give the agency the power to go after their donors.", ">\n\nAnd it was trumps guy that mandated it while Biden replaced him", ">\n\nApparently the mere use of an accounting firm somehow protected corps and the rich from the IRS who still (mistakenly) believe the accounting firms are trustworthy. How naive.", ">\n\nThe \"audits\" talked about are mostly form letters requesting more info about specific items.", ">\n\nThe poor can't pay for top flight attorneys.", ">\n\nYep keep the IRS underfunded so they can only go after the poors at the same time telling all the poors that the IRS is bad cause it goes after them but leave out the fact that they do that cause the poors are low hanging fruit.\nRepublicans are evil.", ">\n\nWell the GOP wants to cut funding to the IRS for new agents, so I’m sure the poor folk will continue to get screwed. I say toss the 50,000+ page tax code out and replace with a percentage based on total revenue/income made. Took a loss? No write-offs. Oh well, better luck next year. It’ll never happen because the wealthy don’t want it to.", ">\n\nWhere did you get this info? I know GOPers have been slashing IRS budgets and staffing for years but can't find reliable sources for what this has done to the actual audits - like who gets audited.", ">\n\nTheir link is Fox. This is a bad faith post.", ">\n\nThis says a lot coming from fox “news”", ">\n\nTo paraphrase Gilbert K. Chesterton, \"The Poor have sometimes objected to being taxed too heavily; The Rich have always objected to being taxed at all.\"", ">\n\ndon't post Fox news here....", ">\n\nCorporations and millionaires have the means to hire accountants and attorneys. Our tax code is gray in several areas. It’s easy to go after the poor that do not have the resources and will have no choice but to pay anything the IRS says. The additional agents will continue to target the poor and middle class because they are easy, It’s happened before, it will continue to happen.", ">\n\nI think it's funny/sad that a poor person can win the lottery and they get taxed at a higher rate than any billionaire has ever been taxed at. The system is built to keep the rich - rich and the poor - poor.", ">\n\nThe poorest can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nThe current system cannot be sustained. We are hurtling towards disaster.", ">\n\nThe only reason the bastards have the majority is because the corrupt SCOTUS allowed illegal gerrymanders to stand while they were fought in the courts.", ">\n\nThe I.R.S. goes after the poorer people because it's easier. They can't afford lawyers and accountants. So the poor can do nothing but roll over and take it up the rump. The Inflation Reduction Act that Biden signed into law in August is supposed to give $80 Billion to the I.R.S. so they can go after the millionaires. But we know that won't happen. More poor people are going to get screwed.", ">\n\nI'm confused. For decades, Faux news and the conservatives have been saying that millionaires deserve to keep more of their money than we do. That was a huge part of the 2017 tax scam that Trump signed. Now Faux is saying it's a problem? And they are rightly detailing that Republicans are the cause, along with Biden trying to fix the same issue that Fox has helped create?", ">\n\nFox News", ">\n\nHey IRS, don't forget to crawl up my ass this year because I sold some old stuff on eBay for a loss but make sure you put a few man hours into figuring out if it is legit or not.", ">\n\nlol, and the people opposed to IRS funding will say they are anti-establishment.", ">\n\nImagine how much they could squeeze the middle class with 87,000 more agents! But really, it’ll be good to see if the increase in officers actually increases tax revenue without changing the underlying laws.", ">\n\nSo, this is the newest Republican boogeyman, the IRS.\nWell, better than Drag Queens I guess.", ">\n\nOh hey just like last year, and the year before that, I think there might be a pattern", ">\n\nThank you republicans, always sticking up in the back on the small guys…", ">\n\nFox News saying this like it’s not something Rupert Murdoch’s network supports is pretty funny.", ">\n\nFox News. Ignore it.", ">\n\nFox News is still allowed in here?", ">\n\nFake news. This is Republican propaganda coming from Fox News.", ">\n\nFox News is NOT news", ">\n\nHmm sounds like it was underfunded then. Good thing now we helped ease that problem. Thanks Biden", ">\n\nIt's simply laziness by the IRS. Lower-income households have less complicated returns and easier to process. I'm sure IRS runs a non-effective but management-pleasing metric like \"how many returns were corrected\" opposed to how much money was recouped.", ">\n\nWe know. They don't have the resources to do anything. That was the point of increasing the staffing at the IRS so they had even the slightest hope of going after the big offenders with their armies or lawyers.", ">\n\nThere's less millionaires and billionaires than there are us. I'm not sure that answer fits the accuracy on hiring more workers but I'll go ahead and amuse that", ">\n\nIt's not a game of tax guy vs rich guy. The rich literally have armies of lawyers. You need the staff to overcome all the paper and challenges they'll throw at you. \nIf you throw one person to audit a millionaire, their lawyers can make it so it'll take a year to review a week of operations. Investigations will never finish unless there's sufficient staff to overcome their obstruction.", ">\n\nTo this day I do not understand why the IRS can demand our documents every year without a warrant. The 16th amendment does not alter the 4th, and the 4th does not apply only to criminal actions (as the 5th explicitly does). Yet no one seems to care about this annual violations.", ">\n\nReminder, Fox News is not news. It's entertainment, and should be regarded as such.", ">\n\nNo shit, poor ppl tend to file their own taxes and screw up where as millionaires hire expensive accountants to exploit all the legal loopholes without getting their clients in trouble.\nI don't think it's an intentional targeting as the article may be implying.", ">\n\nOne might imagine the resources of agents would be better put to use by focusing on returns that might produce more revenue, however it may be just a lot easier to collect a few bucks from easier targets.", ">\n\nThey are short staffed and accountants make it so difficult to find wrongdoing, if there is even wrongdoing to be found, that it would take a decent chunk of their workforce just to tackle it. It's like trying to find needle in a haystack but you don't know if there's a needle or not.", ">\n\nSo true....", ">\n\nShocked pikachu face.", ">\n\nYeah I’d believe this if it weren’t Fox News. They could give a fuck about the poor and middle class.", ">\n\nI would literally rather the IRS spend its time auditing 5 extraordinarily rich people or a single business than anyone who makes less than 100k per year\nETA: I’m aware that this article represents part of the Republican agenda to just gut the IRS and welfare spending generally. And I understand the difficulties in auditing the rich/businesses v lower income people claiming tax credits, etc", ">\n\nAlmost all of the little people \"audits\" are just a computer issuing a correspondence \"audit\" because the person misreported something from their W2, didn't report as much 1099 income as was reported to the IRS by others, or separated parents both trying to claim kids for tax credits or something. \n-\nThey don't really pull from the same resources. The rich people audits require human beings. Little people \"audits\" aren't really audits and a computer can do it. So if we want to audit more rich people, they need actual budget for human beings. The little people are going to be caught anyways because a computer can do it.", ">\n\nI interned at the IRS during the summer of 2012 when Lois Lerner made batshit crazy commrnts that they were targetting conservative groups", ">\n\nI say this every time it gets brought up. This is by design. I used to work in auditing and also used to do tax stuff. It’s super easy to find tax fraud on someone who only has a simple W-2 and no other income. You could find those people through a basic algorithm. Meanwhile, auditing a multi millionaire is expensive, time consuming, and often fruitless. If I was in charge of an underfunded, understaffed IRS I would tell my staff to go for the easy wins too.", ">\n\nUnpopular opinion - More funding won't resolve this. \nThe IRS will keep doing this. Unless rules & regulations forbid or disincentivize this practice, the IRS will keep this stupid practice", ">\n\nI make $40,000 a year and the IRS froze my bank accounts until I paid them $1000 in taxes I owed them because of an error I made filling my taxes. They froze my bank accounts for $1000. I was fucked for a month. I had to borrow cash from people just for food and gas money to get to work to get paid money that I couldn’t access. It was a scary time for me. Meanwhile millionaires are purposely avoiding taxes worth more than what I make in a year and nothing happens to them.", ">\n\nThe IRS sends no less than a dozen letters to a taxpayer prior to leaving a bank account. Why didn't you just put it into a repayment plan? Takes about ten minutes online.", ">\n\nDon't you just hate autocorrect?", ">\n\nIf true, its a holdover from jrbush who slashed IRS staff and budget and told them to spend more time auditing tip jars and busboys than millionaires because the millionaires had better lawyers than the IRS and service workers were unlikely to have any lawyers at all.", ">\n\nFox News solution: remove the IRS", ">\n\nAbsolutely. They’ll NEVER target the rich, adding more agents just made them a lot more capable to target all the lower class.", ">\n\nWhat people don't realize..Those 87K \"Agents\" aren't that. It's 87K employees over 25 years. Clerks etc. People are so fucking stupid when they just believe these clowns.", ">\n\nThose numbers also count it as an \"audit\" when a person misreports a number from a W2, 1099s, etc and the irs number matching software sends an automatically generated correspondence letter that basically says \"we actually show this number, this is what your tax return would have been if you reported that number correctly\". \nThe IRS isn't wasting time doing random \"audits\" as people think of them for low to middle income people. It would be a complete waste of their time. The computer just catches obvious verifiable mistakes and it counts as an audit in those numbers.", ">\n\n“those in the lowest income bracket hit 12.7 per 1,000….. The odds of a millionaire facing an audit were around 1.1%.”\nSo they’re saying 1.27% vs 1.1%!!! And acting like that’s a scandal 🙄", ">\n\nWhich means millionaires REALLY don't want more IRS auditors which means when our new resident house fascist fires five thousand auditors, said fascist (McCarthy) is making sure those millionaires aren't going to get audited. \nCha CHING !!! Go the \"donations\" into house rat republican's pockets. \nThe grift will be in full swing shortly.\nAnd with putin whispering in their ears and telling them EXACTLY how break the law - how can they lose?", ">\n\n💯 Exactly why theres a Fox link here pushing for that same reason.", ">\n\nTwo things. First of all, this is from a far right-wing propaganda outlet which should immediately raise red flags. They're trying to scare you into allowing a republican-initiated movement to entirely remove all remaining power from the IRS by making it seem like they're coming after you.\nSecond, the reason the IRS is already already virtually powerless against the rich is because the republicans have already eviscerated them in the past several decades, largely through defunding them leading to not only staffing cuts, but the inability to pursue the wealthiest people who have the resources for endless litigation. So as a result, the FBI can only really afford to go after people who cannot financially defend themselves.", ">\n\nThird, you might as well throw in that the aiming low guidance was under a Trump appointee who is no longer in that position.", ">\n\nThe GOP intentionally defunded the IRS so that it could not audit the wealthy. It takes a great deal more money upfront to audit them but the payback is far greater.", ">\n\nI'm not sure why dems voted against an amendment that would have mandated the giant infusion of cash into the IRS couldn't be used to audit folks making >$400k.", ">\n\nHrm this is pretty fucked I'd like to hear about why the Dems voted nay.", ">\n\nBecause they work for the same people as Republicans. \nThey are different but only when their owners allow them to be. \nI don't know how many times we are going to have to learn this lesson before it sticks.", ">\n\nDemocrats are responsible for this", ">\n\nThe rich returns are just too hard, enough lower class errors you can leave the rich alone. Love to see it… sigh", ">\n\nIt takes money to police the wealthy. Can't have that can we?!", ">\n\nr/noshitsherlock", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised?\nI’m not even American and this seemed obvious to me. All you have to do is look at how the poor live and compare that to the news about someone like Elon musk or Donald trump.", ">\n\nThis is why the IRS needs to go.", ">\n\nFox News helped make that happen.", ">\n\nThey'll never change,all the time when the guys in charge benefit from doing the same shit.", ">\n\nAnd yet the republicans dont submit or pass legislations to change the rules to favor targeting rich people. Curious.", ">\n\nThen 78,000 new, armed tax collectors should be able to extract even more money from the poor, middle-class and small business owners.", ">\n\nWhy did they focus on the Poorest? The thought of 87,000 more of them will actually do what? If the existing can’t focus on the wealthy! Then what makes anybody think more can?", ">\n\nMillionaires and billionaires make the government more money by creating lobbying loopholes and exploiting the economy to bilk the 99%. It's really cheap to go after the poorest who are struggling to pay day to day obligations and don't have loopholes or government sanctioned exploitation to take advantage of.", ">\n\nI could have told you this would happen. You think millionaires get $600 Venmo transactions?", ">\n\nThat's a move democrats should not make. That's one month of rent for me. What of folks worse-off?", ">\n\nHonestly it’s like squeezing blood from the stone over here anyway.", ">\n\nDuh lmfao theyve already stated it costs too much to tax weathy people previously and its most cost effective to audit the poor due to many factors...", ">\n\nI mean 99% of us are poor compared to the other 1%", ">\n\nColor me surprised", ">\n\nWe need some laws for equitable auditing.", ">\n\nYou are an Army commander about to attack the enemy. Do you prefer to attack where they have experienced career solders backed up by artillery, tanks, and airplanes, or do you attack where there are poorly armed and equipped untrained conscripts?", ">\n\nThey must be upset someone replaced their sign with a card from Cards Against Humanity", ">\n\nMay it ever be so…. Don’t reproduce if you only consume and can’t accumulate or help a Dow Jones winter water witch. Like snow, weathermen.", ">\n\nIt’s weirdly fitting how much their building sign in the photo looks like a cards against humanity card.", ">\n\nTypical", ">\n\nWow? How unusual.", ">\n\nI’d support double the number of IRS agents", ">\n\nI was low income and won about 3,000 gambling, the irs went after me", ">\n\nThe IRS came after me hard for 8$", ">\n\nAudit frequency should correlate to income, someone with a million in income should be audited 10x those with 100k income", ">\n\nSomeone should explain Pareto charts to the IRS.", ">\n\nI've been audited three times. First when I was 27, did some consulting and didn't do the 1099 prepayments. Ended up owing $17k. Second audit was after moving across country for a job. The tax preparer we hired made a mistake with the move expense deductions, owed a few thousand. Third audit was another tax preparer mistake, but this time we overpaid and were owed money we credited to the next year. \nIf you assume for discussion that the average audit on an ordinary tax payer returns $10,000, it would take 100,000,000 audits to make $1 trillion. By just doing the easy work, the IRS is leaving the real money on the table.", ">\n\nRepublicans are famous for giving rich breaks while middle class etc close the gaps", ">\n\nThe last line, \"The Inflation Reduction Act provides the IRS with $80 billion in future funding to ramp up its audits and potentially target the wealthiest taxpayers.