Increase Funding to the IRS for FY2015
We will begin a series on how decreased funding of the IRS is hurting the IRS’s performance and hurting our collection of tax receipts needed to sustain our federal budget and decrease our budget deficit. It is not only imperative that the IRS funding be restored to its former level but be expanded by $3 billion per year above that former level.
In March 2014, the IRS released its audit results for 2013. They were not encouraging. Total audits of 1.4 million individual tax returns were down by 5% from 2012 and were the lowest since 2008. Audits of high income tax payers with adjusted gross income of $10 million or more have decreased from 30% in 2011 to 24.2% in 2013. This is due to budget cuts since 2010 and these budget cuts have continued in FY2014 as the IRS budget was cut by 4%.
When is Congress and the President going to wake up and spend the money to insure our IRS collects the taxes owed under our current tax laws. It is not fair that most of us are paying our fair share and others are allowed to pay less than their fair share. We need a responsible Congress and President.
Harry Pukay-Martin
