Reply #40: Hunt for Nonfilers Turns up Millionaires, Lawyers, CPAs [View All]

[54anickel]

http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=99494

AccountingWEB.com - Jul-19-2004 - In a crackdown on people who have not filed their tax returns, state and federal officials are finding millionaires, medical professionals, lawyers and other heavy hitters.
For example, the suspected list of nonfilers in California for 2002 includes 865 millionaires, 6,756 lawyers, 1,458 CPAs and 20,473 medical professionals, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Taxpayers who still haven't filed "have some explaining to do," said Steve Westly, the state controller and chairman of the California Franchise Tax Board.

Some people don’t file on time due to health problems or family crises. Tax-collection agencies also make mistakes, and disputes over whether someone who lives in one state needs to file in another are common. In some cases, nonfilers owe very little, said Ernest Dronenburg of Deloitte & Touche in San Diego and a former chairman of California's Franchise Tax Board.

Officials from the Internal Revenue Service and state agencies are hunting down people who don’t file for years, a problem that costs billions and has been difficult to beat. Officials are turning to sophisticated document matching programs, information sharing and tax amnesty programs to recover back taxes.

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