Comments on: Owe The IRS? No Problem!

Contributor Lloyd Garver Says the Tax Agency Seems To Be Rewarding Its Worst Customers

[davidlar2]

To Joshdestardi:
Let''s face up to the point that the votes and popular support are just not there for the progressive agenda. Perhaps people listen to right wing talk radio because they agree with it rather than the other way around. Otherwise, progressive radio might have been just as successful. I''m tired of the progressive insistence that anyone who thinks would be a progressive and anyone who is not a progressive is just not thinking and being led.

And for the record, I''m a libertarian who is equally frustrated with the christian right and progressive agendas. And I haven''t been led to this position by the great libertarian conspiracy that is keeping me from adopting progressive opinions.

[bthrasher102]

I think the author should have done more research than just watching the commercials. Most of these are scams in which people pay a fee to the company and then find out that they don''t qualify for the IRS program. I guess it''s just typical journalism, see something that looks like abuse, do no research, and present it in a way that makes it look as bad as possible. Also, where the hell did jon_mccain find that under 25K taxpayers were 6 times more likely to be audited. I looked at the website and the following is all I could find: http://trac.syr.edu/tracirs/highlights/current/ratesTab3.html

[eggy1620]

jon_mccain. . . the reason why $25K earners are six times as likely to be audited than $200K earners is because there are at least six times as many $25K earners as there are $200K earners. Simple statistics determines your likelihood of being audited. Not some vast right wing conspiracy

[jon_mccain]

The reason the IRS is willing to settle is their priority has been changed from upper income to mid and low level taxpayers who don''t have large amounts of cash and assets lying around.

In 2006 Bush and the Republican Congress, unable to eliminate the estate tax, cut funding to the IRS. The IRS said they would in turn have to lay off almost half of their estate attorneys that generate about $2200 each for every hour worked.

Conversely, taxpayers reporting less than $25,000 in income were six times more likely to undergo IRS audits in 2005 than those reporting earnings of $200,000 or more, according to the public-interest group Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, affiliated with Syracuse University