comment: >
  
  Wasn’t it the GOP that wants to defund the IRS? Isn’t it the Biden admin trying to hire 80k new employees for the IRS?? It’s like we live in different worlds
context: Is there an study on how the returns are filed?
  It seems today via Turbotax or a small time tax advisor (HR Block, CPA firm in the corner store), they both would auto grab any kind of credit for you. 
  I think the onus is actually on the IRS--if someone qualify for the EITC they should be auto-added to the return. >
  
  I don't know what the rules are if you don't take a credit but since the IRS keeps records on how many people don't take the credit they probably don't care about fixing it. With how much of a problem this is and how much of a problem tax evasion is (almost our entire deficit in 2024 will be from tax evasion) the IRS should do everyone's taxes on their end and just send us the results. >
  
  It is less about the IRS as an organization “not caring” or anything of that nature. Rather, it is the rules (the law) that Congress passes. 
  The IRS as an organization is very much built around the rules. Following the rules, knowing the rules, enforcing the rules, etc. Exceptions do exist. But the rule is that the rules exist and must be followed. They also don’t like how the Congress has grossly over-complicated the tax code. Reading some of the IRS reports and studies is a fascinating exercise; they are frustrated as an organization and as people who pay taxes themselves. 
  If we want change we have to go through the legislative process. Unfortunately.
  For example, the IRS is certainly best positioned to process the overwhelming majority of tax filings. But it isn’t allowed to. Why? Because there are multi billion dollar enterprises built on filing taxes and portions of those revenues fund campaigns. Plus, distrusting the taxman is kind of central to the American story and ethos. 
  When was the last time you looked at your withholdings and thought “hell yeah! Doing my part! Woo!” Never. The answer is never. 
  Or when was the last time we met an IRS agent and thought “man, that person is doing it right. Making sure everyone is contributing to all the goods and services afforded to us just by living in this country.” Never. 
  The point is, Congress needs to be held accountable for the decades of crap they have added to the tax code. >
  
  This might make me sound strange, but I don't mind paying my share of taxes—note that I say this as a socialist.  For reference, my household's federal income tax liability is about $20k a year, give or take.  My wife is a Soldier and I see how government spending has helped regular folks (especially younger Servicemembers) make a decent living and provides needed services.
  Similarly, my state tax liability is about $6k.  Again, I never mind paying it and my state does a damn decent job of providing needed services at that level.
  And my wife's late friend (died in the 2000s) was an IRS agent who was a decent and kind person who did her best to help the average taxpayer.  My mother-in-law had positive interactions with the IRS a few years ago when she needed to sort out some issues with her small business taxes.
  I guess what I'm trying to say is that there are some exceptions.
  Edit to add: I do agree that some simplification of the tax code is needed.  I don't work in that area (as my full-time role is in telecom), but surely there are improvements that can be made. >
  
  Well, thanks for being the exception:)
  I am generally of the same opinion actually. Maybe we should start a viral thing? That would be wild. >
  
  The reason why Republicans won't say anything because acording to the conservatives, the system is hurting the right people. >
  
  It's not. It has nothing to do with the GOP at all. >
  
  Doesn’t it though? They always try to prove that systemic racism is made up, I’d like to see their answer/solution to this. 
  (We all know it’ll be “get rid of the IRS, problem solved”) >
  
  Because there's nothing racist about it.....
  The IRS audits the poor the most by a good amount and given black people have the highest poverty rate there's your answer!
  The problem here is poor people and frankly they really shouldn't be audited as much as they are given wtf can we really take. >
  
  That’s exactly what systemic racism is. It’s racism which is baked into the structure, not an intentional effort that is being sustained by people with racist goals. >
  
  I just don't understand, I really don't want to be rude but frankly I don't think you understand what racism even is....
  This isn't racism! The race plays 0 and I mean 0 in how the IRS operates they can't even see the race! For it to be racist it has to be against a specific race it's physically impossible for them to do that. >
  
  The racial causation is upstream. That's how systemic racism works. The point is not "boo, the IRS is full of racists". It's that the IRS's current practices combined with the persistent structural effects of racism lead to a situation where people are disadvantaged based on their race. You can even have systemic racism when the actual bigotry is entirely in the past. >
  
  No....that's not how it works!
  Ok stop trying to make everything about racism!
  If it has nothing to do with race it's not racist what about that is hard to understand? >
  
  
  the IRS's current practices combined with the persistent structural effects of racism lead to a situation where people are disadvantaged based on their race
  
  Do you agree with this statement? >
  
  No...how does race play a role? How?
  Again the IRS can't see race! So they're not at a disadvantage...
  And no being poor isn't racist either! >
  
  Do you acknowledge that poor people are disproportionately Black, and vice versa? >
  
  Any data about the rate at which those audits are finding issues? >
  
  Wasn't this just found out to be because there happens to be more mistakes in their filing? 
  There is no race line, the IRS doesn't know your race. 
  Doesn't the GOP fix this by their "Abolish the IRS" plan? 
  Oh it's MotherJones ...checks out. >
  
  What line on a 1040 do they ask what race you are? >
  
  The one where you put your common black name. >
  
  The IRS does not search for tax returns with common black names when choosing who to audit. >
  
  Which makes it even more important to figure out why people of one distinct race are being disproportionately targeted for audits.
  This stuff falls under systemic injustice, it's not deliberate but the effects are real. >
  
