this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2023
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the misleading thing about that statistic is that there are far, far fewer wealthy people than there are normal. even with the rate of audits technically being lower, the number of audits of normal people is still far, far greater, and is where the IRS's focus truly is
my understanding is that the focus of the IRS should be on those that try to subvert paying their taxes, it seems that they believe there is an increased amount of those people in the wealthy category.
but it doesn’t make sense that they should ignore people trying to subvert taxes in the normal brackets does it? all that does is harm everyone else paying their fair share.
I never said to ignore it for low income taxpayers, but the statistic you provided is incredibly misleading. Plus the IRS would recoup far more money by auditing higher income taxpayers at much greater rates.
edit: you are right about my assumption on ignoring the taxpayer, that was another persons comment that I confused with yours, my apologies.
How is it misleading? It's an incredibly simple statement that the rich are audited at a higher rate than the average person isn't it? I didn't say that more wealthy are audited than the common folk because it seems common sense that due to large disparity in population (common vs wealthy), that of course there are more common people audited than wealthy. I'm simply pointing out that this guys statement is incorrect, misleading, and intended to incite anger.
Please ignore my negative initial vote score, as I have the privilege of being bot-downvoted by CCP sympathizers because of comments on this post https://lemmy.world/post/2338419, there is also the possibility that I'm just an asshole.
Your statistic doesn't support your conclusion. His statement is not contradicted, and is in fact true.
Several articles about how poorer taxpayers are significantly more likely to be targeted:
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/irs-targeted-poorest-taxpayers-millionaires-went-unscathed-2022-report
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/irs-audit-eitc-five-times-as-likely-to-get-audited/
https://www.propublica.org/article/irs-sorry-but-its-just-easier-and-cheaper-to-audit-the-poor
An article about how audit rates are dropping in general, and dropping fastest for those with the highest incomes:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ashleaebeling/2022/05/18/irs-tax-return-audit-rates-plummet/?sh=642e0b711cca
You are dying on an an hill made of data chosen in piecemeal by news outlets that profit off of your attention. Below is an image from a 2019 (year for two of your four articles) GAO report that displays the audit rates with more granularity.
Even your own sources (https://trac.syr.edu/reports/706/ referenced in your 2022 Fox Article) with 2022 data still show that income greater than 1M is audited at 2.38% vs income <$25K with EITC is at 1.27%. You just keep beating up your own argument.
My statistics do support my statement that the IRS audit rates for the rich are higher than normal people, and in fact higher than the poorest. His statement is, again, incorrect, misleading, and intended to incite anger.
From the report on 2019 data:
Please ignore my negative initial vote score, as I have the privilege of being bot-downvoted by CCP sympathizers because of comments on this post https://lemmy.world/post/2338419, there is also the possibility that I’m just an asshole.
mk bud. i cant believe you still dont understand why those rates are misleading. good luck out there
i don’t see how they can be misleading. the average person understands the difference between rates/percentages and resulting totals.
are you suggesting that the wealthy get audited at such an increased rate so that their total number of audits are the same as normal people? that would require almost 100% of all returns to be audited which is ridiculous.
i’m ok with being wrong and learning, but none what what you suggest is fair or makes any sense
Please ignore my negative initial vote score, as I have the privilege of being bot-downvoted by CCP sympathizers because of comments on this post https://lemmy.world/post/2338419, there is also the possibility that I’m just an asshole.