\"", ">\n\nThe cure is not the root cause, but the middle class and the poor will eventually bear the burden after the capital operation", ">\n\nIt’s like they timed the “research” and the drop of the article with the speech. Sad man.", ">\n\nWatch Madoff. The wealthy skate and steal billions. The poor are in prison over thousands.", ">\n\nWhy does their sign look like a Card Against Humanity", ">\n\nFucking Trump, still at it.", ">\n\nOh you mean the thing people said would happen once they got massive funding actually happened? Checks out", ">\n\nOf course they did, because millionaires will lawyer up.", ">\n\nBecause the poor can't afford to fight back.", ">\n\nIt's so unfair the poor and the middle class taxpayers suffer so much while the millionaries got away with not paying the taxes It's really hurting the poor. The middle class is fading", ">\n\nAll of this can be fixed if we just use no-exemption graduated income", ">\n\nYeah we know", ">\n\nShow of hands for all surprised.\ncrickets\nHmm. Seems like Reddit suffers from a plague of double amputees...", ">\n\nWhat the actual fuck", ">\n\nAnd 2021, 2020, 2019, …", ">\n\nSounds about right.", ">\n\nOf course. Poor people can’t afford attorneys.", ">\n\nI made a mistake on my forms while I was overseas and ticked “self-employed” instead of “employed”. I was on a student visa and had two children and was making less than 10k a year. They hounded me for years. By the time I figured out what had happened I could not amend the forms and had paid thousands in penalties and interest.\nMeanwhile I knew lots of people who were there fully employed not reporting their income.\nFuck them.", ">\n\nYep! During the pandemic, even while I wasn't working didn't come after me the entire time that I was working but the minute that I wasn't nobody was cuz we were in lockdown they started popping up", ">\n\nI just now realized that the Cards Against Humanity box looks like the IRS sign", ">\n\nWhy is the sign a Cards Against Humanity question?", ">\n\nI am shocked and appalled. clutches pearls", ">\n\nRich should be taxed more than the average not right at all. Or at least there is a tier system based on pay only makes sense. Come on now", ">\n\nSounds about right, make the rich richer again.", ">\n\nWho are we going to vote for in the future ,all of them are decayed , corrupted and useless , the “most rich country in the world , governed by the most ignorant an corrupted. What a contrast .", ">\n\nGod bless America", ">\n\nno way. wait until you see those people responds. Those people are chipping away.", ">\n\nSounds about right", ">\n\nWe know.", ">\n\nI find it rather comical that Fox news is reporting on this since they are all about pushing the Republican agenda and that is all about pushing everyone else down that isn't rich and keeping them there. Not to mention they had no problem with Trump not paying taxes for years.", ">\n\nCan fucking confirm.", ">\n\nYeah, they (millionaires) have accountants who generally do things right and due to their millions being in investments it's not like it's taxable all the time. \nThen there's the ability to sell any stocks when they're down to build up losses on paper can reinvest them at a loss that can carry over across multiple years.", ">\n\nsounds about right. i don’t have a pot to piss in but they’re all over me for someone stealing my identity and filing a double tax return one year.", ">\n\nDuh", ">\n\nThere’s a reason why FOX is posting this article. The less people at the IRS, the more likely they come after folks who can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nIn order to pursue wealthy tax cheats, the IRS needs more resources and personnel. Otherwise it’s business as usual, picking on the low hanging fruit that earns under 6 figures.", ">\n\nSo wrong ....people need to be fired", ">\n\nIt’s because they can’t afford to take them to court", ">\n\nOf course it is about protecting the rich like Trump who lies ,lies , and about his tax returns . No wonder he did not want them released .", ">\n\nEasy prey bc most ppl can not lawyer up. Pretty heart breaking system we have at times.", ">\n\nWhy does the irs sign look like it's from cards against humanity?", ">\n\nCurrently getting audited over \\~$1500, which they owe me, when the rich get away with murder. Fucking unbelievably and unnecessarily stressful for me.", ">\n\nHas t this been know for a while?", ">\n\nyep and they are the same people getting tax cuts while everyone else does it tough ....\nAny one with too much money is your enemy .... not a hero of democracy", ">\n\nGet rid of taxes and the gov’t should just do stuff for free, or what ever.", ">\n\nYou have to be careful when you get one of those CP2000 notices from the IRS. The way they are written is a trap.\nIf you dispute it you are supposed to indicate that you disagree and send it back with documents supporting your dispute.\nYou are only supposed to sign it if you agree with them and when you sign it you are signing away your rights to dispute the back taxes and penalties they are demanding.\nMere worker bees like us can expect to be getting a lot of those from this years tax returns considering how the threshold for 1099k forms has been dropped to $600.\nGuys like Trump? The IRS doesn't even know where to begin.", ">\n\nThanks Biden", ">\n\nI presume those lower-income bracket filers might be more likely to reach out to 1-800-infomercial [quickie settlement/long-term penalties most favorable to gov/proprietor] than retain proper legal counsel?\nRegardless it’s got to be a lot less work for IRS agent to go after under-represented citizen(s), rather than someone who can afford to appeal, properly negotiate on their own terms?", ">\n\nLmfao Dems tax and spend. But I have to admit there Republicans that tax and spend to. Where do these Politicians get off taxing me or business and give to people who don't work what do you cause d the inflation. You can not print money \nI am Conservative not a Republican. To much money is wasted and put in pockets of people ot don't belong.\nBut all dems know how to tax tax tax. \nIts all great and good until you run out if other peoples money. \nMillionaire just like Berny he hated Millionaires until he became one now he hates Trillionaires. Funny how the gold post changes. And good old Nancy her I side stock trading. So I think you need to rethink.", ">\n\nThe IRS is only doing as directed by whomever controls the White House.", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised by this? Really?", ">\n\nThe sign in the thumbnail looks like a Cards Against Humanity card.", ">\n\nWhile this is mostly true, don’t believe everything you read. I’m no more an accountant than I am a ladies man, but someone (said they’re an accountant) posted a few days ago about this. They explained that the most likely people getting audited are trying to, fraudulently or mistakenly, claim the EITC. \nYES, it’s super easy to “bust” these people for an easy “mistake”. This is who the IRS is cracking down on. \nDo I think it’s better to bust poor people for claiming a few thousand in tax credits vs billionaires who avoid taxes altogether? Of course not, but don’t think they’re actively targeting people who fudge their mileage deductions or miss a decimal point in their calculations as small business owners. It’s simply not happening. \nAnd the reported “87,000 new IRS agents” are replacing the 10’s of 1,000’s of employees set to retire or quit over the next 10 years which doesn’t even begin to fill the gaps we’ve been growing for decades by not hiring and training more willing workers. Not to mention they’re not even close to all employees who will actively audit tax payers. They’re people who answer phones, file papers, assist others, etc… They’re mostly just average people with average jobs so of course the GOP wants to end this. They hate upward mobility and job creation unless that means tax breaks for their billionaire friends.", ">\n\nI wish everyone wasn’t a sheep and would understand this.", ">\n\nI can see the Media doing their best to turn the public against the IRS.", ">\n\nPicking on the week and helpless. That’s what we humans do. We suck. I’m waiting for that big meteor reset button.", ">\n\nAnd Fox news loves this.", ">\n\nLove it, Faux 'News' taking the piss, for 4 years under Dear Leader they campaigned for tax breaks for the rich, now they're pretending to care about the poor !", ">\n\nEvery millionaire should be audited yearly. Period.", ">\n\nAND now the gqp cult promises to rescind the money Biden set aside to aid the IRS to recover taxes from mega millionaire tax cheats like benedict donald, who paid less taxes than most working Americans.", ">\n\nRepublicans want to stop the IRS and Congress from taxing rich people, making the burden of maintaining civilization fall more heavily on poorer people. This is why Republicans vote for tax cuts for the rich and against funding for the IRS.\nAnd since Republican beliefs are based on wishful thinking, Republicans can screw over poor, rural Republicans while simultaneously taking credit for doing it to make Republicans happy about it and blaming it on Democrats to make those same Republicans resentful against Democrats for it. And what else would we expect from a Republican Party that blames Democrats for tricking them into attacking the Capitol to make Trump look bad and justifies and approves of assaulting Capitol police while brandishing their \"thin blue line\" flags.", ">\n\nThe IRS is like any other law enforcement agency, they prefer pursuing the poor because they don't have the resources to protect themselves.", ">\n\nThe IRS building sign looks like its from cards against humanity.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nNot a reliable news source.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nThat picture looks like the worst cards against humanity card too get.", ">\n\nScrew the Murdoch media empire and their failed trickle down ideologies.", ">\n\nOf course, the poorest haven’t paid over 400+ billion for decades. Not sure about the rich, we haven’t checked.", ">\n\nThis is not a surprise. With the recent inflation reduction act, the IRS an additional $80B over 10 years or $8B per year. The IRS budget for 2021 was $13.7B. The additional $8B over the year would be an increase of 58% to their budget. They will be looking to get a lot more money from taxpayers, due to this very large increase in their budget.", ">\n\nFox reported this? I'm in shock", ">\n\nAll propagandists publish clickbaity stuff that makes them sound like maybe they've let up on the evil. Unfortunately it works, since people just upvote headlines.", ">\n\nIt’s only going to get worse in 2023. Those 87k new IRS agents will not be going after the wealthy.", ">\n\nWhy?\nThat’s literally why they were being added. The IRS goes after the poorer taxpayers because they are low-hanging fruit and don’t have the lawyers and accountants to protect them. \nThe additional IRS employees were to give the personnel staffing sufficient to go after the wealthy.", ">\n\nIt doesn’t matter how many IRS agents there are. It will always be easier and more profitable for the IRS to nickel and dime the average taxpayer rather than go after the wealthy, who have the resources to lawyer up with the best lawyers and challenge the IRS in court.", ">\n\nEasier? Yes. More profitable? Doubtful.", ">\n\nIf Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nBut in 2022 ( when Biden was president and the House belonged to the Dems) they didn’t did they.", ">\n\nIt takes time to refactor an organization. It’s still full of Trump appointees.", ">\n\n2020 was a long time ago", ">\n\nNot on organizational time scales. It takes several months to safely restructure an organization as big as the federal government, and when it is the federal government it takes years. Congress gets a say in every political appointment, budget change, and organization change. It’s designed to be slow to assure continuity. \nThere is a saying that every president gets credited and blamed for what the prior administration put in motion. There is a lot of truth to that, and this organizational inertia is a big reason why. There are similar long lags in changing laws, re-writing policies, modifying rules, and so on. It’s a “feature” of having checks and balances.", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.", ">\n\nYep!\nAlso this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious.\nThe real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade.", ">\n\nThanks for the informative reply.\nYou make great points which I don't doubt. But there are times when I think it's important to consider both the letter and spirit of law at times.\nEven though it is perfectly by the letter of the law that people should be checked, it also seems against the intended spirit of said law that only a certain group of people are checked.\nI am not familiar with US law, but I think most of us can feel some degree of injustice with how things currently are.", ">\n\nThe point is to automate more checking of income common to wealthier people, and devote more resources to auditing those people. The Fox News article is disingenuous in how it describes the automated checking that goes on. It’s not great that rich people aren’t really audited, but there’s no reason to stop the automated checking of income where it’s already being done and essentially free to continue.\nIf you feel differently, explain yourself." ]
