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

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If you don't know how to respond then stop responding, lol.

Again, we're at an impasse. You don't want to understand what my point was, even though it was very clear.

Never at any point did I say people should be audited for no reason. In fact, I said the opposite.
You literally stated what your point was with a graph to back it up then said you never said that.

You shared a graph that showed how people reporting over a million dollars in taxable income are not being audited as much. You also didn't want poor people (people reporting under a low threshold of income) to be audited. I explained to you that people that are millionaires have avenues to report expenses and take deductions that take their income to a low number. I then explained that we should not only look at how much income someone is reporting and we should go after the best leads. Which can include folks that appear to show low income and would fall under your poor threshold.

Looks like you are the one that doesn't want to accept something so simple.
 
You literally stated what your point was with a graph to back it up then said you never said that.
This is true.
You shared a graph that showed how people reporting over a million dollars in taxable income are not being audited as much.
... as much as they used to be. Before Trump.
Correct.

You also didn't want poor people (people reporting under a low threshold of income) to be audited.
False. I never said that, but thanks for once again putting words into my mouth.
I said the system should be changed so that there is less of a NEED to audit them. And then I described some changes I would make.

I explained to you that people that are millionaires have avenues to report expenses and take deductions that take their income to a low number. I then explained that we should not only look at how much income someone is reporting and we should go after the best leads. Which can include folks that appear to show low income and would fall under your poor threshold.
And I didn't disagree with any of that.
Looks like you are the one that doesn't want to accept something so simple.
This is what you want to think. But again, you are basing this on what you want to think rather than what I have actually said. It seems you have a personal reason that you don't want to discuss. So I've dropped it.
Yet you keep trying to put words into my mouth in an attempt to keep the conversation going. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
For sure. I said that. It's true.
It's likely going to cost the IRS more money to audit those people than they'll get out of them under our current system.
Nope, this is simply false. Taxable income means less than you think it does. Again. Millionaires can file returns where they show under 400k in taxable income. It is very common with all their other business ventures. And their deductions could be faulty.
 
Nope, this is simply false.
Do you have a source on profit/cost analysis?
And then, once you come up with that, what is the profit/cost analysis on people over $400k?

Where do you think increased enforcement would bring more in return? I'm guessing those over $400k. Hence, my position.
 
It depends on what the definition of 'make' is, I guess. If you interpret it as wages, then there's no reason to go after someone who doesn't 'make' much, because the audit will cost far more than any recovered taxes. If you interpret it as gross income, then the answer is still the same. If you interpret it as net income, then sure, someone who 'makes' a small amount might be cheating on their expenses.

I don't know for sure, but the note at the bottom of Phat's graph: *total positive income
might say that they are using gross income, not net. It's kind of a weird way to say it, but possibly that's what they meant.

barfo
 
And incidentally, the usual definition of millionaire is someone with $1M in net assets, not annual income.

barfo
 
It depends on what the definition of 'make' is, I guess. If you interpret it as wages, then there's no reason to go after someone who doesn't 'make' much, because the audit will cost far more than any recovered taxes. If you interpret it as gross income, then the answer is still the same. If you interpret it as net income, then sure, someone who 'makes' a small amount might be cheating on their expenses.

I don't know for sure, but the note at the bottom of Phat's graph: *total positive income
might say that they are using gross income, not net. It's kind of a weird way to say it, but possibly that's what they meant.

barfo

Do both the pillage and the plunder count as income?
 
Do you have a source on profit/cost analysis?
And then, once you come up with that, what is the profit/cost analysis on people over $400k?

Where do you think increased enforcement would bring more in return? I'm guessing those over $400k. Hence, my position.
The more complex a return gets, the longer it can take to close. That is common sense. Someone making over 400k and reporting it as such just as easily could be telling the truth where there is no reason to audit them. Could that be the same for someone under 400k? Absolutely. Hence why it is most important to use the best leads. Which can be any which way with reported income. Even negative in many circumstances.
 
It depends on what the definition of 'make' is, I guess. If you interpret it as wages, then there's no reason to go after someone who doesn't 'make' much, because the audit will cost far more than any recovered taxes. If you interpret it as gross income, then the answer is still the same. If you interpret it as net income, then sure, someone who 'makes' a small amount might be cheating on their expenses.

I don't know for sure, but the note at the bottom of Phat's graph: *total positive income
might say that they are using gross income, not net. It's kind of a weird way to say it, but possibly that's what they meant.

barfo
I agree with what you said. The graph is worded weirdly.

However, gross income can have its warts too. Like if it includes gross sales of stock. Those can get really wonky.
 
And incidentally, the usual definition of millionaire is someone with $1M in net assets, not annual income.

barfo
The IRS can't really tell someones net assets on a personal income tax return. Maybe if they used other information from systems with local counties in regards to assessed values of their residence. But that isn't really a full picture and i doubt they have the time to do that.

They can on corporatation and partnership returns.
 
