The IRS has collected $1 billion in back taxes from high-wealth tax cheats — a milestone meant to showcase how the agency is making use of the money it received as part of the Biden administration’s signature climate, health care and tax package signed into law in 2022.
I don’t think this is intended as a full and complete accounting. Just an effort to publicize a win and pressure tax cheats.
It’s nowhere close to a full accounting. The IRS just plucked some extremely low hanging fruit by going after 1600 specific individuals that they already knew owed at least $250,000.
For TY 2024 the effort is being expanded and they are going to go after 25,000 high income earners who didn’t file taxes (at all) in TY 2017 and later. The IRS knows who they are and has already sent them letters warning them that their audits are coming soon.
It’s good stuff but its still more low hanging fruit. The hard work is going to start in TY 2025 when they start auditing the large companies.
There is the small hope that all this work has lead to better processes and checks to make finding problems, mistakes, and abuse more easily and cheaply.