Internal Revenue Service: Efforts to Identify and Combat Abusive Tax Schemes Have Increased, but Challenges Remain
Abstract
In early 2001, several congressional hearings and related press reports raised the issue of increased promotion and use of various forms of organized tax evasion such as abusive tax schemes. More recently, in April 2002, the Commissioner of Internal Revenue (IRS) testified that identifying and combating actively promoted tax schemes are IRS's highest compliance priorities. These abusive tax schemes represent a significant loss of tax revenue to the Treasury. Furthermore, tax schemes give the appearance that the tax system is unfair, which in turn can undermine taxpayer confidence in the tax system. To respond to your request, we interviewed IRS and other appropriate agencies' officials and obtained documents related to the extent of abusive schemes and IRS's efforts to combat them. Our review focused primarily on abusive tax schemes that are used by individuals rather than those used by corporations. Our scope and methodology is discussed in more detail in a separate section of this report.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 01, 2002
- Accession Number
- ADA401913
Entities
Organizations
- United States Government Accountability Office