AP Exclusive: Likely tax cheats flock South, West

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-Excite

By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER

WASHINGTON (AP) - Worried the Internal Revenue Service might target you for an audit? You probably should be if you own a small business in one of the wealthy suburbs of Los Angeles.

You might also be wary if you're a small-business owner in one of dozens of communities near San Francisco, Houston, Atlanta or the District of Columbia.

A new study by the National Taxpayer Advocate used confidential IRS data to show large clusters of potential tax cheats in these five metropolitan areas. The IRS uses the information to target taxpayers for audits.

The taxpayer advocate, Nina Olsen, runs an independent office within the IRS. She got access to the data as part of an effort to learn more about why some taxpayers are more likely to cheat than others.

FULL story at link.


Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20130414/DA5L9JBG0.html

[bloomington-lib]

1. Make an example out of one the the big guys

[loudsue]

2. It's the SMALL business owners they're after. If it was the BIG guys,

we could wipe out our deficit over night.

[Orrex]

4. Obviously the only possible solution is deregulation

Doesn't that always fix everything?

[valerief]

9. And Guns for Infants. And sending off old people on rafts into the Pacific. And

More Guns for Infants.

[Orrex]

10. You totally don't get it.

The seniors on the raft should have guns too.


Duh.

[zbdent]

5. Ya ever notice that the "big" offenders get to get off with

paying a minimal fine? You know, a small percentage?

The little guys can't afford to fight ...

[Plucketeer]

6. You bet!

We're NOT gonna go after the Big Guys - when essentially, THEY call the shots!

[Frustratedlady]

3. Reason #5 for not complaining about freezing your butt off.

We have to search pretty hard to find good reason for suffering during the winter, but I never thought the IRS would be on the list.

[Paul E Ester]

7. I'm sure for the purposes of this study they did not include corporations.

Sole proprietorships make up about two-thirds of all U.S. businesses. Sole proprietors report business income on their individual tax returns and, the IRS says, they account for the biggest share of the tax gap, which is the difference between what taxpayers owe each year under the law and what they actually pay.

This is a direct attack on the middle class, blaming them for the "tax gap", even the term itself is a meme from the Reagan era.

The real tax gap comes from the corporations that fail to pay any share, legally through their manipulation of the tax code.

[ErikJ]

8. Florida is the tax cheat capital of the US.

90% of the scammers end up in Florida. They cant take your real estate assets there I guess is one reason.