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WASHINGTON (AP) — People and businesses underpaid their taxes by an estimated 17 percent in the most recent year studied, meaning they failed to send the government $450 billion it was owed, according to an Internal Revenue Service report released Friday.
The study covered 2006, the most recent for which the IRS said it had data available. The amount of underpaid taxes far exceeded the size of the entire federal budget deficit at the time
After IRS audits and other enforcement efforts, non-compliance shrank to 14 percent, leaving the final amount of unpaid taxes at $385 billion. That is still larger than the budget deficit for fiscal 2006, which was $248 billion. Fiscal years begin in October of the previous year.
I believe liberals owe George W. Bush an apology, at least for the first 6 years of his Presidency. Afterall, it is the IRS that is responsible for tax collection, and in 2006, uncollected taxes far exceeded the Bush budget deficits.
Unbelievable, right? So if in 2006 the uncollected taxes were almost double the budget deficit, then it's reasonable to assume that the years 2001-2006 were just as much, if not more, as a percentage of the deficit.
In other words, George W. Bush DID NOT run a budget deficit through 2006. It was the IRS who completely failed the American people.
I look forward to seeing which liberals on this forum are brave enough to opine, much less concede that their interpretation of Bush's policies were completely misguided.
The IRS is part of the executive branch, is it not? If they did a crappy job collecting taxes, who should we blame?
First, the blame should rest with the IRS. Then the blame should rest with Congress if in fact the IRS was underfunded (no proof of that in the article). Last, blame George W. Bush if you must, although we've heard how many times that Obama is not held to the same standard? (Fast and Furious anyone?)
If all the departments are autonomous, who can be held accountable?
That's the trouble, the IRS has not had funding to do their job for as long as i can remember. Kinda like the ATF. Nobody likes them either.
Funding might a problem. But shouldn't the role of the IRS be first and foremost collecting taxes? I'd be interested in seeing the cost per employee vs. the cost of auditing tax returns. I'd bet there are far more people doing administrative BS than actually doing the grunt work of collecting taxes. This is very common in government.....I would expect that the IRS is any different.
Oh and from the article: "That is chiefly because significant portions of the underpaid taxes are believed to come from businesses and individuals who report information about their income that is difficult for the IRS to verify.
"It's hard to get to that," said Clint Stretch, a tax policy expert for Deloitte Tax LLP. "Nobody wants a bunch of IRS police hammering on small business people."
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