TaxProf Blog reports that according to the Internal Revenue Service’s recently released Enforcement Results for 2009, enforcement revenue is up 50 percent (http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2009/12/irs-.html?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell).
But the big, bad tax collector barracudas are going after the littlest fish in the pond: individuals, especially households earning more than $200,000 per year, whose audit rate has doubled since 2000; and small businesses with less than $10 million in assets, which also had experienced a higher audit rate even though total business audits were actually down 15 percent.
Chances of IRS agents demanding to see the books actually decreased for big businesses with assets over $250 million, who can afford lobbyists, highly-paid lawyers, and political donations. They were audited less this year under a Democratic administration than they were in 2000 under a Republican president.
So the oft-repeated canard about Republicans coddling big businesses at the expense of the “little guy” has again been debunked by the government’s own statistics.