  Race shouldn't even be in the conversation. Our detection and enforcement should focus on reducing the number of false positives and increasing the number of true positives. When crafting detection methods we shouldn't count non-white false positives as double, or increase the threshold for flagging those who are non-white. The IRS doesn't need to know your race.
  We shouldn't avoid detection methods that reduce false positives because it benefits whites, or increases true positives because it impacts non-whites. >
  
  It doesn't mean the way it sounds I say the same thing. But it means the system is performing as the way it's supposed to >
  
  Do explain what you mean by that. are you trying to imply that black people commit a larger proportion of tax fraud?
  Because the article makes it clear that most of these audits end out being completely clear. >
  
  IRS targets poor communities, which happen to be predominantly black communities. >
  
  Imagine that… motherjones desperately blaming the GOP for anything and everything. >
  
  They actually did not do that.  But it is quite telling that even though you are attacking them, you still completely equate racism with Republicans.
  Pretty damn ridiculous that you are trying to be dishonest and honesty keeps slipping in there. >
  
  Doesn't the inflation reduction act add a ton of new IRS agents. Is that also the GOP's fault? >
  
  Did you read the article?
  The IRS focus on lower income audits that happen automatically and by mail is precisely because the IRS is underfunded and understaffed, as it's too expensive and requires too much manpower to go after rich tax cheats and complex tax schemes.
  
  Audit rates plummeted across the board after the GOP took back Congress in 2010 and proceeded to eviscerate the IRS’s enforcement budget. From 2011 to 2017, audits of EITC claimants declined by about 45 percent, but audits of taxpayers reporting income of $500,000 or more fell way more steeply—by as much as 78 percent.
  Starved of funding and accounting manpower by Republican lawmakers, the IRS bean-counters all but gave up on complex, high-dollar audits in favor of automated audits by mail—which now make us some 70 percent of all audits, and which the authors emphasize are “substantially cheaper” and “can be particularly burdensome for lower-income households.”
  Last year’s Inflation Reduction Act, which not a single congressional Republican supported, replenished the IRS’s coffers with almost $80 billion over 10 years. The enforcement component (roughly $46 billion) is expected to yield a 450 percent return by restoring the IRS’s ability to collect the taxes owed by rich Americans—including former president Donald Trump—who were rarely audited on his watch. Congressional Republicans are trying to repeal the new funding via the Family and Small Business Taxpayer Protection Act—a curious moniker for a bill that would mainly protect tax cheaters.
  The House bill also aims to claw back $403 million from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, a watchdog that generates reports such as this one, noting that the IRS had failed to collect more than 60 percent of 2019 taxes—some $2.4 billion—still owed by delinquent individuals with incomes of $1.5 million and up. In 2020, the Inspector General reported that nearly 880,000 “high income” non-filers from 2014 through 2016 still owed the government $46 billion—and that the 300 biggest delinquents owed about $33 million per head, on average. >
  
  I didn't know there were people who actually believed the IRS was only going to target rich people >
  
  That's a big claim to make.
  Occam thinks it is economics, not race.  Hanlon thinks Mother Jones isn't malicious. >
  
  The best you can get from that description is they still don't know what part of the modeling they have wrong that gives it the appearance of systemic racism.  Therefore it remains a Big Claim.
  I don't think you're malicious, either. >
  
  What do you think systemic racism is?
  
  Despite race-blind audit selection, we find that Black taxpayers are audited at 2.9 to 4.7 times the rate of non-Black taxpayers. The main source of the disparity is differing audit rates by race among taxpayers claiming the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).
  
  ...
  
  Black taxpayers, who accounted for an estimated 21 percent of EITC filers, were selected for 43 percent of the audits
  
  What is actually happening is a racially disparate and unjust outcome as a result of ostensibly neutral policy and methods. It's not an "appearance" of systemic racism. It is an example.
  The only things being modeled are alternatives to the currently employed methods that can reduce or prevent these sorts of unfair racially unjust outcomes >
  
  That does not follow.  Systemic racism is still fundamentally racism.  Targeting a particular subset of the population based on valid metrics that just happens to coincide almost exactly with a single racial minority is not a good look, but it isn't automatically racism.  It could still be valid.  You may want to change it anyway because a less efficient outcome is more desirable than the appearance of impropriety, but that's not the same as it actually being systemic racism. >
  
  This way they can say…”look at all the good the IRS is doing”, as long as they stay away from that corporate money. >
  
  Biden's in charge of the IRS right now, so the premise is wrong. It should be "why?" Or "why won't ANYONE say anything?" >
  
  Why would you say something like that >
  
  Because they question any black person making more money than they think they should. >
  
  Really, and you are worried about the GOP did not say something.  Not saying something is an absence of knowledge not an opinion.  Are you buying this bogeyman argument.  Biden just beefed it up with up to 87K more agents.  Didn't some crazies in the GOP just propose eliminating it with a flat VAT tax? >
  
  "That's our bag, baby, yeah!" >
  
  Can we eliminate the IRS yet? >
  
  Just learning the IRS is too powerful? >
  
  So the GOP created a racist algorithm? Nice >
  
  How is this the GOPs fault? I seriously don’t get it >
  
  It's not. It has nothing to do with the GOP at all. It's an algorithm developed by the IRS.