Tax Scrutiny Part II
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
The House Ways and Means Committee will start hearings Thursday
(1/20/11) on reforming our enormously costly and always expanding
tax code.
The IRS National Taxpayer Advocate recently released its annual
report to Congress. In addition to addressing time and
money spent complying with the enormous tax code, the report
questioned the value of a massive surge in the filing of liens,
noting that in the past seven years the IRS has filed more than 5
million tax liens.
In Fiscal Year 2010 alone, the IRS filed 1.1 million liens
compared to 168,000 in FY 1999 - a mind-boggling 550 percent
increase. Despite millions of liens filed, annual revenue
collected by the IRS's Collection function has remained flat (on an
inflation-adjusted basis), the report finds. Currently, the
IRS files tax liens on delinquent taxpayers who owe $5,000 or
more.
"By filing a lien against a taxpayer with no money and no
assets, the IRS often collects nothing, yet it inflicts long-term
harm on the taxpayer by making it harder for him to get back on his
feet when he does get a job," National Taxpayer Advocate Nina E.
Olson said. "Absent data that show liens make a meaningful
contribution to revenue collection and especially in this economy,
I find it unacceptable that the IRS continues to torment
financially struggling taxpayers in this way."
ShareThis