13,000 lucky Americans will soon receive letters from the IRS explaining that they've been selected for a random audit. The hapless participants are rounded up as part of the IRS' National Research Program, which seeks to explain why the Treasury receives $300 billion less than we Americans collectively owe. A random audit is nothing to fear, unless you are a tax cheating yutz.
Not that I don't completely trust the IRS with my life... but just how random will this be?
Would be interesting to see how many rich/poor, bloggers/mouthbreathers, Republicans/Democrats come up on the random choices.
It will be completely random. Diebold is building the randomizer....
ReplyDeleteI feel so ... safe now.
ReplyDeleteIRS audited my 2004 return, proclaiming in 2006 that I had under-reported by a huge amount in 2004, and owed them many, many thousands of dollars, plus penalties.
ReplyDeleteMy quick review made it obvious what had happened: I have (actually, had) two businesses, and they had simply failed to count the income I reported from the larger business. It was eventually straightened out... after I hired my tax accountant to write to them.
Note that this was one hundred percent an IRS error, not a matter of interpretation... but I ended up shelling out some bucks to my accountant to get it corrected.
IIRC, there is evidence that, from the Gingrich era forward, IRS has emphasized auditing returns for lower-income taxpayers. Yeah, that'll fix the problem of under-collection.
Exactly. Penny pinching in the weirdest way while ignoring HUGE mysterious gaps in the tax filings of very wealthy people... I wonder why that is...
ReplyDelete