> FUCK FOX NEWS Fox is pretending to care about us poors. Don't reward these fascist fucks with upvotes for a disingenuous clickbait headline. They still hate us for not voting gop.	[ "If Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nAnd when Barry was president they targeted conservative groups. I think phone calls can be made to tell them to back off of the little guy.", ">\n\n\nthey targeted conservative groups.\n\nNo. They went after specifically anti-tax tea party groups. The groups who openly flaunted tax laws", ">\n\nThey also went after progressive, left leaning groups - how do you explain that ? it was political", ">\n\nWait, did they target conservatives or progressives? Lol", ">\n\nBoth- it was quite clear they were involving themselves in politics - that’s what the IG found", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.", ">\n\nYep!\nAlso this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious.\nThe real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade.", ">\n\nThanks for the informative reply.\nYou make great points which I don't doubt. But there are times when I think it's important to consider both the letter and spirit of law at times.\nEven though it is perfectly by the letter of the law that people should be checked, it also seems against the intended spirit of said law that only a certain group of people are checked.\nI am not familiar with US law, but I think most of us can feel some degree of injustice with how things currently are.", ">\n\nThe point is to automate more checking of income common to wealthier people, and devote more resources to auditing those people. The Fox News article is disingenuous in how it describes the automated checking that goes on. It’s not great that rich people aren’t really audited, but there’s no reason to stop the automated checking of income where it’s already being done and essentially free to continue.\nIf you feel differently, explain yourself.", ">\n\nNo, we are in alignment concerning this.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nFUCK FOX NEWS\nFox is pretending to care about us poors. \nDon't reward these fascist fucks with upvotes for a disingenuous clickbait headline. They still hate us for not voting gop.", ">\n\nThey want people to hate the IRS and help defund it so they don’t go after the rich, which was the purpose of the additional funding", ">\n\nThey want people to link this to “87000” new agents, which is obviously happening on social media posts, but it’s not even a thing.", ">\n\nArticle is trash. The author is including correspondence audits (which means the IRS asked for some documentation by mail) for low income filers but not for millionaires when comparing their audit rates. Here are actual numbers according to their own source:\nAudit rates including correspondence audits\nlow income 1.27%\nmillionaires 2.38% \nAudit rates excluding correspondence audits\nlow income 0.0376%\nmillionaires 1.24%\n.\nFor low income filers, nearly all their audits were correspondence audits.", ">\n\nIt's hilarious when Fox News and the GOP pretend they care about poor people.\nNo amount of hypocrisy is too much to try to make democrats look bad.", ">\n\nIts unfortunately far easier to prove married couples who live together filed HoH for extra earned income credit than it is to prove complicated returns were incorrect.", ">\n\nIt's also trivially easy to prove the same child was claimed by two parents which is a lot of correspondence audits.", ">\n\nSo can my back taxes please just get forgiven already. 20% income being taxed is not livable", ">\n\nRepublican love flat rate taxes, you should talk to them.", ">\n\nThey’re required to audit the president and vice president, and that didn’t happen either.", ">\n\nThis isn't new, it's been been having for the last 5 - 6 years.", ">\n\nHopefully some wake up and realize its all just preparing us for the inevitable destruction of our economy. I imagine its almost too late to realize this. If we all realized this wed sell our 401Ks and not lean on money and use it to help our neighbors.", ">\n\nK bro.", ">\n\nMy wife and I are on social security. She works part time to keep us afloat. All in, we earned $50K in 2022. iRS wants $4500 from us. Really? 5X what Trump paid? Don't know if anyone is paying attention but $50k ain't rich. Oh, and out of that comes almost $4k in Medicare premiums. A program we paid into for 40+ years.\nEveryone of these arrogant, unqualified,, spoon fed assholes in Congress should be made to live on SSI or welfare, with no medical coverage, for a year. Then tell me I am acting entitled.\nSelf serving bastards.", ">\n\nDon't upvote this crap.\nDo you really think Fox cares about the working class??\nThis is just right wing propaganda, timed to coincide with McCarthy's promise to get rid of the new IRS agents who make it possible to audit the rich.\nDon't be used.", ">\n\nWhatever happened to \"dont shoot the messenger?\"", ">\n\nIRS understaffing would naturally trend to go after low-lying fruit. Easy pickings. Too many man hours to go after super complex cases. These moneyed fuckers and their bullshit. It's outrageous.", ">\n\nThe vast majority of these audits are automatically generated correspondence audits that have to be issued. We can't just turn off the program that raises a red flag when two people claim the same child as a dependent because we don't have enough forensic accountants. If you mistype your W2 you'll get an \"audit\" showing the correct info from the copy your boss sent them and telling you they'll correct it unless you tell them otherwise and you don't have to do anything if the info they have is correct.", ">\n\nYeah, all the nonsense about the IRS \"going after\" low income people is so stupid. Low income people make money in a way that their reporting is easily verifiable by a computer. They're also most likely to mess up and claim child tax credits incorrectly, etc - all of which is verifiable and issued a letter by a computer. \n-\nOther than actually being able to get someone on the phone when you call the IRS, and increased budget isn't going to impact the average person in any way.", ">\n\nMy thing is even assuming the 87k don't successfully get more money out of the rich, that's still 87k jobs. That's a net positive. I just don't understand the conservative logic here. Do they think these 87k new jobs are specifically for being insidiously predatory toward the poor? Where's the logic here? (I know I'll get hyperbolic answers, but I genuinely would like to know)", ">\n\nIt's 87,000 jobs over 10 years, the majority of which are replacement during that period. It's just a budget supplemental to stop hemorrhaging agents as they retire or cycle out into other jobs.", ">\n\nso.. this is on fox, which I assume support republican efforts to ensure that this is the permanent state of affairs. I don't really get anything anymore.", ">\n\nAnd that is the way the GOP wants it.", ">\n\n💯 Exactly what this Fox article is trying to do.", ">\n\nIt's who can afford a lawyer", ">\n\nAs the article hints at, the IRS does not do a lot of actual auditing. What it does is computer matching, which automatically generates material for a correspondence audit. Most correspondence audits occur because som poor working Joe didn't know he/her was supposed to include or exclude something, and the IRS caught it in its matching. Of course, the problem is that we have a complex code and little help in actually helping people through the various forms, rules, and so on. But millionaires don't have these issues, so they can escape most of the traps that lead to a correspondence audit. If a lot of these 87,000 were in taxpayer service (which I expect) it would lead to fewer audits at the low end, more robust audits for large corporations, wealthy individuals, and those who actively use tax avoidance strategies. But of course that is not the dialogue that gets promoted when the 87,000 agents are discussed.", ">\n\nThis is exactly why Fox News needs to be dismantled and thrown in the garbage. Ugh, \"look poors! They're coming for yoU!!!\". Scare tactics. And guess what? It sadly works. Every time.\nThey're lower than scum.", ">\n\nExactly. It's when someone misreports a number from their W2, didn't report 1099s they received, both separated parents claim a tax credit for the same kid, etc. All stuff that's easily checked by a computer. The IRS isn't \"auditing\" random low to middle income people. That would be a complete waste of their time.", ">\n\nlooks at Trump You don't say.", ">\n\nThe poor can't defend themselves, it's easier to take a little bit of money from people that won't fight back than a lot of money from people that will.", ">\n\nThe mega rich seem like they’re on a mission to destroy America, as we know it.", ">\n\nHiring 87,000 new IRS agents makes it possible to audit billionaires. So they pay their share. Those audits require an actual person or team that knows what they are doing. But Kevin McCarthy's first item of business was to announce legislation to overturn the hiring of 87,000 IRS agents. Meaning only the little guy (who can be audited by computer software) pays taxes.\nSSDD", ">\n\nThe \"87,000\" agents budget is over a ten year period. It's not for 87,000 new positions.", ">\n\nThe title is so misleading. Im surprised fox even put the juicy bit in the article about how (this stat is due to there not being enough IRS workers because) these \"audits\" on low earners are just automated letters asking for more info.\nYet again, this is just millionairs paid by billionairs to mislead the masses into blaming the poor for crimes committed by said billionairs.", ">\n\nWhich is why the IRS needs more manpower and budget, so they can go after the big fish.\nFuck Fox News and their Republican propaganda pieces. This article coincides with McCarthy saying they’ll cut the IRS budget and that the IRS is coming for you.\nFuck off Republican propaganda rag!\nStop upvoting any Fox News story. Fox should not be on the white list.", ">\n\nThis is a terrible article. It seems to include questions about tax returns as audits. If a low income filer makes a mistake it should be corrected. Is that an audit? If anyone makes a mistake and is contacted, is that an audit? Also there is no reason to go after low income as they rarely pay tax or are required to. The money requested would also pay for people to answer a phone. Those against increasing funding lie when they say all of it goes to audits. If you tell the truth, who cares if you are audited? Are y’all aware you can track your personal return online? However a business cannot. Businesses have to rely on humans that can’t be reached. I’ve waited a year for a refund. Didn’t know if IRS received the return. Didn’t know if there was an issue. Didn’t know if it was mailed or lost. I’m getting tired of Republicans pushing their crap on people.", ">\n\nwho keeps upvoting this right wing propaganda", ">\n\nWhy would the GOP want to give the agency the power to go after their donors.", ">\n\nAnd it was trumps guy that mandated it while Biden replaced him", ">\n\nApparently the mere use of an accounting firm somehow protected corps and the rich from the IRS who still (mistakenly) believe the accounting firms are trustworthy. How naive.", ">\n\nThe \"audits\" talked about are mostly form letters requesting more info about specific items.", ">\n\nThe poor can't pay for top flight attorneys.", ">\n\nYep keep the IRS underfunded so they can only go after the poors at the same time telling all the poors that the IRS is bad cause it goes after them but leave out the fact that they do that cause the poors are low hanging fruit.\nRepublicans are evil.", ">\n\nWell the GOP wants to cut funding to the IRS for new agents, so I’m sure the poor folk will continue to get screwed. I say toss the 50,000+ page tax code out and replace with a percentage based on total revenue/income made. Took a loss? No write-offs. Oh well, better luck next year. It’ll never happen because the wealthy don’t want it to.", ">\n\nWhere did you get this info? I know GOPers have been slashing IRS budgets and staffing for years but can't find reliable sources for what this has done to the actual audits - like who gets audited.", ">\n\nTheir link is Fox. This is a bad faith post.", ">\n\nThis says a lot coming from fox “news”", ">\n\nTo paraphrase Gilbert K. Chesterton, \"The Poor have sometimes objected to being taxed too heavily; The Rich have always objected to being taxed at all.\"", ">\n\ndon't post Fox news here....", ">\n\nCorporations and millionaires have the means to hire accountants and attorneys. Our tax code is gray in several areas. It’s easy to go after the poor that do not have the resources and will have no choice but to pay anything the IRS says. The additional agents will continue to target the poor and middle class because they are easy, It’s happened before, it will continue to happen.", ">\n\nI think it's funny/sad that a poor person can win the lottery and they get taxed at a higher rate than any billionaire has ever been taxed at. The system is built to keep the rich - rich and the poor - poor.", ">\n\nThe poorest can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nThe current system cannot be sustained. We are hurtling towards disaster.", ">\n\nThe only reason the bastards have the majority is because the corrupt SCOTUS allowed illegal gerrymanders to stand while they were fought in the courts.", ">\n\nThe I.R.S. goes after the poorer people because it's easier. They can't afford lawyers and accountants. So the poor can do nothing but roll over and take it up the rump. The Inflation Reduction Act that Biden signed into law in August is supposed to give $80 Billion to the I.R.S. so they can go after the millionaires. But we know that won't happen. More poor people are going to get screwed.", ">\n\nI'm confused. For decades, Faux news and the conservatives have been saying that millionaires deserve to keep more of their money than we do. That was a huge part of the 2017 tax scam that Trump signed. Now Faux is saying it's a problem? And they are rightly detailing that Republicans are the cause, along with Biden trying to fix the same issue that Fox has helped create?", ">\n\nFox News", ">\n\nHey IRS, don't forget to crawl up my ass this year because I sold some old stuff on eBay for a loss but make sure you put a few man hours into figuring out if it is legit or not.", ">\n\nlol, and the people opposed to IRS funding will say they are anti-establishment.", ">\n\nImagine how much they could squeeze the middle class with 87,000 more agents! But really, it’ll be good to see if the increase in officers actually increases tax revenue without changing the underlying laws.", ">\n\nSo, this is the newest Republican boogeyman, the IRS.