Hacker News Reader

As the article states the "audits" are for the most part (~85% of the time) a letter sent to the person asking them to provide documentation for something.

I would think most people think of an audit as having to meet in person with an IRS representative going over their taxes.

View on HN

I had one of these audits last year when my tax guy claimed a tuition tax break (graduated this time :) which I had already fully utilized during my younger years before dropping out. The IRS sent a letter saying "you already claimed this credit" and I marked a form indicating I was no longer claiming the credit and sent it back. The entire process put my refund on hold, but once cleared up I still got a refund.

The author of the article asks "Does it make sense from either an equity or revenue standpoint to focus IRS’s limited firepower on the poorest taxpayers among us?" But he has only established that the IRS sends more of these letters to the (self-reported) poorest taxpayers, and not that they actually spend more of their limited firepower on them.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com