I don’t know about you, but I get irritated when I see those advertisements about the IRS settling for $0.10 on the dollar for tax debt owed. I realize that most of that settlement is due to penalties being written off, but it still irritates me. Why should they be allowed to settle the debt for less when I am paying my taxes in a timely manner and having to foot the bill for their non-compliance?
I just read an article in the Tennessee CPA Journal that seems to corroborate what we see on the commercials. It was written by Al Kolak and he cites a number of statistics. some of them are:
- Tax payers not timely paying their taxes rose from 4.8 million in 2002 to 6.8 million in 2009
- Total dollar value of delinquent accounts increased from $44.8 billion in 2002 to $103.2 billion in 2009
- Taxpayer Delinquency Investigations as a result of taxpayers not filing returns increased from 1.4 million in 2002 to 2.2 million in 2009
You need to read the article to really get a feel for how much of a problem this is (I’d provide you the link to the article, but it is not posted yet). I know that some of you may be cheering these people who are seemingly working the system. However, they raise the cost of the whole system for all of us who are responsible citizens and I resent that.
It seems to me that there would be more of an ROI for the US taxpayer if the IRS re-allocated resources to more aggressively go after these deadbeats over the next few years and clear these cases than to worry so much about audits. I believe that 99.9% of the taxpayers that are filing and paying on a timely basis are still going to do just that and be as honest on their tax returns as they always have.
OK, I’ve had my rant for the day. Have a great one!
Billions of Tax Dollars Going Uncollected
I don’t know about you, but I get irritated when I see those advertisements about the IRS settling for $0.10 on the dollar for tax debt owed. I realize that most of that settlement is due to penalties being written off, but it still irritates me. Why should they be allowed to settle the debt for less when I am paying my taxes in a timely manner and having to foot the bill for their non-compliance?
I just read an article in the Tennessee CPA Journal that seems to corroborate what we see on the commercials. It was written by Al Kolak and he cites a number of statistics. some of them are:
You need to read the article to really get a feel for how much of a problem this is (I’d provide you the link to the article, but it is not posted yet). I know that some of you may be cheering these people who are seemingly working the system. However, they raise the cost of the whole system for all of us who are responsible citizens and I resent that.
It seems to me that there would be more of an ROI for the US taxpayer if the IRS re-allocated resources to more aggressively go after these deadbeats over the next few years and clear these cases than to worry so much about audits. I believe that 99.9% of the taxpayers that are filing and paying on a timely basis are still going to do just that and be as honest on their tax returns as they always have.
OK, I’ve had my rant for the day. Have a great one!