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Comment by ceejayoz | Hacker News Reader

Intentional budget cuts and a harder target.

https://www.propublica.org/article/irs-sorry-but-its-just-ea...

> For now, the IRS says, while it agrees auditing more wealthy taxpayers would be a good idea, without adequate funding there’s nothing it can do. “Congress must fund and the IRS must hire and train appropriate numbers of [auditors] to have appropriately balanced coverage across all income levels,” the report said.

> Since 2011, Republicans in Congress have driven cuts to the IRS enforcement budget; it’s more than a quarter lower than its 2010 level, adjusting for inflation.

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Budget increases will not increase enforcement of rich, politically connected individuals. It will just increase the number of "low hanging fruit" middle-class people they will go after.

Besides, many of the best tax evasion strategies are legal -- you just need an army of lawyers and a large pile of cash to deploy them.

interesting. what makes you think so?

With enough lawyers you can get a low settlement value if you are found wrong.

Your average middle class person can't afford to risk taking the irs to court.

If you doubled or tripled the number of cops in LA, would they solve more difficult crimes in the monied and lawyered Hollywood Hills? Or would they go after more petty crime in South Central, where it’s easy to get a conviction?

that's a poor comparison. The IRS are not cops, and the monied and lawyered do not commit petty crime at a high level whereas they do commit tax evasion at a much higher level.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRS_Criminal_Investigation

ok, so where I from tax fraud is also known as tax sin Steuersünde. it's not like an obstacle that you evade or a game where you dodge the ball. it's fraud and a crime, and not a game to win.

consequentially the German IRS has bought data from Swiss and Liechtenstein tax haven whistleblowers. several times so. and to the amazement and applause of the public, very prominent figures went to jail. like soccer legend Uli Hoeneß.

the corresponding Wikipedia article is surprisingly not available in English yet:

https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steuers%C3%BCnder-CD

long story short: if you, the American people, elect representatives who want a fair system, you will get a fair system.

of course IRS will go after tax fraud at scale if you make them do that.

> many of the best tax evasion strategies are legal

Isn't the premise of the linked paper that the wealthy use these foreign banks to avoid getting caught underreporting their income and assets? That's not legal.

Tax evasion is by definition illegal so not sure what you mean.

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