WSJ: IRS Launches Audit Offensive Against Wealthy Americans
Paul L. Caron
The IRS is stepping up audits of wealthier taxpayers as part of a multiyear effort to crack down on tax avoidance. According to the agency's latest statistical report for the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, the percentage of taxpayers who were audited increased in every category of AGI above $500,000, compared with a year earlier.
The biggest jumps came at the top of the income ladder. About 18% of Americans earning at least $10 million were audited in fiscal 2010, up from 11% in fiscal 2009, according to the IRS. For those earning $500,000 to $1 million, the audit rate rose to 3.4% from 2.8%. ...
Andrew Mattson, a CPA at Moler, Nixon & Williams in Campbell, Calif., has a redacted copy of a nine-page document request from an IRS "wealth squad" in June 2010 that contained more than 60 detailed questions. Among the demands: details on assets transferred to children or relatives, hedge-fund or private-equity investments, asset appraisals and copies of compensation agreements.
Here is the data from my prior post, IRS Increased Audit Rate of Richest Americans by 73% in 2010:
The 2010 IRS Data Book released today reports that audits of the highest-income Americans (AGI >$10 million) increased 73.4% in FY 2010:
|
AGI |
FY 2009 |
FY 2010 |
|
100k/200k |
0.67% |
0.71% |
|
200k/500k |
1.86% |
1.92% |
|
500k/1m |
2.77% |
3.37% |
|
1m/5m |
5.35% |
6.67% |
|
5m/10m |
7.52% |
11.55% |
|
>10m |
10.60 |
18.38% |
taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2011/04/wsj-irs-launches.htmlApril 4, 2011