Booting Earth Optimization System
Thank you for your patience. Your civilization is very important to us.
Thank you for your patience. Your civilization is very important to us.
Agency Report Card
Provide America's taxpayers top quality service by helping them understand and meet their tax responsibilities
Provide America's taxpayers top quality service by helping them understand and meet their tax responsibilities
2013 IRS targeting scandal — Congress retaliates by cutting budget 20% over next 5 years ↗
2017 Audit rate for millionaires drops to 1.4% — lower than for EITC recipients making <$25K ↗
2022 Inflation Reduction Act — $80B IRS funding approved ↗
2023 $20B of IRA funding rescinded in debt ceiling deal — before agents are even hired ↗
IRS operating costs were flat in nominal terms from FY2010 ($12.4B) to FY2018 ($11.7B) while the gross tax gap doubled from $345B (TY2001) to $696B (TY2022 projection). The individual audit rate fell from 1.11% (FY2010) to 0.59% (FY2018); the IRS has examined about 0.3% of individual returns for tax years 2019–2021. IRA funding raised operating costs to $18.2B in FY2024.
| Year | IRS operating costs (IRS Data Book Table 6-2, fiscal year, nominal USD; includes Inflation Reduction Act costs from FY2023) | Gross tax gap by tax year (USD billions; IRS latest estimate; multi-year periods plotted at the middle year as annual averages; TY2017+ are projections) | Individual returns examined in fiscal year ÷ returns filed the prior calendar year (%), IRS Data Book, FY2000–FY2018 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | $8.26B | – | 0.49 |
| 2001 | – | 345 | – |
| 2002 | $9.06B | – | – |
| 2004 | $9.76B | – | 0.77 |
| 2006 | $10.6B | 472 | – |
| 2008 | $11.3B | – | 1.01 |
| 2009 | – | 394 | – |
| 2010 | $12.3B | – | 1.11 |
| 2012 | $12.1B | 438 | 1.03 |
| 2014 | $11.6B | – | 0.86 |
| 2015 | – | 496 | – |
| 2016 | $11.7B | – | 0.7 |
| 2018 | $11.8B | 549 | 0.59 |
| 2020 | $12.3B | – | – |
| 2021 | – | 708 | – |
| 2022 | $14.3B | 696 | – |
| 2024 | $18.2B | – | – |
“Six lines of computer code replace 74,000 pages of tax code”
Full-time IRS staff interpreting the tax code
Cost to run the IRS each year
The Internal Revenue Code and associated regulations
Hours Americans spend on tax compliance each year
“You defunded the one agency that generates revenue. The IRS collects four dollars for every one dollar you spend on it. You cut its budget and the tax gap doubled to nearly seven hundred billion. On my planet, we would call this self-sabotage. Here you call it fiscal conservatism.”
They extract from the system without paying into it
$1.2B profit
Federal tax paid: $0. Effective rate: 0%.
Paid zero federal income tax on billions in profit
$2.9B profit
Federal tax paid: $0. Effective rate: 0%.
Paid zero federal income tax on billions in profit
$2.6B profit
Federal tax paid: $0. Effective rate: 0%.
Paid zero federal income tax on billions in profit
$1.2B profit
Federal tax paid: $0. Effective rate: 0%.
Paid zero federal income tax on billions in profit
$2.1B profit
Federal tax paid: $0. Effective rate: 0%.
Paid zero federal income tax on billions in profit
$320M/yr
$6.4B total (1998–2024)
Deregulation, weaken Dodd-Frank, block fiduciary rules, maintain carried interest loophole
Glass-Steagall repealed (1999). $16.1T in Fed emergency lending (2008). Zero bankers jailed. Carried interest taxed at 20% not 37%.
On a well-run planet, this agency would have been deprecated centuries ago. Here is what replaces it.
Automated Revenue Service — Internal Revenue Service