IRS Brings New Focus to Auditing the Rich .

[SpartanDem]

Source: WSJ

WASHINGTON -- A new Internal Revenue Service enforcement unit targeting the very wealthy will help the tax agency decode partnerships, offshore trusts and other complex techniques used to hide income, IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman said Monday.

Dubbed the Global High Wealth Industry group, the unit will launch "a small number" of audits of individuals with assets or income in the tens of millions of dollars, Mr. Shulman told an accountants' trade group. An IRS official said the group would begin work on these initial audits in the next month.

The high-wealth group, housed in the IRS's large- and medium-sized business division, marks a sharpening of the IRS approach to auditing the very wealthy. Its creation is a response to the complex web of entities and transactions many high-net-worth individuals use to manage their financial affairs.

"You cannot assess compliance among the nation's wealthiest individuals by looking only at their 1040s ," Mr. Shulman said. "Our goal is to better understand the entire economic picture of the enterprise controlled by the wealthy individual and to assess the tax compliance of that overall enterprise."


Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125659261162008901.html?mod=rss_Today's_Most_Popular

[robinlynne]

1. right on right on.... I like these little things Obama does quietly behind the scenes.

[MindandSoul]

2. It just makes sense

to spend more of the IRS resources to audit the wealthy rather than the lower middle class! It may take just as long to audit a couple reporting an income of $60,000 a year, than to audit a couple reporting an income of $600,000 a year. . .and I bet the "fraud" that can be discovered are infinitely greater for the couple making $600,000 a year than for the first couple!
Just in term of penalties... it doesn't make sense to go after people who may be "defrauding" the IRS by $250.00 a year. .

[DBoon]

3. didn't Bush do the exact opposite?

target taxpayers of modest means, because there are more of them and because they lack the resources to fight back?

[CatWoman]

6. yes he did

there was no greater enemy to the middle class and poor.

[Lasher]

8. Junior's administration claimed it was more profitable to go after lower-income folks.

Despite facts to the contrary, they gutted the high income enforcement division. I guess they figured rich people would self-regulate. Good thing there's no statute of limitations on income tax evasion.

If there was ever anything the Bush administration was good at, it was looking the other way so the wealthy could do whatever they wanted.

[The Wizard]

16. Bush claimed it was too difficult

to go after the wealthy because they could afford high priced lawyers and accountants to defend themselves.
Bush did everything he could to make life more difficult for the working class.
Once a scumbag......

[kestrel91316]

9. Bush's IRS targeted me TWICE for audits, which had NEVER happened to me

before. They wasted a lot of time and energy and got a pittance for their efforts. The second auditor was practically APOLOGETIC for the whole thing - he had no idea why they wanted to look so closely at little old me. It was laughable.

[intheflow]

21. I was also one of their targets.

The year I was a grad student and made $8000. :eyes:

[Hello_Kitty]

4. About damn time. eom

[nilram]

17. ditto.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

5. This story...

Makes me very happy. Delighted. Enraptured.

[kestrel91316]

7. ABOUT. FUCKING. TIME......they are gonna hit pay dirt.

[Auggie]

10. Great news. Let's not forget Corporations either.

[HillWilliam]

11. I'll click my heels when that offshoring-like-a-mofo bastid

Phil Gramm is keelhauled and fined the bazillion he surely owes. Mr Swiss Bank And All Cozy With McKook hisse'f.

[treestar]

12. The poor things!

Being punished for their success again! :sarcasm:

[eggplant]

13. The GHW group?

Was I the only one to notice this? :-)

[justabob]

14. finally!

That is great news. I have never understood why the IRS spent more time on folks making 50K and down vs the other way around, financially speaking (I get the psychological/sociological beat-up-on-the-little-guy part). Why beat up on those at the bottom for a few hundred dollars, when for the same level of effort they could reap much higher fines, penalties and all the rest of it.

I am looking forward to see what comes of this. I am very curious about how much the very wealthy people (and especially corporations) impact the Budget by not paying what they should into the system.

[thelordofhell]

15. Operation "Blood From A Turnip"

I just hope it doesn't take millions of taxpayer dollars to bleed only a few hundred thousand from the uber rich scumbags of the U.S.

[SpartanDem]

18. Don't worry I think there is plenty of blood to be found

[midnight]

19. So they are done with their political enemies list, now they are going to get the real

tax dodgers.

[TomPaine76]

20. Willie Sutton running the IRS

Sounds good to me.