The notion that increased IRS resources would primarily go to crack down on the rich is contrary to current and past IRS practices, as well as basic logic.
▪️The rich use accountants to file taxes. They know precisely how to find all of the legal tax breaks and avenues to shelter income. If audited, they have a professional to defend them. Very few rich people would jeopardize their wealth by violating tax law, especially when they can find legal avenues to lower them.
▪️It’s the poor and working class who are far more likely to cheat on their taxes. The gig workers, tip workers, doing jobs for cash off the books, fledgling small businesses, etc. They have an incentive to hide income from the IRS, but are also much less sophisticated at it, and usually have no one to defend them in an audit.
▪️Thus, if you are an agency trying to find unpaid taxes, fraud is far more likely to be found among poor and working class tax returns, Plus, they will be largely unable or unwilling to defend themselves in a tax case. It’s far more lucrative to target them, that is the reality of the incentives at play.
▪️Note: this isn’t suggesting a moral failing among the poor/working class. Especially if you believe taxation is theft/coercion, not paying taxes is simply trying to keep your own money. But it is a legal failing and something the IRS can take action on.
It’s bizarre to see them seesaw back and forth that Trump is totally clueless and aloof, just golfing all day, then all of a sudden he’s a dangerous king/dictator who’s diligently plotting to seize absolute power.
▪️This one is frustrating because, while it’s nice to see the vigor and speed that DOGE is acting with, they’re also sloppy with some of their findings. This is not some bombshell, millions of dead people’s SS numbers aren’t being paid out to fraudsters.
▪️This problem has been known for some time, you can read an inspector general’s report from 2015 about millions of names on the SS “numident” not being correctly annotated for deaths, even though they were older than 112 (the oldest known American at the time).
https://oig-files.ssa.gov/audits/full/A-06-14-34030_0.pdf
▪️There are innocent explanations for some of these. Expatriates that died outside the country, for example. Or immigrants given temporary work permit who returned to their country, people issued new numbers for various reasons, etc. However, most are simply due to the govt not diligently keeping track of deaths.
▪️It’s embarrassing that the govt has millions of numbers on the numident that are ...