\nWell, better than Drag Queens I guess.", ">\n\nOh hey just like last year, and the year before that, I think there might be a pattern", ">\n\nThank you republicans, always sticking up in the back on the small guys…", ">\n\nFox News saying this like it’s not something Rupert Murdoch’s network supports is pretty funny.", ">\n\nFox News. Ignore it.", ">\n\nFox News is still allowed in here?", ">\n\nFake news. This is Republican propaganda coming from Fox News.", ">\n\nFox News is NOT news", ">\n\nHmm sounds like it was underfunded then. Good thing now we helped ease that problem. Thanks Biden", ">\n\nIt's simply laziness by the IRS. Lower-income households have less complicated returns and easier to process. I'm sure IRS runs a non-effective but management-pleasing metric like \"how many returns were corrected\" opposed to how much money was recouped.", ">\n\nWe know. They don't have the resources to do anything. That was the point of increasing the staffing at the IRS so they had even the slightest hope of going after the big offenders with their armies or lawyers.", ">\n\nThere's less millionaires and billionaires than there are us. I'm not sure that answer fits the accuracy on hiring more workers but I'll go ahead and amuse that", ">\n\nIt's not a game of tax guy vs rich guy. The rich literally have armies of lawyers. You need the staff to overcome all the paper and challenges they'll throw at you. \nIf you throw one person to audit a millionaire, their lawyers can make it so it'll take a year to review a week of operations. Investigations will never finish unless there's sufficient staff to overcome their obstruction.", ">\n\nTo this day I do not understand why the IRS can demand our documents every year without a warrant. The 16th amendment does not alter the 4th, and the 4th does not apply only to criminal actions (as the 5th explicitly does). Yet no one seems to care about this annual violations.", ">\n\nReminder, Fox News is not news. It's entertainment, and should be regarded as such.", ">\n\nNo shit, poor ppl tend to file their own taxes and screw up where as millionaires hire expensive accountants to exploit all the legal loopholes without getting their clients in trouble.\nI don't think it's an intentional targeting as the article may be implying.", ">\n\nOne might imagine the resources of agents would be better put to use by focusing on returns that might produce more revenue, however it may be just a lot easier to collect a few bucks from easier targets.", ">\n\nThey are short staffed and accountants make it so difficult to find wrongdoing, if there is even wrongdoing to be found, that it would take a decent chunk of their workforce just to tackle it. It's like trying to find needle in a haystack but you don't know if there's a needle or not.", ">\n\nSo true....", ">\n\nShocked pikachu face.", ">\n\nYeah I’d believe this if it weren’t Fox News. They could give a fuck about the poor and middle class.", ">\n\nI would literally rather the IRS spend its time auditing 5 extraordinarily rich people or a single business than anyone who makes less than 100k per year\nETA: I’m aware that this article represents part of the Republican agenda to just gut the IRS and welfare spending generally. And I understand the difficulties in auditing the rich/businesses v lower income people claiming tax credits, etc", ">\n\nAlmost all of the little people \"audits\" are just a computer issuing a correspondence \"audit\" because the person misreported something from their W2, didn't report as much 1099 income as was reported to the IRS by others, or separated parents both trying to claim kids for tax credits or something. \n-\nThey don't really pull from the same resources. The rich people audits require human beings. Little people \"audits\" aren't really audits and a computer can do it. So if we want to audit more rich people, they need actual budget for human beings. The little people are going to be caught anyways because a computer can do it.", ">\n\nI interned at the IRS during the summer of 2012 when Lois Lerner made batshit crazy commrnts that they were targetting conservative groups", ">\n\nI say this every time it gets brought up. This is by design. I used to work in auditing and also used to do tax stuff. It’s super easy to find tax fraud on someone who only has a simple W-2 and no other income. You could find those people through a basic algorithm. Meanwhile, auditing a multi millionaire is expensive, time consuming, and often fruitless. If I was in charge of an underfunded, understaffed IRS I would tell my staff to go for the easy wins too.", ">\n\nUnpopular opinion - More funding won't resolve this. \nThe IRS will keep doing this. Unless rules & regulations forbid or disincentivize this practice, the IRS will keep this stupid practice", ">\n\nI make $40,000 a year and the IRS froze my bank accounts until I paid them $1000 in taxes I owed them because of an error I made filling my taxes. They froze my bank accounts for $1000. I was fucked for a month. I had to borrow cash from people just for food and gas money to get to work to get paid money that I couldn’t access. It was a scary time for me. Meanwhile millionaires are purposely avoiding taxes worth more than what I make in a year and nothing happens to them.", ">\n\nThe IRS sends no less than a dozen letters to a taxpayer prior to leaving a bank account. Why didn't you just put it into a repayment plan? Takes about ten minutes online.", ">\n\nDon't you just hate autocorrect?", ">\n\nIf true, its a holdover from jrbush who slashed IRS staff and budget and told them to spend more time auditing tip jars and busboys than millionaires because the millionaires had better lawyers than the IRS and service workers were unlikely to have any lawyers at all.", ">\n\nFox News solution: remove the IRS", ">\n\nAbsolutely. They’ll NEVER target the rich, adding more agents just made them a lot more capable to target all the lower class.", ">\n\nWhat people don't realize..Those 87K \"Agents\" aren't that. It's 87K employees over 25 years. Clerks etc. People are so fucking stupid when they just believe these clowns.", ">\n\nThose numbers also count it as an \"audit\" when a person misreports a number from a W2, 1099s, etc and the irs number matching software sends an automatically generated correspondence letter that basically says \"we actually show this number, this is what your tax return would have been if you reported that number correctly\". \nThe IRS isn't wasting time doing random \"audits\" as people think of them for low to middle income people. It would be a complete waste of their time. The computer just catches obvious verifiable mistakes and it counts as an audit in those numbers.", ">\n\n“those in the lowest income bracket hit 12.7 per 1,000….. The odds of a millionaire facing an audit were around 1.1%.”\nSo they’re saying 1.27% vs 1.1%!!! And acting like that’s a scandal 🙄", ">\n\nWhich means millionaires REALLY don't want more IRS auditors which means when our new resident house fascist fires five thousand auditors, said fascist (McCarthy) is making sure those millionaires aren't going to get audited. \nCha CHING !!! Go the \"donations\" into house rat republican's pockets. \nThe grift will be in full swing shortly.\nAnd with putin whispering in their ears and telling them EXACTLY how break the law - how can they lose?", ">\n\n💯 Exactly why theres a Fox link here pushing for that same reason.", ">\n\nTwo things. First of all, this is from a far right-wing propaganda outlet which should immediately raise red flags. They're trying to scare you into allowing a republican-initiated movement to entirely remove all remaining power from the IRS by making it seem like they're coming after you.\nSecond, the reason the IRS is already already virtually powerless against the rich is because the republicans have already eviscerated them in the past several decades, largely through defunding them leading to not only staffing cuts, but the inability to pursue the wealthiest people who have the resources for endless litigation. So as a result, the FBI can only really afford to go after people who cannot financially defend themselves.", ">\n\nThird, you might as well throw in that the aiming low guidance was under a Trump appointee who is no longer in that position.", ">\n\nThe GOP intentionally defunded the IRS so that it could not audit the wealthy. It takes a great deal more money upfront to audit them but the payback is far greater.", ">\n\nI'm not sure why dems voted against an amendment that would have mandated the giant infusion of cash into the IRS couldn't be used to audit folks making >$400k.", ">\n\nHrm this is pretty fucked I'd like to hear about why the Dems voted nay.", ">\n\nBecause they work for the same people as Republicans. \nThey are different but only when their owners allow them to be. \nI don't know how many times we are going to have to learn this lesson before it sticks.", ">\n\nDemocrats are responsible for this", ">\n\nThe rich returns are just too hard, enough lower class errors you can leave the rich alone. Love to see it… sigh", ">\n\nIt takes money to police the wealthy. Can't have that can we?!", ">\n\nr/noshitsherlock", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised?\nI’m not even American and this seemed obvious to me. All you have to do is look at how the poor live and compare that to the news about someone like Elon musk or Donald trump.", ">\n\nThis is why the IRS needs to go.", ">\n\nFox News helped make that happen.", ">\n\nThey'll never change,all the time when the guys in charge benefit from doing the same shit.", ">\n\nAnd yet the republicans dont submit or pass legislations to change the rules to favor targeting rich people. Curious.", ">\n\nThen 78,000 new, armed tax collectors should be able to extract even more money from the poor, middle-class and small business owners.", ">\n\nWhy did they focus on the Poorest? The thought of 87,000 more of them will actually do what? If the existing can’t focus on the wealthy! Then what makes anybody think more can?", ">\n\nMillionaires and billionaires make the government more money by creating lobbying loopholes and exploiting the economy to bilk the 99%. It's really cheap to go after the poorest who are struggling to pay day to day obligations and don't have loopholes or government sanctioned exploitation to take advantage of.", ">\n\nI could have told you this would happen. You think millionaires get $600 Venmo transactions?", ">\n\nThat's a move democrats should not make. That's one month of rent for me. What of folks worse-off?", ">\n\nHonestly it’s like squeezing blood from the stone over here anyway.", ">\n\nDuh lmfao theyve already stated it costs too much to tax weathy people previously and its most cost effective to audit the poor due to many factors...", ">\n\nI mean 99% of us are poor compared to the other 1%", ">\n\nColor me surprised", ">\n\nWe need some laws for equitable auditing.", ">\n\nYou are an Army commander about to attack the enemy. Do you prefer to attack where they have experienced career solders backed up by artillery, tanks, and airplanes, or do you attack where there are poorly armed and equipped untrained conscripts?", ">\n\nThey must be upset someone replaced their sign with a card from Cards Against Humanity", ">\n\nMay it ever be so…. Don’t reproduce if you only consume and can’t accumulate or help a Dow Jones winter water witch. Like snow, weathermen.", ">\n\nIt’s weirdly fitting how much their building sign in the photo looks like a cards against humanity card.", ">\n\nTypical", ">\n\nWow? How unusual.", ">\n\nI’d support double the number of IRS agents", ">\n\nI was low income and won about 3,000 gambling, the irs went after me", ">\n\nThe IRS came after me hard for 8$", ">\n\nAudit frequency should correlate to income, someone with a million in income should be audited 10x those with 100k income", ">\n\nSomeone should explain Pareto charts to the IRS.", ">\n\nI've been audited three times. First when I was 27, did some consulting and didn't do the 1099 prepayments. Ended up owing $17k. Second audit was after moving across country for a job. The tax preparer we hired made a mistake with the move expense deductions, owed a few thousand. Third audit was another tax preparer mistake, but this time we overpaid and were owed money we credited to the next year. \nIf you assume for discussion that the average audit on an ordinary tax payer returns $10,000, it would take 100,000,000 audits to make $1 trillion. By just doing the easy work, the IRS is leaving the real money on the table.", ">\n\nRepublicans are famous for giving rich breaks while middle class etc close the gaps", ">\n\nThe last line, \"The Inflation Reduction Act provides the IRS with $80 billion in future funding to ramp up its audits and potentially target the wealthiest taxpayers.\"", ">\n\nThe cure is not the root cause, but the middle class and the poor will eventually bear the burden after the capital operation", ">\n\nIt’s like they timed the “research” and the drop of the article with the speech. Sad man.", ">\n\nWatch Madoff. The wealthy skate and steal billions. The poor are in prison over thousands.", ">\n\nWhy does their sign look like a Card Against Humanity", ">\n\nFucking Trump, still at it.", ">\n\nOh you mean the thing people said would happen once they got massive funding actually happened? Checks out", ">\n\nOf course they did, because millionaires will lawyer up.", ">\n\nBecause the poor can't afford to fight back.", ">\n\nIt's so unfair the poor and the middle class taxpayers suffer so much while the millionaries got away with not paying the taxes It's really hurting the poor. The middle class is fading", ">\n\nAll of this can be fixed if we just use no-exemption graduated income", ">\n\nYeah we know", ">\n\nShow of hands for all surprised.\ncrickets\nHmm. Seems like Reddit suffers from a plague of double amputees...", ">\n\nWhat the actual fuck", ">\n\nAnd 2021, 2020, 2019, …", ">\n\nSounds about right.", ">\n\nOf course. Poor people can’t afford attorneys.", ">\n\nI made a mistake on my forms while I was overseas and ticked “self-employed” instead of “employed”. I was on a student visa and had two children and was making less than 10k a year. They hounded me for years. By the time I figured out what had happened I could not amend the forms and had paid thousands in penalties and interest.\nMeanwhile I knew lots of people who were there fully employed not reporting their income.