Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?
Getting over the fear of an IRS audit isn’t always easy. After all, we found out during Covid-19, the government doesn’t need a law to get people to comply. Let’s take a look at why it’s a good idea to stop filing income taxes (presuming you’re in the 98% of Americans who are not liable).
Keeping Up with the Joneses
The first reason is that the IRS is not able to keep up with filers who have admitted to owing money to the IRS. Notice from the following figure that forced collections (levies) are down by more than 90% since 2011.
Return on Investment
The second reason is that the IRS is looking to get money as easily as possible. They are used to the public voluntarily handing over their income to the tune of $4.1 trillion.
The $12 billion IRS budget divided by $4.1 trillion in revenue equals a 34,100% annual return on investment (ROI).
Snitching Gets Scrapped
The third reason is that the IRS has decided to scrap their Automated Substitute for Return (ASFR) Program, which relies on W-2 and 1099 forms to identify non-filers and automatically creates a tax return for the non-filer.
TREASURY INSPECTOR GENERAL FOR TAX ADMINISTRATION
A Significantly Reduced Automated Substitute for Return Program Negatively Affected Collection and Filing Compliance
September 29, 2017
Source
The Cream of the Crop
The fourth reason is that the IRS has indicated that it has not indicated if it is even going to pursue the top 100 “high-income nonfilers”.
10.8 Million to One
And the last reason (for now) is that the judicial system is sorely lacking for judges to try such cases.
