The IRS this year has seen a significant decline in the amount of money people hand over voluntarily to reduce the $21 trillion national debt.
In most recent years, the IRS receives $2 or $3 million in voluntary gifts, and took in more than $7 million in 2012.
But in the first six months of fiscal year 2018, the IRS had collected just over $485,000.
In the first half of the prior year, the IRS took in more than $2 million in gifts, and the year before that, $1.5 million had been collected at this point.
In most years, one or two big months make up the majority of the gifts the IRS receives each year. But so far in 2018, that month hasn’t happened yet.
If contributions continue at their current pace, the IRS would take in just under $1 million. The last time the IRS collected less than $1 million was 2004.
The total national debt was $21.1 trillion as of this week. Even if people voluntarily donated $5 million for debt reduction this year, that would cut the national debt by about two ten-millionths of one percent.