\nFuck them.", ">\n\nYep! During the pandemic, even while I wasn't working didn't come after me the entire time that I was working but the minute that I wasn't nobody was cuz we were in lockdown they started popping up", ">\n\nI just now realized that the Cards Against Humanity box looks like the IRS sign", ">\n\nWhy is the sign a Cards Against Humanity question?", ">\n\nI am shocked and appalled. clutches pearls", ">\n\nRich should be taxed more than the average not right at all. Or at least there is a tier system based on pay only makes sense. Come on now", ">\n\nSounds about right, make the rich richer again.", ">\n\nWho are we going to vote for in the future ,all of them are decayed , corrupted and useless , the “most rich country in the world , governed by the most ignorant an corrupted. What a contrast .", ">\n\nGod bless America", ">\n\nno way. wait until you see those people responds. Those people are chipping away.", ">\n\nSounds about right", ">\n\nWe know.", ">\n\nI find it rather comical that Fox news is reporting on this since they are all about pushing the Republican agenda and that is all about pushing everyone else down that isn't rich and keeping them there. Not to mention they had no problem with Trump not paying taxes for years.", ">\n\nCan fucking confirm.", ">\n\nYeah, they (millionaires) have accountants who generally do things right and due to their millions being in investments it's not like it's taxable all the time. \nThen there's the ability to sell any stocks when they're down to build up losses on paper can reinvest them at a loss that can carry over across multiple years.", ">\n\nsounds about right. i don’t have a pot to piss in but they’re all over me for someone stealing my identity and filing a double tax return one year.", ">\n\nDuh", ">\n\nThere’s a reason why FOX is posting this article. The less people at the IRS, the more likely they come after folks who can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nIn order to pursue wealthy tax cheats, the IRS needs more resources and personnel. Otherwise it’s business as usual, picking on the low hanging fruit that earns under 6 figures.", ">\n\nSo wrong ....people need to be fired", ">\n\nIt’s because they can’t afford to take them to court", ">\n\nOf course it is about protecting the rich like Trump who lies ,lies , and about his tax returns . No wonder he did not want them released .", ">\n\nEasy prey bc most ppl can not lawyer up. Pretty heart breaking system we have at times.", ">\n\nWhy does the irs sign look like it's from cards against humanity?", ">\n\nCurrently getting audited over \\~$1500, which they owe me, when the rich get away with murder. Fucking unbelievably and unnecessarily stressful for me.", ">\n\nHas t this been know for a while?", ">\n\nyep and they are the same people getting tax cuts while everyone else does it tough ....\nAny one with too much money is your enemy .... not a hero of democracy", ">\n\nGet rid of taxes and the gov’t should just do stuff for free, or what ever.", ">\n\nYou have to be careful when you get one of those CP2000 notices from the IRS. The way they are written is a trap.\nIf you dispute it you are supposed to indicate that you disagree and send it back with documents supporting your dispute.\nYou are only supposed to sign it if you agree with them and when you sign it you are signing away your rights to dispute the back taxes and penalties they are demanding.\nMere worker bees like us can expect to be getting a lot of those from this years tax returns considering how the threshold for 1099k forms has been dropped to $600.\nGuys like Trump? The IRS doesn't even know where to begin.", ">\n\nThanks Biden", ">\n\nI presume those lower-income bracket filers might be more likely to reach out to 1-800-infomercial [quickie settlement/long-term penalties most favorable to gov/proprietor] than retain proper legal counsel?\nRegardless it’s got to be a lot less work for IRS agent to go after under-represented citizen(s), rather than someone who can afford to appeal, properly negotiate on their own terms?", ">\n\nLmfao Dems tax and spend. But I have to admit there Republicans that tax and spend to. Where do these Politicians get off taxing me or business and give to people who don't work what do you cause d the inflation. You can not print money \nI am Conservative not a Republican. To much money is wasted and put in pockets of people ot don't belong.\nBut all dems know how to tax tax tax. \nIts all great and good until you run out if other peoples money. \nMillionaire just like Berny he hated Millionaires until he became one now he hates Trillionaires. Funny how the gold post changes. And good old Nancy her I side stock trading. So I think you need to rethink.", ">\n\nThe IRS is only doing as directed by whomever controls the White House.", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised by this? Really?", ">\n\nThe sign in the thumbnail looks like a Cards Against Humanity card.", ">\n\nWhile this is mostly true, don’t believe everything you read. I’m no more an accountant than I am a ladies man, but someone (said they’re an accountant) posted a few days ago about this. They explained that the most likely people getting audited are trying to, fraudulently or mistakenly, claim the EITC. \nYES, it’s super easy to “bust” these people for an easy “mistake”. This is who the IRS is cracking down on. \nDo I think it’s better to bust poor people for claiming a few thousand in tax credits vs billionaires who avoid taxes altogether? Of course not, but don’t think they’re actively targeting people who fudge their mileage deductions or miss a decimal point in their calculations as small business owners. It’s simply not happening. \nAnd the reported “87,000 new IRS agents” are replacing the 10’s of 1,000’s of employees set to retire or quit over the next 10 years which doesn’t even begin to fill the gaps we’ve been growing for decades by not hiring and training more willing workers. Not to mention they’re not even close to all employees who will actively audit tax payers. They’re people who answer phones, file papers, assist others, etc… They’re mostly just average people with average jobs so of course the GOP wants to end this. They hate upward mobility and job creation unless that means tax breaks for their billionaire friends.", ">\n\nI wish everyone wasn’t a sheep and would understand this.", ">\n\nI can see the Media doing their best to turn the public against the IRS.", ">\n\nPicking on the week and helpless. That’s what we humans do. We suck. I’m waiting for that big meteor reset button.", ">\n\nAnd Fox news loves this.", ">\n\nLove it, Faux 'News' taking the piss, for 4 years under Dear Leader they campaigned for tax breaks for the rich, now they're pretending to care about the poor !", ">\n\nEvery millionaire should be audited yearly. Period.", ">\n\nAND now the gqp cult promises to rescind the money Biden set aside to aid the IRS to recover taxes from mega millionaire tax cheats like benedict donald, who paid less taxes than most working Americans.", ">\n\nRepublicans want to stop the IRS and Congress from taxing rich people, making the burden of maintaining civilization fall more heavily on poorer people. This is why Republicans vote for tax cuts for the rich and against funding for the IRS.\nAnd since Republican beliefs are based on wishful thinking, Republicans can screw over poor, rural Republicans while simultaneously taking credit for doing it to make Republicans happy about it and blaming it on Democrats to make those same Republicans resentful against Democrats for it. And what else would we expect from a Republican Party that blames Democrats for tricking them into attacking the Capitol to make Trump look bad and justifies and approves of assaulting Capitol police while brandishing their \"thin blue line\" flags.", ">\n\nThe IRS is like any other law enforcement agency, they prefer pursuing the poor because they don't have the resources to protect themselves.", ">\n\nThe IRS building sign looks like its from cards against humanity.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nNot a reliable news source.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nThat picture looks like the worst cards against humanity card too get.", ">\n\nScrew the Murdoch media empire and their failed trickle down ideologies.", ">\n\nOf course, the poorest haven’t paid over 400+ billion for decades. Not sure about the rich, we haven’t checked.", ">\n\nThis is not a surprise. With the recent inflation reduction act, the IRS an additional $80B over 10 years or $8B per year. The IRS budget for 2021 was $13.7B. The additional $8B over the year would be an increase of 58% to their budget. They will be looking to get a lot more money from taxpayers, due to this very large increase in their budget.", ">\n\nFox reported this? I'm in shock", ">\n\nAll propagandists publish clickbaity stuff that makes them sound like maybe they've let up on the evil. Unfortunately it works, since people just upvote headlines.", ">\n\nIt’s only going to get worse in 2023. Those 87k new IRS agents will not be going after the wealthy.", ">\n\nWhy?\nThat’s literally why they were being added. The IRS goes after the poorer taxpayers because they are low-hanging fruit and don’t have the lawyers and accountants to protect them. \nThe additional IRS employees were to give the personnel staffing sufficient to go after the wealthy.", ">\n\nIt doesn’t matter how many IRS agents there are. It will always be easier and more profitable for the IRS to nickel and dime the average taxpayer rather than go after the wealthy, who have the resources to lawyer up with the best lawyers and challenge the IRS in court.", ">\n\nEasier? Yes. More profitable? Doubtful.", ">\n\nIf Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nBut in 2022 ( when Biden was president and the House belonged to the Dems) they didn’t did they.", ">\n\nIt takes time to refactor an organization. It’s still full of Trump appointees.", ">\n\n2020 was a long time ago", ">\n\nNot on organizational time scales. It takes several months to safely restructure an organization as big as the federal government, and when it is the federal government it takes years. Congress gets a say in every political appointment, budget change, and organization change. It’s designed to be slow to assure continuity. \nThere is a saying that every president gets credited and blamed for what the prior administration put in motion. There is a lot of truth to that, and this organizational inertia is a big reason why. There are similar long lags in changing laws, re-writing policies, modifying rules, and so on. It’s a “feature” of having checks and balances.", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.", ">\n\nYep!\nAlso this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious.\nThe real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade.", ">\n\nThanks for the informative reply.\nYou make great points which I don't doubt. But there are times when I think it's important to consider both the letter and spirit of law at times.\nEven though it is perfectly by the letter of the law that people should be checked, it also seems against the intended spirit of said law that only a certain group of people are checked.\nI am not familiar with US law, but I think most of us can feel some degree of injustice with how things currently are.", ">\n\nThe point is to automate more checking of income common to wealthier people, and devote more resources to auditing those people. The Fox News article is disingenuous in how it describes the automated checking that goes on. It’s not great that rich people aren’t really audited, but there’s no reason to stop the automated checking of income where it’s already being done and essentially free to continue.\nIf you feel differently, explain yourself.", ">\n\nNo, we are in alignment concerning this." ]
> They want people to hate the IRS and help defund it so they don’t go after the rich, which was the purpose of the additional funding	[ "If Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nAnd when Barry was president they targeted conservative groups. I think phone calls can be made to tell them to back off of the little guy.", ">\n\n\nthey targeted conservative groups.\n\nNo. They went after specifically anti-tax tea party groups. The groups who openly flaunted tax laws", ">\n\nThey also went after progressive, left leaning groups - how do you explain that ? it was political", ">\n\nWait, did they target conservatives or progressives? Lol", ">\n\nBoth- it was quite clear they were involving themselves in politics - that’s what the IG found", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.", ">\n\nYep!\nAlso this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious.\nThe real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade.", ">\n\nThanks for the informative reply.\nYou make great points which I don't doubt. But there are times when I think it's important to consider both the letter and spirit of law at times.\nEven though it is perfectly by the letter of the law that people should be checked, it also seems against the intended spirit of said law that only a certain group of people are checked.\nI am not familiar with US law, but I think most of us can feel some degree of injustice with how things currently are.", ">\n\nThe point is to automate more checking of income common to wealthier people, and devote more resources to auditing those people. The Fox News article is disingenuous in how it describes the automated checking that goes on. It’s not great that rich people aren’t really audited, but there’s no reason to stop the automated checking of income where it’s already being done and essentially free to continue.\nIf you feel differently, explain yourself.", ">\n\nNo, we are in alignment concerning this.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nFUCK FOX NEWS\nFox is pretending to care about us poors. \nDon't reward these fascist fucks with upvotes for a disingenuous clickbait headline. They still hate us for not voting gop.", ">\n\nThey want people to hate the IRS and help defund it so they don’t go after the rich, which was the purpose of the additional funding", ">\n\nThey want people to link this to “87000” new agents, which is obviously happening on social media posts, but it’s not even a thing.", ">\n\nArticle is trash. The author is including correspondence audits (which means the IRS asked for some documentation by mail) for low income filers but not for millionaires when comparing their audit rates. Here are actual numbers according to their own source:\nAudit rates including correspondence audits\nlow income 1.27%\nmillionaires 2.38% \nAudit rates excluding correspondence audits\nlow income 0.0376%\nmillionaires 1.24%\n.\nFor low income filers, nearly all their audits were correspondence audits.", ">\n\nIt's hilarious when Fox News and the GOP pretend they care about poor people.\nNo amount of hypocrisy is too much to try to make democrats look bad.", ">\n\nIts unfortunately far easier to prove married couples who live together filed HoH for extra earned income credit than it is to prove complicated returns were incorrect.", ">\n\nIt's also trivially easy to prove the same child was claimed by two parents which is a lot of correspondence audits.", ">\n\nSo can my back taxes please just get forgiven already. 