|
Tax News Wednesday 12th September 2007
Missing or Erroneous ID numbers lose IRS billionsPotential losses of billions of dollars were revealed today by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. The watchdog, that oversees the Internal Revenue Service has released a report detailing over 3 million instances where miscellaneous income statements, with missing or erroneous ID were effectively ignored in 2004 alone. The statements reported earnings of approximately $150bn.If the ID numbers were not automatically matched by computer, to existing tax accounts, the IRS did not invest the resources to match them by other means. By taking a random sample of the unmatched IDs the inspector general’s office calculated that up to 6000 people earning in excess of $100,000 had not filed tax returns in 2004, this equates to over $600 million of lost tax revenue. Many of the misfiled statements were relating to remuneration for independent contractors rather than employees. This has led the office to urge Congress to force employers to check and verify the ID numbers by passing new legislation. In reply the IRS stated that it believed the costs of manually tracking and matching the erroneous IDs might outweigh any gain in tax revenue. Other Tax Recent News and Articles |
|