Who’s More Likely to Be Audited: A Person Making $20,000 — or $400,000?

If you claim the earned income tax credit, whose average recipient makes less than $20,000 a year, you’re more likely to face IRS scrutiny than someone making twenty times as much. How a benefit for the working poor was turned against them.

News Story (NATIONAL)

Paul Kiel, Jesse Eisinger
ProPublica
December 12, 2018
READ THE FULL STORY HERE

Tags: Tax Relief

Organizations mentioned/involved: Texas RioGrande Legal Aid (TRLA), Prairie State Legal Services (northern Illinois), Legal Aid of Arkansas (LAA) (Jonesboro, AR)

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DETAILS

Budget cuts have crippled the IRS over the past eight years. Enforcement staff has dropped by a third. But while the number of audits has fallen across the board, the impact has been different for the rich and poor. For wealthy taxpayers, the story has been rosy: Not only has the audit rate been cut in half, but audits now tend to be less thorough.