20% income being taxed is not livable", ">\n\nRepublican love flat rate taxes, you should talk to them.", ">\n\nThey’re required to audit the president and vice president, and that didn’t happen either.", ">\n\nThis isn't new, it's been been having for the last 5 - 6 years.", ">\n\nHopefully some wake up and realize its all just preparing us for the inevitable destruction of our economy. I imagine its almost too late to realize this. If we all realized this wed sell our 401Ks and not lean on money and use it to help our neighbors.", ">\n\nK bro.", ">\n\nMy wife and I are on social security. She works part time to keep us afloat. All in, we earned $50K in 2022. iRS wants $4500 from us. Really? 5X what Trump paid? Don't know if anyone is paying attention but $50k ain't rich. Oh, and out of that comes almost $4k in Medicare premiums. A program we paid into for 40+ years.\nEveryone of these arrogant, unqualified,, spoon fed assholes in Congress should be made to live on SSI or welfare, with no medical coverage, for a year. Then tell me I am acting entitled.\nSelf serving bastards.", ">\n\nDon't upvote this crap.\nDo you really think Fox cares about the working class??\nThis is just right wing propaganda, timed to coincide with McCarthy's promise to get rid of the new IRS agents who make it possible to audit the rich.\nDon't be used.", ">\n\nWhatever happened to \"dont shoot the messenger?\"", ">\n\nIRS understaffing would naturally trend to go after low-lying fruit. Easy pickings. Too many man hours to go after super complex cases. These moneyed fuckers and their bullshit. It's outrageous.", ">\n\nThe vast majority of these audits are automatically generated correspondence audits that have to be issued. We can't just turn off the program that raises a red flag when two people claim the same child as a dependent because we don't have enough forensic accountants. If you mistype your W2 you'll get an \"audit\" showing the correct info from the copy your boss sent them and telling you they'll correct it unless you tell them otherwise and you don't have to do anything if the info they have is correct.", ">\n\nYeah, all the nonsense about the IRS \"going after\" low income people is so stupid. Low income people make money in a way that their reporting is easily verifiable by a computer. They're also most likely to mess up and claim child tax credits incorrectly, etc - all of which is verifiable and issued a letter by a computer. \n-\nOther than actually being able to get someone on the phone when you call the IRS, and increased budget isn't going to impact the average person in any way.", ">\n\nMy thing is even assuming the 87k don't successfully get more money out of the rich, that's still 87k jobs. That's a net positive. I just don't understand the conservative logic here. Do they think these 87k new jobs are specifically for being insidiously predatory toward the poor? Where's the logic here? (I know I'll get hyperbolic answers, but I genuinely would like to know)", ">\n\nIt's 87,000 jobs over 10 years, the majority of which are replacement during that period. It's just a budget supplemental to stop hemorrhaging agents as they retire or cycle out into other jobs.", ">\n\nso.. this is on fox, which I assume support republican efforts to ensure that this is the permanent state of affairs. I don't really get anything anymore.", ">\n\nAnd that is the way the GOP wants it.", ">\n\n💯 Exactly what this Fox article is trying to do.", ">\n\nIt's who can afford a lawyer", ">\n\nAs the article hints at, the IRS does not do a lot of actual auditing. What it does is computer matching, which automatically generates material for a correspondence audit. Most correspondence audits occur because som poor working Joe didn't know he/her was supposed to include or exclude something, and the IRS caught it in its matching. Of course, the problem is that we have a complex code and little help in actually helping people through the various forms, rules, and so on. But millionaires don't have these issues, so they can escape most of the traps that lead to a correspondence audit. If a lot of these 87,000 were in taxpayer service (which I expect) it would lead to fewer audits at the low end, more robust audits for large corporations, wealthy individuals, and those who actively use tax avoidance strategies. But of course that is not the dialogue that gets promoted when the 87,000 agents are discussed.", ">\n\nThis is exactly why Fox News needs to be dismantled and thrown in the garbage. Ugh, \"look poors! They're coming for yoU!!!\". Scare tactics. And guess what? It sadly works. Every time.\nThey're lower than scum.", ">\n\nExactly. It's when someone misreports a number from their W2, didn't report 1099s they received, both separated parents claim a tax credit for the same kid, etc. All stuff that's easily checked by a computer. The IRS isn't \"auditing\" random low to middle income people. That would be a complete waste of their time.", ">\n\nlooks at Trump You don't say.", ">\n\nThe poor can't defend themselves, it's easier to take a little bit of money from people that won't fight back than a lot of money from people that will.", ">\n\nThe mega rich seem like they’re on a mission to destroy America, as we know it.", ">\n\nHiring 87,000 new IRS agents makes it possible to audit billionaires. So they pay their share. Those audits require an actual person or team that knows what they are doing. But Kevin McCarthy's first item of business was to announce legislation to overturn the hiring of 87,000 IRS agents. Meaning only the little guy (who can be audited by computer software) pays taxes.\nSSDD", ">\n\nThe \"87,000\" agents budget is over a ten year period. It's not for 87,000 new positions.", ">\n\nThe title is so misleading. Im surprised fox even put the juicy bit in the article about how (this stat is due to there not being enough IRS workers because) these \"audits\" on low earners are just automated letters asking for more info.\nYet again, this is just millionairs paid by billionairs to mislead the masses into blaming the poor for crimes committed by said billionairs.", ">\n\nWhich is why the IRS needs more manpower and budget, so they can go after the big fish.\nFuck Fox News and their Republican propaganda pieces. This article coincides with McCarthy saying they’ll cut the IRS budget and that the IRS is coming for you.\nFuck off Republican propaganda rag!\nStop upvoting any Fox News story. Fox should not be on the white list.", ">\n\nThis is a terrible article. It seems to include questions about tax returns as audits. If a low income filer makes a mistake it should be corrected. Is that an audit? If anyone makes a mistake and is contacted, is that an audit? Also there is no reason to go after low income as they rarely pay tax or are required to. The money requested would also pay for people to answer a phone. Those against increasing funding lie when they say all of it goes to audits. If you tell the truth, who cares if you are audited? Are y’all aware you can track your personal return online? However a business cannot. Businesses have to rely on humans that can’t be reached. I’ve waited a year for a refund. Didn’t know if IRS received the return. Didn’t know if there was an issue. Didn’t know if it was mailed or lost. I’m getting tired of Republicans pushing their crap on people.", ">\n\nwho keeps upvoting this right wing propaganda", ">\n\nWhy would the GOP want to give the agency the power to go after their donors.", ">\n\nAnd it was trumps guy that mandated it while Biden replaced him", ">\n\nApparently the mere use of an accounting firm somehow protected corps and the rich from the IRS who still (mistakenly) believe the accounting firms are trustworthy. How naive.", ">\n\nThe \"audits\" talked about are mostly form letters requesting more info about specific items.", ">\n\nThe poor can't pay for top flight attorneys.", ">\n\nYep keep the IRS underfunded so they can only go after the poors at the same time telling all the poors that the IRS is bad cause it goes after them but leave out the fact that they do that cause the poors are low hanging fruit.\nRepublicans are evil.", ">\n\nWell the GOP wants to cut funding to the IRS for new agents, so I’m sure the poor folk will continue to get screwed. I say toss the 50,000+ page tax code out and replace with a percentage based on total revenue/income made. Took a loss? No write-offs. Oh well, better luck next year. It’ll never happen because the wealthy don’t want it to.", ">\n\nWhere did you get this info? I know GOPers have been slashing IRS budgets and staffing for years but can't find reliable sources for what this has done to the actual audits - like who gets audited.", ">\n\nTheir link is Fox. This is a bad faith post.", ">\n\nThis says a lot coming from fox “news”", ">\n\nTo paraphrase Gilbert K. Chesterton, \"The Poor have sometimes objected to being taxed too heavily; The Rich have always objected to being taxed at all.\"", ">\n\ndon't post Fox news here....", ">\n\nCorporations and millionaires have the means to hire accountants and attorneys. Our tax code is gray in several areas. It’s easy to go after the poor that do not have the resources and will have no choice but to pay anything the IRS says. The additional agents will continue to target the poor and middle class because they are easy, It’s happened before, it will continue to happen.", ">\n\nI think it's funny/sad that a poor person can win the lottery and they get taxed at a higher rate than any billionaire has ever been taxed at. The system is built to keep the rich - rich and the poor - poor.", ">\n\nThe poorest can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nThe current system cannot be sustained. We are hurtling towards disaster.", ">\n\nThe only reason the bastards have the majority is because the corrupt SCOTUS allowed illegal gerrymanders to stand while they were fought in the courts.", ">\n\nThe I.R.S. goes after the poorer people because it's easier. They can't afford lawyers and accountants. So the poor can do nothing but roll over and take it up the rump. The Inflation Reduction Act that Biden signed into law in August is supposed to give $80 Billion to the I.R.S. so they can go after the millionaires. But we know that won't happen. More poor people are going to get screwed.", ">\n\nI'm confused. For decades, Faux news and the conservatives have been saying that millionaires deserve to keep more of their money than we do. That was a huge part of the 2017 tax scam that Trump signed. Now Faux is saying it's a problem? And they are rightly detailing that Republicans are the cause, along with Biden trying to fix the same issue that Fox has helped create?", ">\n\nFox News", ">\n\nHey IRS, don't forget to crawl up my ass this year because I sold some old stuff on eBay for a loss but make sure you put a few man hours into figuring out if it is legit or not.", ">\n\nlol, and the people opposed to IRS funding will say they are anti-establishment.", ">\n\nImagine how much they could squeeze the middle class with 87,000 more agents! But really, it’ll be good to see if the increase in officers actually increases tax revenue without changing the underlying laws.", ">\n\nSo, this is the newest Republican boogeyman, the IRS.\nWell, better than Drag Queens I guess.", ">\n\nOh hey just like last year, and the year before that, I think there might be a pattern", ">\n\nThank you republicans, always sticking up in the back on the small guys…", ">\n\nFox News saying this like it’s not something Rupert Murdoch’s network supports is pretty funny.", ">\n\nFox News. Ignore it.", ">\n\nFox News is still allowed in here?", ">\n\nFake news. This is Republican propaganda coming from Fox News.", ">\n\nFox News is NOT news", ">\n\nHmm sounds like it was underfunded then. Good thing now we helped ease that problem. Thanks Biden", ">\n\nIt's simply laziness by the IRS. Lower-income households have less complicated returns and easier to process. I'm sure IRS runs a non-effective but management-pleasing metric like \"how many returns were corrected\" opposed to how much money was recouped.", ">\n\nWe know. They don't have the resources to do anything. That was the point of increasing the staffing at the IRS so they had even the slightest hope of going after the big offenders with their armies or lawyers.", ">\n\nThere's less millionaires and billionaires than there are us. I'm not sure that answer fits the accuracy on hiring more workers but I'll go ahead and amuse that", ">\n\nIt's not a game of tax guy vs rich guy. The rich literally have armies of lawyers. You need the staff to overcome all the paper and challenges they'll throw at you. \nIf you throw one person to audit a millionaire, their lawyers can make it so it'll take a year to review a week of operations. Investigations will never finish unless there's sufficient staff to overcome their obstruction.", ">\n\nTo this day I do not understand why the IRS can demand our documents every year without a warrant. The 16th amendment does not alter the 4th, and the 4th does not apply only to criminal actions (as the 5th explicitly does). Yet no one seems to care about this annual violations.", ">\n\nReminder, Fox News is not news. It's entertainment, and should be regarded as such.", ">\n\nNo shit, poor ppl tend to file their own taxes and screw up where as millionaires hire expensive accountants to exploit all the legal loopholes without getting their clients in trouble.