The IRS needs to focus less on $600 paypal and Venmo (and other similar) reporting on individuals who are just trying to make a living and actually hire qualified auditors to go after the true evaders.
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We agree on something, but politicians will never go for it.
And thereâs only plausible explanation, IMHO. Bribes, I mean campaign contributions.
One of the few times youâll hear me utter the words both sides.
There are lots of the things where the interests of office holders and their constituents donât totally overlap.
Yep
We really should go with a flat tax and if poor, do a progressive tax. The code is complex if you own rental etc itâs complex and there in lies the ability to cheat which is why the irs exists. Make it easy to pay taxes and reduce the tax breaks. Now we now all the complexity is due to taxing rentals and businesses with their loop holes but itâs an either or. The taxation policy is complex bc it drives businesses by giving such credits and loop holes so weâre stuck.
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Ainât gonna happen. While CPAâs look harmless with their horned rim glasses and visors, they have a pretty solid and successful lobby. 
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Itâs less about any cpa lobby and more about those employing or contracting them.
Itâs broader than that too. The government likes having the ability to incentivize behaviors.
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My sister was audited 6 years in a row. She was a contract piping designer and worked all over the country and in England and Australia and her returns were complicated. However, she used every legal option available and to be polite, most of the auditors didnât know about them. When she was called in, she had all of her files, and a copy of each IRS publication outlining each deduction she used. Invariably, her case was pushed up the line to more and more senior auditors. She never had to pay an additional dime. Finally, the IRS determined she was a unique individual that seemed to know more than most auditors and many CPAs and never bothered her again.
It was still a major hassle that should not have had to happen. Sandy was not some millionaire, but she did make over 200K a year and because of all her legal deductions for legitimate expenses incurred, she paid less than the normal amount. It seems the IRS really doesnât like people using the legal deductions provided by law.
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Pay your taxes and the IRS will literally never bother you.
I donât understand how this is a big deal.
The problem with a flat tax is poor people would pay more than they do now and rich people would pay less than they do now.
20% to someone making $100,000 will be more painful than 20% on $100,000,000.
Itâs got to be graduated. We stop at like a max rate of 35%. We need to keep on graduating.
35% of your income is plenty for the govt to take from anyone.
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Thatâs some funny stuff right there!
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Govt is you and me. This isnât a kingdom.
Government isnât the landlord. We are.
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If you donât pay your property taxes, what happens?
87,000 new agents and 5,000,000 rounds of ammunition.
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$700billion over 10 years is $70 billion per year. Divide $70 billion by 87,000 employees and that comes to $804,597.07 per employee. Add in the cost of proving office space, benefits, etc. for each employee, it will cost more money to get that $7 billion per year than the money saved from tax cheaters. Meanwhile, there will always be 87000 employees plus more employees to manage and provide those employeesâ payrolls, benefits, etc.
All told, all will have been accomplished is an increase in an already burdensome bureaucracy and additional expenses to be paid for by the taxpayers. But it sounds good to the average guy who pays his taxes on his meager income and resents the millionaires who seem to get away with everything. I would bet that most of those guys are just hiring their CPAs to come up with every legal loophole provided by congress. Congress provides those loopholes to garner campaign contributions from those who benefit from said loopholes.
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Thatâs $ 70 billion per year. The article claims itâs $ 584 billion to $1 Trillion per year that
goes uncollected.
I was in the process of correcting that as you were writing your reply. From the article banner:
"Beefing up IRS audits for the wealthy could increase federal revenues by $700 billion over next 10 years."
Yes, and there is this in the article too:
The agency said uncollected taxes in 2019 amounted to about $554 billion, though IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig said recently the figure could be as high as $1 trillion per year.
About 80 percent of that tax gap is attributable to people underreporting their incomes or taking too many deductions. The rest is people either not filing returns at all, or doing their taxes correctly and failing to pay what they owe.
And so the math you did comes out to over $804,000 / new employee. That seems like
a good return on an employee if those numbers hold true. I wouldnât mind have 10 employees
like that to maintain the lifestyle Iâve grown accustomed to 