1 in 6 Americans Blow off Paying Taxes
Something I wrote for Associated Content…
Around 1 in 6 Americans Do Not Pay Their Taxes (Digg it here).
According to an IRS spokesperson in an article about anti-war tax resistance, 16.3% of Americans are in non-compliance with their taxes according to the Associated Press.That isn’t fudging the numbers or coming up with creative tax deductions; it’s simply evading taxes outright. While the story about the anti-war movement calling on people to not pay taxes to protest the war is interesting, the fact that a growing number of Americans are simply evading taxes is startling.
According to IRS estimates, that means there is $345 billion in uncollected taxes per year or roughly 2.6% of the national GDP. As a result of collection efforts, the IRS has generated over $48 billion of that amount in 2006 (or about 15%) according to CNN. These estimates do not include corporations using tax shelters (which “legally” protect them from taxes) or the rich using similar tactics. In 2006, the IRS audited about 1.3 million tax returns out of 130 million filed or an audit rate of about 1% according to an IRS source quoted by CNN. With over 16% overtly flouting the IRS, at best only 1% of those will even be challenged.
