{{ The Internal Revenue Service is preparing to shed as much as 50 percent of its staff, according to four people familiar with the matter, a significant cut that could jeopardize the agency’s ability to complete its basic mission of collecting taxes. }}
Remember, when millionaires and billionaires pay less, the middle-class has to pay more to make up the difference.
The dumbest thing you can do in America, tax wise, is to work for wage & salary income.
intercst
If they lose 50% of their people even the middle class will be able to blow off their taxes. The chances of getting caught will be lower than ever and enforcement will take years if they can even manage that. And going after small fry tax cheats will never be cost effective.
Except that the middle class largely works for wages, and has their taxes collected every pay day. Sure, they could blow off their tax returns, but they’d still be paying taxes. It is the rich that earn income without having taxes collected from them every time they are paid.
Who has the bigger opportunity to avoid paying taxes? And who stands to benefit from less oversight by IRS auditors?
—Peter
That won’t happen. Wage & salary income is subject to withholding and that makes it much harder to evade taxes.
intercst
fwiw, as I ponder the tax forms spread on my living room floor (being a bachelor has advantages), I find I have significant refunds due. Considering the havoc in DC, I might just fill in the line “amount of refund to be applied to 2025 taxes”, so the IRS has a year to get sorted out.
Steve
I am guessing that that we are now on a path of trickle down corruption starting at the top. I will use myself as an example of John Q Middle Class Citizen (jqm) for short. Client gives me cash retainer, I fill out a receipt, give cash and receipt to paralegal, cash goes through the system, gets reported, etc. Jqc follows the rules because it is the right thing to do and they assume that the majority of citizens do the same.
Then you see the system fall apart. You see your president, your Congresspersons, your Supreme Court Justices and their billionaire cronies paying little or no taxes at all, and suffering no consequences even when they are brazenly corrupt.
Slowly at first, and then snowballing from there, the whole system descends into a downward path to corruption. Banana Republic. I think the snowball is gathering steam right now.
Oh! Good catch, Pthy. I guess I’ve been retired too long.