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The more complex a return gets, the longer it can take to close. That is common sense. Someone making over 400k and reporting it as such just as easily could be telling the truth where there is no reason to audit them. Could that be the same for someone under 400k? Absolutely. Hence why it is most important to use the best leads. Which can be any which way with reported income. Even negative in many circumstances.
So no profit/cost analysis then?
 
So no profit/cost analysis then?

Took out the URL. You can find it on google if you want to read the full thing.

This is older and I haven't read it all. I couldn't quickly see the definitions of what they stated low and high income were. But if you look at page 6, it appears they are much closer than you'd think.
 
It depends on what the definition of 'make' is, I guess. If you interpret it as wages, then there's no reason to go after someone who doesn't 'make' much, because the audit will cost far more than any recovered taxes. If you interpret it as gross income, then the answer is still the same. If you interpret it as net income, then sure, someone who 'makes' a small amount might be cheating on their expenses.

I don't know for sure, but the note at the bottom of Phat's graph: *total positive income
might say that they are using gross income, not net. It's kind of a weird way to say it, but possibly that's what they meant.

barfo
I think the IRS uses "total positive income" to calculate taxable income. But that only shows how much less often we are auditing the wealthy than we were before 2016. That's it.

I'm not using that graph as a basis for anything other than showing that we are auditing the wealthy far less than we used to.
 
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Took out the URL. You can find it on google if you want to read the full thing.

This is older and I haven't read it all. I couldn't quickly see the definitions of what they stated low and high income were. But if you look at page 6, it appears they are much closer than you'd think.
Thanks.
If it's close, then that would further support my proposal to virtually eliminate the need for the poor being audited by streamlining the process.
People who show losses of hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars are never considered poor, thereby, would never be included in my proposed streamlined tax filing process.
 
IRS audit rates significantly increase as income rises


Lots of graphs with information here. This is somewhat misleading, by rates they mean %. As you can see many more returns were looked at for smaller returns. However, many of those could be from computer generated notices called CP2000s that simply take the income and other numbers reported to then and adjust their return if they filed wrong.

https://www.irs.gov/about-irs/irs-audit-rates-significantly-increase-as-income-rises
 
The IRS can't really tell someones net assets on a personal income tax return. Maybe if they used other information from systems with local counties in regards to assessed values of their residence. But that isn't really a full picture and i doubt they have the time to do that.

They can on corporatation and partnership returns.
I don't think the IRS needs to know your exact net worth to know that you are wealthy. They have enough information to know that your financial situation is different than the single mom working 3 jobs.
 
Thanks.
If it's close, then that would further support my proposal to virtually eliminate the need for the poor being audited by streamlining the process.
People who show losses of hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars are never considered poor, thereby, would never be included in my proposed streamlined tax filing process.
Get rid of the earned income credit and you'd cut down on a lot of people in poorer tax brackets getting audited. It is a very abused part of the tax code.

https://www.eitc.irs.gov/tax-preparer-toolkit/frequently-asked-questions/fraud/fraud

A problem is you would be getting rid of money many of these folks rely on that file it correctly if you got rid of it.
 
I don't think the IRS needs to know your exact net worth to know that you are wealthy. They have enough information to know that your financial situation is different than the single mom working 3 jobs.
I bet you they have a camera watching you taking a dump right now. Goddammit big brother.
 
The IRS does not have records of your bank statements. They can get them through supboena, but its not like they literally know every dollar you have.

A single mom with 3 kids could be rich. Could cheat on their taxes. Could file them correctly. Could be poor. Any of the above.

Everyone and anyone can be a tax fraudster.
 
Or you could just streamline the process and give it to the people who need it like I suggested.
That's genius. Can you go to the IRS and tell them everything they need to do? You may have cracked the code on all of this.
 
That's genius. Can you go to the IRS and tell them everything they need to do? You may have cracked the code on all of this.
They could pretty easily copy many other countries. They know how much taxes everybody with W2 jobs owe, and if they qualify for the earned income tax credit. It's not rocket science.

https://www.propublica.org/article/...op-americans-from-filing-their-taxes-for-free

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/dreading-taxes-countries-show-us-theres-another-way

Unfortunately this brings us back to how corrupt our system is, and how much more that corrupt system costs Americans than other countries.
 

Do you want them taking a pencil and calculator to an audit of drug dealers and crime organizations?

People in the criminal investigations group are similar to the fbi. They have accountants carrying guns too.

This doesn't follow the rights portrayal of being thugs to beat down on america.
 
They could pretty easily copy many other countries. They know how much taxes everybody with W2 jobs owe, and if they qualify for the earned income tax credit. It's not rocket science.

https://www.propublica.org/article/...op-americans-from-filing-their-taxes-for-free

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/dreading-taxes-countries-show-us-theres-another-way

Unfortunately this brings us back to how corrupt our system is, and how much more that corrupt system costs Americans than other countries.
Yet the earned income tax credit has a massive rate of being wrong.

And as I already stated. Even though Intuit lobbies, there are multiple free to file programs through the IRS website for low income folks to file free.
 
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