IRS Cracks Down on Filthy Rich Who Evade $150 BILLION in Taxes
For years, the IRS was too broke to take on America’s richest and most sophisticated tax filers, the agency’s commissioner, Daniel Werfel, said in a new interview. Now, he says, the government has wealthy tax dodgers squarely in its sights—and it’s using artificial intelligence to aid the crackdown.
“When we were underfunded, we lost capacity to figure out what was going on with complex tax returns. We didn't lose that much capacity on simple returns,” Werfel told CNBC. Because of new funding secured by the Inflation Reduction Act, he said, the IRS once again has the resources to sift through more difficult cases.
According to Werfel, “millionaires and billionaires that either don't file or are underreporting their income” cost the government $150 billion in lost income per year. He said the renewed focus on the wealthy—generally, people making over $400,000 per year—will make the system more fair, since the agency previously was better equipped to audit low- and middle-income filers.