Tax Guru-Ker$tetter Letter

Friday, September 13, 2002

IRS Audit Targets

I hope this announcement by IRS is correct, that they will start focusing their energy on going after those people who flagrantly violate the tax laws, such as tax protestors and users of off-shore accounts. It will mean they will have less time to harass those of us who obey the laws. Here are more articles about this IRS announcement from the New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle.

Just another reminder that any mention of the "tax gap" of uncollected taxes is nothing more than a guess. By definition, such a number is impossible to know for certain. The bigger numbers attract more attention; so everyone latches onto them, when the real amounts could be just a small fraction of the $207 billion that they are guessing it to be. Of course, they could also be much higher; but that's not likely. When coming up with their numbers, IRS only uses gross revenues and ignores expenses and other costs that would reduce the actual unreported taxable income.

KMK
- posted by Kerry M. Kerstetter, MBA~CPA~ATP~ATA @ 9/13/2002 01:59:00 PM Send this post: