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Regulation and Compliance > Federal Regulation > IRS

IRS Cracks Down on 175 Millionaire Tax Cheats

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What You Need to Know

  • The IRS says it recovered $38 million from delinquency cases against wealthy taxpayers in the past few months.
  • The agency is touting its crackdown efforts after receiving an $80 billion 10-year funding boost.
  • Some of the tax dodgers were sentenced for crimes like tax evasion and money laundering, the IRS says.

In the last few months, the Internal Revenue Service has closed about 175 delinquent tax cases for millionaires, generating $38 million in recoveries as part of its bid to crack down on wealthy tax cheats, the agency said Friday.

“This is just the start,” the IRS said in a statement. “We will continue to go after delinquent millionaires as we ramp up enforcement capabilities” through the Inflation Reduction Act, which increased the IRS budget by roughly $80 billion over 10 years.

In recent months, the IRS states, its criminal Investigation team has closed “a lengthy list of cases where wealthy taxpayers have been sentenced for tax evasion, money laundering and filing false tax returns.”

Instead of paying taxes, “these evaders spent money owed to the government on gambling at casinos, vacations and the purchase of luxury goods,” the IRS states.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said Friday in a statement that “Democrats promised better taxpayer service and a crackdown on wealthy tax cheats when we passed the Inflation Reduction Act, and this new report shows that the IRS is delivering on both.”

Added Wyden: “This great news about high-income tax enforcement comes on the heels of the smoothest tax filing season in many years. If the wealthy pay their fair share, there will be more headroom in the budget for Congress to address big priorities like shoring up Medicare and Social Security, improving education and rebuilding crumbling roads and bridges.”

In one case, the IRS said that one high-income taxpayer was ordered to pay more than $6 million in restitution.

Another “high-dollar scheme” surfaced in Puerto Rico.

“We recently identified about 100 high-income individuals claiming benefits in Puerto Rico without meeting the residence and source rules involving U.S. possessions,” the IRS states. “These wealthy individuals are attempting to avoid U.S. taxation on U.S. sourced income, and we expect many of these cases to proceed to criminal investigation.”

As part of the agency’s effort to go after unlawful offshore tactics, the IRS and Treasury issued proposed rules in June “that define Maltese personal retirement schemes used to avoid U.S. taxes as listed transactions,” the agency explained.

“We are already working to identify taxpayers that are improperly using Malta-U.S. Treaty rules to improperly claim exemptions. The IRA will enable us to forcefully find tax avoiders who leverage these offshore schemes.”

Millionaire Non-Filers

The IRS said that it “continues to intensify work” around wealthy individuals who do not file tax returns and instead used the money to make lavish purchases.

In one recently closed case, an individual used funds owed to the government to buy a Maserati and a Bentley, the IRS said.

“Prior to the Inflation Reduction Act, more than a decade of budget cuts prevented IRS from keeping pace with the increasingly complicated set of tools that the wealthiest taxpayers use to hide their income and evade paying their share,” the agency stated. “The IRS is now taking swift and aggressive action to close this gap. We will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to hold these individuals accountable.”


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