Small income = audit; big income = "howdy pal"

By Lee Russ

Monday, April 03, 2006 at 06:21 PM

I know this won't shock you the way it might have a few years ago:  a study of the IRS and audits has found that in 2005, people reporting less than $25,000 in income were six times more likely to be called into the IRS for a personal audit than those reporting income of more than $200,000.

At least we know that the IRS is putting its limited resources to good use.  After all, you never know when somebody claiming $23,000 in income is, in reality, a millionaire blatantly misrepresenting his income.  Just the fact that you had the good faith to claim a lot of income probably shows that you're trustworthy, right?

And just think about how efficient it is to go through an entire audit in order to collect those huge underpayments by the low earners--sometimes $200 or $300 maybe.

If you aren't embarrassed by this government yet, you must be part of it.