High-income earners under IRS radar
US taxman increases audits of taxpayers
Audits of US taxpayers earning over $1m have increased by a third, the
Internal Revenue Service has revealed as it
moved to get tough on its scrutiny of high income earners.
The number of audits of taxpayers earning income of $1m (£527,000) or more
jumped 33% to about 17,015 audited returns in the fiscal year ended 30
September, up from 12,835 of such audits a year earlier.
According to
Mark Everson,
the IRS commissioner, this equates to 1 in every 16 US millionaires.
‘You’re going to hear from us if you’re earning that kind of money and we
think there’s a problem,’ Everson warned in a teleconference.
Overall, taxpayers with income of $100,000 or more (including millionaires)
faced 257,851 audits, up from 219,208 a year earlier, representing almost 2% of
all such returns.
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