Summary
Mass firings at the IRS under the Trump administration threaten ongoing audits of wealthy individuals and corporations, potentially leading to millions in lost tax revenue.
The cuts primarily impacted employees in the Large Business & International Division, many of whom had extensive tax expertise.
With fewer agents and specialists, complex cases may be prematurely closed, undermining enforcement against high-end tax evasion.
Critics warn this weakens IRS oversight and emboldens tax avoidance among the ultrawealthy.
The rich have more assets and income sources and have staff who do a bunch of financial chicanery to try to hide their tax evasion. Auditing the rich requires significantly more work than the poor.
These decisions are not about doing what makes sense. The IRS is a revenue generator. Spending money on the IRS brings in significantly more money in unpaid taxes than it costs.
The goal is not to do what’s best for the government’s budget. Its really about ensuring that their criminal friends can continue to get away with it.
but the payback from auditing the rich and finding cheats is way more than the few cents per poor.
It’s high risk/high reward, vs low risk/low reward for lower income households. However I’m sure there are things like qoutas, etc. that push auditors to go after the easy wins.
Not to mention you loose some big cases against wealthy people cause they have a lot of money, and they come after your job or make the IRS look ineffective.