KIRO NEWSRADIO OPINION
Ross: Trillions in taxes are being stolen by the wealthy
May 22, 2023, 8:35 AM | Updated: 9:28 am
FILE - In this June 15, 2018 photo, twenty dollar bills are counted (AP Photo/Elise Amendola, File)
Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS
(AP Photo/Elise Amendola, File)
Can we agree that cutting the extra money for IRS tax enforcement doesn’t help anybody except the crooks?
This keeps coming up on the wish list for the members of Congress who are pushing the debt crisis. For some reason, members who condemn defunding the cops are somehow fine with defunding the IRS auditors, whose job is to go after taxes already owed!
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They want stricter work requirements for people on food stamps, but they look the other way as trillions of tax dollars go uncollected because the IRS is too understaffed to collect it.
Why do I say, “Trillions of tax dollars go uncollected”? Because I watch C-SPAN.
And on April 13, 2021, IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig, who was appointed by Donald Trump, said this at a Congressional hearing.
“The published tax gap estimate of the Internal Revenue Service, the current one that’s out, and we’ll be issuing one next year, but the published tax gap estimate is for tax years 2011 to 2013, has a gross tax gap of $441 billion,” Rettig said.
But that doesn’t count tax evasion through cryptocurrency, offshore accounts, and money hidden in illegal shell corporations. And so Mr. Rettig went on to say that the real gap could be much higher.
“If you add those in, I think it would not be outlandish to believe that the actual tax gap could approach and possibly exceed $1 trillion per year,” Rettig said.
He said, “$1 trillion per year.” So if he’s right, it means that since he uttered those words, $2 trillion has gone uncollected, and so the national debt is $2 trillion higher today than it needs to be!
Again, I stress this is money that could be collected without raising general tax rates. It’s already owed. It’s been shoplifted from the treasury by people who are not subject to withholding the way most of us are, and who know most members of Congress will just stand there and let them stuff the money in their raincoats and walk out the door.
But God forbid one of those tax cheats violates the work requirement for food stamps – then they’d be in big trouble.
Listen to Seattle’s Morning News with Dave Ross and Colleen O’Brien weekday mornings from 5 – 9 a.m. on KIRO Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.
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