sltrib.com
IRS Lacks Resources To Fight Tax Evasion
Wednesday, September 25, 2002
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON -- The Internal Revenue Service is losing the war on tax evasion because the methods of cheating grow increasingly sophisticated while the IRS has barely enough resources to keep pace, the agency chief said in a report Tuesday.
The conflict between a declining work force and complex avoidance schemes has created "a huge gap between the number of taxpayers whom the IRS knows are not filing, not reporting or not paying what they owe, and our capacity to require them to comply," said Charles Rossotti in a report to the IRS Oversight Board.
"We are winning the battle but losing the war," said Rossotti, whose five-year term as IRS commissioner ends Nov. 12.
Since 1997, Rossotti said the number of income-tax returns filed has risen by 12 million, with tax collections increasing $527 billion and refunds growing by $121 billion. At the same time, the IRS has struggled to implement a series of new reform and tax laws, and its number of full-time personnel dropped by 16 percent from 1992 to 2001. |