\nI don't think it's an intentional targeting as the article may be implying.", ">\n\nOne might imagine the resources of agents would be better put to use by focusing on returns that might produce more revenue, however it may be just a lot easier to collect a few bucks from easier targets.", ">\n\nThey are short staffed and accountants make it so difficult to find wrongdoing, if there is even wrongdoing to be found, that it would take a decent chunk of their workforce just to tackle it. It's like trying to find needle in a haystack but you don't know if there's a needle or not.", ">\n\nSo true....", ">\n\nShocked pikachu face.", ">\n\nYeah I’d believe this if it weren’t Fox News. They could give a fuck about the poor and middle class.", ">\n\nI would literally rather the IRS spend its time auditing 5 extraordinarily rich people or a single business than anyone who makes less than 100k per year\nETA: I’m aware that this article represents part of the Republican agenda to just gut the IRS and welfare spending generally. And I understand the difficulties in auditing the rich/businesses v lower income people claiming tax credits, etc", ">\n\nAlmost all of the little people \"audits\" are just a computer issuing a correspondence \"audit\" because the person misreported something from their W2, didn't report as much 1099 income as was reported to the IRS by others, or separated parents both trying to claim kids for tax credits or something. \n-\nThey don't really pull from the same resources. The rich people audits require human beings. Little people \"audits\" aren't really audits and a computer can do it. So if we want to audit more rich people, they need actual budget for human beings. The little people are going to be caught anyways because a computer can do it.", ">\n\nI interned at the IRS during the summer of 2012 when Lois Lerner made batshit crazy commrnts that they were targetting conservative groups", ">\n\nI say this every time it gets brought up. This is by design. I used to work in auditing and also used to do tax stuff. It’s super easy to find tax fraud on someone who only has a simple W-2 and no other income. You could find those people through a basic algorithm. Meanwhile, auditing a multi millionaire is expensive, time consuming, and often fruitless. If I was in charge of an underfunded, understaffed IRS I would tell my staff to go for the easy wins too.", ">\n\nUnpopular opinion - More funding won't resolve this. \nThe IRS will keep doing this. Unless rules & regulations forbid or disincentivize this practice, the IRS will keep this stupid practice", ">\n\nI make $40,000 a year and the IRS froze my bank accounts until I paid them $1000 in taxes I owed them because of an error I made filling my taxes. They froze my bank accounts for $1000. I was fucked for a month. I had to borrow cash from people just for food and gas money to get to work to get paid money that I couldn’t access. It was a scary time for me. Meanwhile millionaires are purposely avoiding taxes worth more than what I make in a year and nothing happens to them.", ">\n\nThe IRS sends no less than a dozen letters to a taxpayer prior to leaving a bank account. Why didn't you just put it into a repayment plan? Takes about ten minutes online.", ">\n\nDon't you just hate autocorrect?", ">\n\nIf true, its a holdover from jrbush who slashed IRS staff and budget and told them to spend more time auditing tip jars and busboys than millionaires because the millionaires had better lawyers than the IRS and service workers were unlikely to have any lawyers at all.", ">\n\nFox News solution: remove the IRS", ">\n\nAbsolutely. They’ll NEVER target the rich, adding more agents just made them a lot more capable to target all the lower class.", ">\n\nWhat people don't realize..Those 87K \"Agents\" aren't that. It's 87K employees over 25 years. Clerks etc. People are so fucking stupid when they just believe these clowns.", ">\n\nThose numbers also count it as an \"audit\" when a person misreports a number from a W2, 1099s, etc and the irs number matching software sends an automatically generated correspondence letter that basically says \"we actually show this number, this is what your tax return would have been if you reported that number correctly\". \nThe IRS isn't wasting time doing random \"audits\" as people think of them for low to middle income people. It would be a complete waste of their time. The computer just catches obvious verifiable mistakes and it counts as an audit in those numbers.", ">\n\n“those in the lowest income bracket hit 12.7 per 1,000….. The odds of a millionaire facing an audit were around 1.1%.”\nSo they’re saying 1.27% vs 1.1%!!! And acting like that’s a scandal 🙄", ">\n\nWhich means millionaires REALLY don't want more IRS auditors which means when our new resident house fascist fires five thousand auditors, said fascist (McCarthy) is making sure those millionaires aren't going to get audited. \nCha CHING !!! Go the \"donations\" into house rat republican's pockets. \nThe grift will be in full swing shortly.\nAnd with putin whispering in their ears and telling them EXACTLY how break the law - how can they lose?", ">\n\n💯 Exactly why theres a Fox link here pushing for that same reason.", ">\n\nTwo things. First of all, this is from a far right-wing propaganda outlet which should immediately raise red flags. They're trying to scare you into allowing a republican-initiated movement to entirely remove all remaining power from the IRS by making it seem like they're coming after you.\nSecond, the reason the IRS is already already virtually powerless against the rich is because the republicans have already eviscerated them in the past several decades, largely through defunding them leading to not only staffing cuts, but the inability to pursue the wealthiest people who have the resources for endless litigation. So as a result, the FBI can only really afford to go after people who cannot financially defend themselves.", ">\n\nThird, you might as well throw in that the aiming low guidance was under a Trump appointee who is no longer in that position.", ">\n\nThe GOP intentionally defunded the IRS so that it could not audit the wealthy. It takes a great deal more money upfront to audit them but the payback is far greater.", ">\n\nI'm not sure why dems voted against an amendment that would have mandated the giant infusion of cash into the IRS couldn't be used to audit folks making >$400k.", ">\n\nHrm this is pretty fucked I'd like to hear about why the Dems voted nay.", ">\n\nBecause they work for the same people as Republicans. \nThey are different but only when their owners allow them to be. \nI don't know how many times we are going to have to learn this lesson before it sticks.", ">\n\nDemocrats are responsible for this", ">\n\nThe rich returns are just too hard, enough lower class errors you can leave the rich alone. Love to see it… sigh", ">\n\nIt takes money to police the wealthy. Can't have that can we?!", ">\n\nr/noshitsherlock", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised?\nI’m not even American and this seemed obvious to me. All you have to do is look at how the poor live and compare that to the news about someone like Elon musk or Donald trump.", ">\n\nThis is why the IRS needs to go.", ">\n\nFox News helped make that happen.", ">\n\nThey'll never change,all the time when the guys in charge benefit from doing the same shit.", ">\n\nAnd yet the republicans dont submit or pass legislations to change the rules to favor targeting rich people. Curious.", ">\n\nThen 78,000 new, armed tax collectors should be able to extract even more money from the poor, middle-class and small business owners.", ">\n\nWhy did they focus on the Poorest? The thought of 87,000 more of them will actually do what? If the existing can’t focus on the wealthy! Then what makes anybody think more can?", ">\n\nMillionaires and billionaires make the government more money by creating lobbying loopholes and exploiting the economy to bilk the 99%. It's really cheap to go after the poorest who are struggling to pay day to day obligations and don't have loopholes or government sanctioned exploitation to take advantage of.", ">\n\nI could have told you this would happen. You think millionaires get $600 Venmo transactions?", ">\n\nThat's a move democrats should not make. That's one month of rent for me. What of folks worse-off?", ">\n\nHonestly it’s like squeezing blood from the stone over here anyway.", ">\n\nDuh lmfao theyve already stated it costs too much to tax weathy people previously and its most cost effective to audit the poor due to many factors...", ">\n\nI mean 99% of us are poor compared to the other 1%", ">\n\nColor me surprised", ">\n\nWe need some laws for equitable auditing.", ">\n\nYou are an Army commander about to attack the enemy. Do you prefer to attack where they have experienced career solders backed up by artillery, tanks, and airplanes, or do you attack where there are poorly armed and equipped untrained conscripts?", ">\n\nThey must be upset someone replaced their sign with a card from Cards Against Humanity", ">\n\nMay it ever be so…. Don’t reproduce if you only consume and can’t accumulate or help a Dow Jones winter water witch. Like snow, weathermen.", ">\n\nIt’s weirdly fitting how much their building sign in the photo looks like a cards against humanity card.", ">\n\nTypical", ">\n\nWow? How unusual.", ">\n\nI’d support double the number of IRS agents", ">\n\nI was low income and won about 3,000 gambling, the irs went after me", ">\n\nThe IRS came after me hard for 8$", ">\n\nAudit frequency should correlate to income, someone with a million in income should be audited 10x those with 100k income", ">\n\nSomeone should explain Pareto charts to the IRS.", ">\n\nI've been audited three times. First when I was 27, did some consulting and didn't do the 1099 prepayments. Ended up owing $17k. Second audit was after moving across country for a job. The tax preparer we hired made a mistake with the move expense deductions, owed a few thousand. Third audit was another tax preparer mistake, but this time we overpaid and were owed money we credited to the next year. \nIf you assume for discussion that the average audit on an ordinary tax payer returns $10,000, it would take 100,000,000 audits to make $1 trillion. By just doing the easy work, the IRS is leaving the real money on the table.", ">\n\nRepublicans are famous for giving rich breaks while middle class etc close the gaps", ">\n\nThe last line, \"The Inflation Reduction Act provides the IRS with $80 billion in future funding to ramp up its audits and potentially target the wealthiest taxpayers.\"", ">\n\nThe cure is not the root cause, but the middle class and the poor will eventually bear the burden after the capital operation", ">\n\nIt’s like they timed the “research” and the drop of the article with the speech. Sad man.", ">\n\nWatch Madoff. The wealthy skate and steal billions. The poor are in prison over thousands.", ">\n\nWhy does their sign look like a Card Against Humanity", ">\n\nFucking Trump, still at it.", ">\n\nOh you mean the thing people said would happen once they got massive funding actually happened? Checks out", ">\n\nOf course they did, because millionaires will lawyer up.", ">\n\nBecause the poor can't afford to fight back.", ">\n\nIt's so unfair the poor and the middle class taxpayers suffer so much while the millionaries got away with not paying the taxes It's really hurting the poor. The middle class is fading", ">\n\nAll of this can be fixed if we just use no-exemption graduated income", ">\n\nYeah we know", ">\n\nShow of hands for all surprised.\ncrickets\nHmm. Seems like Reddit suffers from a plague of double amputees...", ">\n\nWhat the actual fuck", ">\n\nAnd 2021, 2020, 2019, …", ">\n\nSounds about right.", ">\n\nOf course. Poor people can’t afford attorneys.", ">\n\nI made a mistake on my forms while I was overseas and ticked “self-employed” instead of “employed”. I was on a student visa and had two children and was making less than 10k a year. They hounded me for years. By the time I figured out what had happened I could not amend the forms and had paid thousands in penalties and interest.\nMeanwhile I knew lots of people who were there fully employed not reporting their income.\nFuck them.", ">\n\nYep! During the pandemic, even while I wasn't working didn't come after me the entire time that I was working but the minute that I wasn't nobody was cuz we were in lockdown they started popping up", ">\n\nI just now realized that the Cards Against Humanity box looks like the IRS sign", ">\n\nWhy is the sign a Cards Against Humanity question?", ">\n\nI am shocked and appalled. clutches pearls", ">\n\nRich should be taxed more than the average not right at all. Or at least there is a tier system based on pay only makes sense. Come on now", ">\n\nSounds about right, make the rich richer again.", ">\n\nWho are we going to vote for in the future ,all of them are decayed , corrupted and useless , the “most rich country in the world , governed by the most ignorant an corrupted. What a contrast .", ">\n\nGod bless America", ">\n\nno way. wait until you see those people responds. Those people are chipping away.", ">\n\nSounds about right", ">\n\nWe know.", ">\n\nI find it rather comical that Fox news is reporting on this since they are all about pushing the Republican agenda and that is all about pushing everyone else down that isn't rich and keeping them there. Not to mention they had no problem with Trump not paying taxes for years.", ">\n\nCan fucking confirm.", ">\n\nYeah, they (millionaires) have accountants who generally do things right and due to their millions being in investments it's not like it's taxable all the time. \nThen there's the ability to sell any stocks when they're down to build up losses on paper can reinvest them at a loss that can carry over across multiple years.", ">\n\nsounds about right. i don’t have a pot to piss in but they’re all over me for someone stealing my identity and filing a double tax return one year.", ">\n\nDuh", ">\n\nThere’s a reason why FOX is posting this article. The less people at the IRS, the more likely they come after folks who can’t afford lawyers.", ">\n\nIn order to pursue wealthy tax cheats, the IRS needs more resources and personnel. Otherwise it’s business as usual, picking on the low hanging fruit that earns under 6 figures.", ">\n\nSo wrong ....people need to be fired", ">\n\nIt’s because they can’t afford to take them to court", ">\n\nOf course it is about protecting the rich like Trump who lies ,lies , and about his tax returns . No wonder he did not want them released .", ">\n\nEasy prey bc most ppl can not lawyer up. Pretty heart breaking system we have at times.", ">\n\nWhy does the irs sign look like it's from cards against humanity?", ">\n\nCurrently getting audited over \\~$1500, which they owe me, when the rich get away with murder. Fucking unbelievably and unnecessarily stressful for me.", ">\n\nHas t this been know for a while?", ">\n\nyep and they are the same people getting tax cuts while everyone else does it tough ....\nAny one with too much money is your enemy .... not a hero of democracy", ">\n\nGet rid of taxes and the gov’t should just do stuff for free, or what ever.", ">\n\nYou have to be careful when you get one of those CP2000 notices from the IRS. The way they are written is a trap.\nIf you dispute it you are supposed to indicate that you disagree and send it back with documents supporting your dispute.\nYou are only supposed to sign it if you agree with them and when you sign it you are signing away your rights to dispute the back taxes and penalties they are demanding.\nMere worker bees like us can expect to be getting a lot of those from this years tax returns considering how the threshold for 1099k forms has been dropped to $600.\nGuys like Trump? The IRS doesn't even know where to begin.", ">\n\nThanks Biden", ">\n\nI presume those lower-income bracket filers might be more likely to reach out to 1-800-infomercial [quickie settlement/long-term penalties most favorable to gov/proprietor] than retain proper legal counsel?\nRegardless it’s got to be a lot less work for IRS agent to go after under-represented citizen(s), rather than someone who can afford to appeal, properly negotiate on their own terms?", ">\n\nLmfao Dems tax and spend. But I have to admit there Republicans that tax and spend to. Where do these Politicians get off taxing me or business and give to people who don't work what do you cause d the inflation. You can not print money \nI am Conservative not a Republican. To much money is wasted and put in pockets of people ot don't belong.