Ed, I also received a letter a few months ago - a first for me. The IRS claimed I owed more tax for 2022. I knew I didn’t. I had sent in an estimated tax payment for the exact amount they claimed I owed. So I called and was impressed that people answered the phones, spent time tracking it down, found the error (on their part) and got it fixed. They were pleasant and helpful. A couple of hours I’ll never get back, but it didn’t take months to resolve.
I will never understand the opposition to the IRS. I want them to find the tax cheats so I don’t have to pay as much. More income means lower deficits.
Ed, thank you for your post about your recent positive experience with the IRS. Ten years ago, I retired from an IRS career as a federal revenue agent. My work was primarily in Iowa and your article warmed my heart.
The other day, one of the riders on my municipal bus lamented loudly about what I knew was the fictional upcoming hiring of 80,000 new IRS auditors. However, according to the rider, hiring all those new auditors was a harbinger not only of the end of the world as he knew it but also a signal of Joe Biden’s inevitable re-election!
Most of Iowa’s city folk and farm families whose tax returns I audited were honest and diligent. I found mistakes on some of their tax returns, but certainly not all. Most folks were proud of their circumstances and accomplishments and eager to discuss the reasons for filing their tax returns as they had done.
As to the end of the world and the inevitability of Joe Biden’s re-election, I found it best to smile, let the comments lie, and get off that bus when it pulled up to my stop.
Excellent discussion and I appreciate your extensive use of links to supporting references; however, the "Stanford study" link halfway through actually leads to a CNN news report on the study. The study itself can be found by entering "Measuring and Mitigating Racial Disparities in Tax Audits" in your url box.
Since the IRS collects no race information on individual returns the study "imputes" race using a common demographic tool based upon surname and geolocation, uniquely adding first names to sharpen the filter. This uncovers the racial disparity in audits but the study itself admits that nearly all (but not quite all) the disparity is due to audits of Earned Income Tax Credits (EITC) done cheaply by mail and with a relatively high incidence of "success" and revenue yield. Contrast this with the manpower/time/cost of an in-person, on-site audit of a high-income filer whose return has been prepared by competent, experienced advisors.
This could just be another example of "It's where the money is" expounded in the last century by the famous economist Willie Sutton.
I appreciate your perspective. I wish the Congress would enact a law requiring the President, VP, every member of Congress and the Supreme Court to prepare their own federal tax return and have those returns audited by the IRS.
Not that I want to pay more taxes but during my lifetime I have always had so little income that having to pay income tax meant that I had actually earned enough to owe income tax.
I have been doing my own taxes since I was 14 and each year I keep looking for the unreasonable changes that they have made. I wonder what would happen if law makers were required to take corses in economics.
My husband is an accountant and is pleased by the renewed funding and steps taken to make filing easier. And this is perhaps a coincidence but I know of two people who got into serious trouble for tax cheating/evasion and they are both Trump supporters now. When I see politicians knocking the IRS I think bad things about them and their supporters.
Ed- I appreciate the counter cultural narrative. I’ve had similar experiences with the IRS, but unfortunately many more of the bad type. Most recently I waited nearly a year for funds to be returned from a significant correction discovered (by me) from 2016.
Funding (or not funding) the IRS should be determined by what they are expected to do. Some of the historic gyrations you mention were coincident with efforts to simplify the tax code and relieve them of burden. We seem to have abandoned that. I am still a proponent, though, and am flummoxed about why HR25 has such headwinds. I wrote about it here: https://open.substack.com/pub/joelelorentzen/p/a-taxing-situation?r=1p5p1m&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post. Love to hear your thoughts!
Ed, I also received a letter a few months ago - a first for me. The IRS claimed I owed more tax for 2022. I knew I didn’t. I had sent in an estimated tax payment for the exact amount they claimed I owed. So I called and was impressed that people answered the phones, spent time tracking it down, found the error (on their part) and got it fixed. They were pleasant and helpful. A couple of hours I’ll never get back, but it didn’t take months to resolve.
I will never understand the opposition to the IRS. I want them to find the tax cheats so I don’t have to pay as much. More income means lower deficits.
Ed, thank you for your post about your recent positive experience with the IRS. Ten years ago, I retired from an IRS career as a federal revenue agent. My work was primarily in Iowa and your article warmed my heart.
The other day, one of the riders on my municipal bus lamented loudly about what I knew was the fictional upcoming hiring of 80,000 new IRS auditors. However, according to the rider, hiring all those new auditors was a harbinger not only of the end of the world as he knew it but also a signal of Joe Biden’s inevitable re-election!
Most of Iowa’s city folk and farm families whose tax returns I audited were honest and diligent. I found mistakes on some of their tax returns, but certainly not all. Most folks were proud of their circumstances and accomplishments and eager to discuss the reasons for filing their tax returns as they had done.
As to the end of the world and the inevitability of Joe Biden’s re-election, I found it best to smile, let the comments lie, and get off that bus when it pulled up to my stop.
Excellent discussion and I appreciate your extensive use of links to supporting references; however, the "Stanford study" link halfway through actually leads to a CNN news report on the study. The study itself can be found by entering "Measuring and Mitigating Racial Disparities in Tax Audits" in your url box.
Since the IRS collects no race information on individual returns the study "imputes" race using a common demographic tool based upon surname and geolocation, uniquely adding first names to sharpen the filter. This uncovers the racial disparity in audits but the study itself admits that nearly all (but not quite all) the disparity is due to audits of Earned Income Tax Credits (EITC) done cheaply by mail and with a relatively high incidence of "success" and revenue yield. Contrast this with the manpower/time/cost of an in-person, on-site audit of a high-income filer whose return has been prepared by competent, experienced advisors.
This could just be another example of "It's where the money is" expounded in the last century by the famous economist Willie Sutton.
I appreciate your perspective. I wish the Congress would enact a law requiring the President, VP, every member of Congress and the Supreme Court to prepare their own federal tax return and have those returns audited by the IRS.
Not that I want to pay more taxes but during my lifetime I have always had so little income that having to pay income tax meant that I had actually earned enough to owe income tax.
I have been doing my own taxes since I was 14 and each year I keep looking for the unreasonable changes that they have made. I wonder what would happen if law makers were required to take corses in economics.
My husband is an accountant and is pleased by the renewed funding and steps taken to make filing easier. And this is perhaps a coincidence but I know of two people who got into serious trouble for tax cheating/evasion and they are both Trump supporters now. When I see politicians knocking the IRS I think bad things about them and their supporters.
Ed- I appreciate the counter cultural narrative. I’ve had similar experiences with the IRS, but unfortunately many more of the bad type. Most recently I waited nearly a year for funds to be returned from a significant correction discovered (by me) from 2016.
Funding (or not funding) the IRS should be determined by what they are expected to do. Some of the historic gyrations you mention were coincident with efforts to simplify the tax code and relieve them of burden. We seem to have abandoned that. I am still a proponent, though, and am flummoxed about why HR25 has such headwinds. I wrote about it here: https://open.substack.com/pub/joelelorentzen/p/a-taxing-situation?r=1p5p1m&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post. Love to hear your thoughts!