\nBut all dems know how to tax tax tax. \nIts all great and good until you run out if other peoples money. \nMillionaire just like Berny he hated Millionaires until he became one now he hates Trillionaires. Funny how the gold post changes. And good old Nancy her I side stock trading. So I think you need to rethink.", ">\n\nThe IRS is only doing as directed by whomever controls the White House.", ">\n\nIs anyone surprised by this? Really?", ">\n\nThe sign in the thumbnail looks like a Cards Against Humanity card.", ">\n\nWhile this is mostly true, don’t believe everything you read. I’m no more an accountant than I am a ladies man, but someone (said they’re an accountant) posted a few days ago about this. They explained that the most likely people getting audited are trying to, fraudulently or mistakenly, claim the EITC. \nYES, it’s super easy to “bust” these people for an easy “mistake”. This is who the IRS is cracking down on. \nDo I think it’s better to bust poor people for claiming a few thousand in tax credits vs billionaires who avoid taxes altogether? Of course not, but don’t think they’re actively targeting people who fudge their mileage deductions or miss a decimal point in their calculations as small business owners. It’s simply not happening. \nAnd the reported “87,000 new IRS agents” are replacing the 10’s of 1,000’s of employees set to retire or quit over the next 10 years which doesn’t even begin to fill the gaps we’ve been growing for decades by not hiring and training more willing workers. Not to mention they’re not even close to all employees who will actively audit tax payers. They’re people who answer phones, file papers, assist others, etc… They’re mostly just average people with average jobs so of course the GOP wants to end this. They hate upward mobility and job creation unless that means tax breaks for their billionaire friends.", ">\n\nI wish everyone wasn’t a sheep and would understand this.", ">\n\nI can see the Media doing their best to turn the public against the IRS.", ">\n\nPicking on the week and helpless. That’s what we humans do. We suck. I’m waiting for that big meteor reset button.", ">\n\nAnd Fox news loves this.", ">\n\nLove it, Faux 'News' taking the piss, for 4 years under Dear Leader they campaigned for tax breaks for the rich, now they're pretending to care about the poor !", ">\n\nEvery millionaire should be audited yearly. Period.", ">\n\nAND now the gqp cult promises to rescind the money Biden set aside to aid the IRS to recover taxes from mega millionaire tax cheats like benedict donald, who paid less taxes than most working Americans.", ">\n\nRepublicans want to stop the IRS and Congress from taxing rich people, making the burden of maintaining civilization fall more heavily on poorer people. This is why Republicans vote for tax cuts for the rich and against funding for the IRS.\nAnd since Republican beliefs are based on wishful thinking, Republicans can screw over poor, rural Republicans while simultaneously taking credit for doing it to make Republicans happy about it and blaming it on Democrats to make those same Republicans resentful against Democrats for it. And what else would we expect from a Republican Party that blames Democrats for tricking them into attacking the Capitol to make Trump look bad and justifies and approves of assaulting Capitol police while brandishing their \"thin blue line\" flags.", ">\n\nThe IRS is like any other law enforcement agency, they prefer pursuing the poor because they don't have the resources to protect themselves.", ">\n\nThe IRS building sign looks like its from cards against humanity.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nNot a reliable news source.", ">\n\nBut the GOP’s first priority is to claw back the funding for additional IRS agents…the ones needed to audit millionaires.", ">\n\nThat picture looks like the worst cards against humanity card too get.", ">\n\nScrew the Murdoch media empire and their failed trickle down ideologies.", ">\n\nOf course, the poorest haven’t paid over 400+ billion for decades. Not sure about the rich, we haven’t checked.", ">\n\nThis is not a surprise. With the recent inflation reduction act, the IRS an additional $80B over 10 years or $8B per year. The IRS budget for 2021 was $13.7B. The additional $8B over the year would be an increase of 58% to their budget. They will be looking to get a lot more money from taxpayers, due to this very large increase in their budget.", ">\n\nFox reported this? I'm in shock", ">\n\nAll propagandists publish clickbaity stuff that makes them sound like maybe they've let up on the evil. Unfortunately it works, since people just upvote headlines.", ">\n\nIt’s only going to get worse in 2023. Those 87k new IRS agents will not be going after the wealthy.", ">\n\nWhy?\nThat’s literally why they were being added. The IRS goes after the poorer taxpayers because they are low-hanging fruit and don’t have the lawyers and accountants to protect them. \nThe additional IRS employees were to give the personnel staffing sufficient to go after the wealthy.", ">\n\nIt doesn’t matter how many IRS agents there are. It will always be easier and more profitable for the IRS to nickel and dime the average taxpayer rather than go after the wealthy, who have the resources to lawyer up with the best lawyers and challenge the IRS in court.", ">\n\nEasier? Yes. More profitable? Doubtful.", ">\n\nIf Republicans want to avoid raising the debt ceiling and pass a balanced budget, then they should be seeking to recoup lost revenue from wealthy tax cheats to make that happen.\nYet they want to defund the IRS and cut 87,000 jobs from the agency.\nAnybody want to explain how that makes sense?", ">\n\nBecause if they go after the wealthy, the IRS will stumble into many republican bank accounts with dark money, and their web of corruption could be revealed and seized. They want less power for these agencies, so that they're easier to control.", ">\n\nAre we really acting like the liberals aren't tax cheats too?", ">\n\nLock them up with the conservatives", ">\n\nThis is the way! I have no problem if we take out a majority of both parties if both are corrupt", ">\n\nWhile I agree that any and everyone engaging in any corrupt action should be impeached, removed, and held accountable, let's be transparent and honest here.\nThere are significantly more questionable people in the republican party than in the democrat party. That's a fact. All you have to do is look at what the people in the parties are doing and where they stand on the issues.\nWhich party passed the bill that gave the IRS additional resources to pursue the tax cheats? Which party wants to repeal that funding? That tells you everything you need to know. Look at actions, not words.", ">\n\nLooking at how many republicans have been charged or investigated for pedophilia is enough to know which side is more awful than the other and that’s it for today.", ">\n\nAnd McCarthy wants to cut funding to the IRS. The Republican motto is 'Rules for Thee, not for me'.", ">\n\nIf they are targeting the poorest of Americans with their current resources what makes you think giving them more funding will change that ?", ">\n\nThe IRS lacks the resources to effectively go after rich folks.", ">\n\nGoing after the wealthy is obviously much more costly and resource intensive. But they’re not pooling their current resources to go after rich folks are they?", ">\n\nNot if Republicans have anything to say about it.", ">\n\nBut in 2022 ( when Biden was president and the House belonged to the Dems) they didn’t did they.", ">\n\nIt takes time to refactor an organization. It’s still full of Trump appointees.", ">\n\n2020 was a long time ago", ">\n\nNot on organizational time scales. It takes several months to safely restructure an organization as big as the federal government, and when it is the federal government it takes years. Congress gets a say in every political appointment, budget change, and organization change. It’s designed to be slow to assure continuity. \nThere is a saying that every president gets credited and blamed for what the prior administration put in motion. There is a lot of truth to that, and this organizational inertia is a big reason why. There are similar long lags in changing laws, re-writing policies, modifying rules, and so on. It’s a “feature” of having checks and balances.", ">\n\nFun with statistics\nTale as old as time", ">\n\nThere's lies, damn lies and statistics\n-Benjamin Disraeli", ">\n\nWhen my wife taught AP stats this was her bible, she loved showing kids how easy it was to be deceived, in teaching them to do it themselves. It was a pretty impactful strategy for teaching, although I do hate to think if any of those kids went into politics or political strategy with her directions.", ">\n\nThis isn’t even their idea. They basically ripped this Reason Magazine article off and put their name on it. \nIt was already an heavily biased assessment of the data from someone whose stance is basically “abolish all gubmint/taxation is theft”.", ">\n\nYet Fox news takes the \"side\" of the wealthy, at every turn", ">\n\nFox is just trying to give GQP cover. Many of us read this and think “that’s unjust let’s fix it” and the rabble thinks “abolish all gummit”", ">\n\nDon't tax you, don't tax me... Tax the guy behind the tree!", ">\n\nI know that already from the Trump tax filings.", ">\n\nObviously articles like this don't get to the heart of the issue when it comes to these \"audits\".\nWhen people talk about \"audits\" for lower-income tax filers, it's usually around three things: dependents, the Child Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Credit. These credits are huge relatively compared to people's income, and thus there is a lot of issues with people claiming it incorrectly, or claiming kids that they don't qualify for.\nSo when two separated parents claims the same kid on their taxes for these things, the IRS has to look into it to determine who is actually, legally eligible to claim the kid(s) and the benefits. That's what they talk about when looking at \"audits\". These are simple and very automated things. There is always one winner.\nThis is completely different than an actual, warm-blooded person coming to a business and reviewing their taxes and their records, or a high-income earner's return looking for complex tax positions. The IRS can crank out lower-income audits because 1) there are a lot more people who file and claim these dependent and tax credits, and 2) they are simple to review and resolve. Audits of high-income earners or businesses take time, and someone trained in complex areas of tax law. Even then, most high-income folk hire accountants and lawyers and I will tell you right now, even if the IRS finds errors or even fraud, these taxpayers will appeal it or drag it through the courts before coming to a resolution. \nIf Congress wanted to drop the audit rate of lower-income folks, they would de-couple the welfare benefits in the form of tax credits, and have another agency administer them outside of the tax code (for example, the Social Security Administration). But given Republicans won't even renew the expanded Child Tax Credit, that's probably DOA.", ">\n\nYou are correct. There's this voodoo magic played by conservatives where they act like a \"poor\" person getting a letter saying \"Hey, we just want to make sure you deserve this $6,000 in free money, give us some documents and we're good\" is somehow exactly equivalent to a true full audit where you spend hours with an auditor in person or with accountants. They're not the same thing damnit.", ">\n\nAnd that's close to the worst case scenario for correspondence audits. A huge chunk of them are \"hey you fucked up entering your W2, here's the real information. We'll fix it for you unless you tell us your boss is the one who fuck up by x date.\" You don't even have to do anything if they just catch a typo you made, but it's still technically an audit,", ">\n\nYeah, any low/mid income IRS thing is almost always because the person misreported a number easily verifiable by a computer. The IRS isn't wasting time actually \"auditing\" random normal returns.", ">\n\nand Biden is going to have that changed until the republicans try to handicap the IRS again", ">\n\nThe changes shave already been made. We just haven’t gotten into true tax season yet in 2023 to see the difference.", ">\n\nThe funding is for 87000 more employees and upgrades to systems that are decades old. These changes will take time. The GOP operates on the moment. They have no real plan other than to break stuff. They don't build anything.", ">\n\nThis is a conservative tactic, and the tactic of bullies in general. They provoke a harsh reality and reaction and then claim they were right all along.\nThe Tories are doing exactly the same thing in Britain.\nThe sheer dishonesty of it makes me livid. The inability of their followers to cotton onto it is perhaps one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.", ">\n\nYep!\nAlso this inflammatory headline is from Fox News, so not exactly reliable. “Targeting” here includes automated systems that naturally can detect mismatches in reported income — for example, wage income you report vs. what your employer reports. That’s just good governance and is not at all nefarious.\nThe real issue is the lack of ability to really audit the wealthy, whose income generally cannot be checked automatically and whose finances are often deliberately extremely complicated. The staff who can do such sophisticated audits are few, and the IRS hasn’t been able to hire and train up very many over the past decade.", ">\n\nThanks for the informative reply.\nYou make great points which I don't doubt. But there are times when I think it's important to consider both the letter and spirit of law at times.\nEven though it is perfectly by the letter of the law that people should be checked, it also seems against the intended spirit of said law that only a certain group of people are checked.\nI am not familiar with US law, but I think most of us can feel some degree of injustice with how things currently are.", ">\n\nThe point is to automate more checking of income common to wealthier people, and devote more resources to auditing those people. The Fox News article is disingenuous in how it describes the automated checking that goes on. It’s not great that rich people aren’t really audited, but there’s no reason to stop the automated checking of income where it’s already being done and essentially free to continue.\nIf you feel differently, explain yourself.", ">\n\nNo, we are in alignment concerning this.", ">\n\nFUCK FOX NEWS\nFox is pretending to care about us poors. \nDon't reward these fascist fucks with upvotes for a disingenuous clickbait headline. They still hate us for not voting gop." ]