[marwatk]

This is addressed in the article:

> A critical limitation in the IRS’s ability to audit millionaires is the availability of IRS revenue agents. Only this class of auditors, given sufficient training and experience, are qualified to examine complex tax returns – the types of returns typically filed by high-income individuals and large-scale businesses.

> With severe budget constraints, IRS has tended to trade off the replacement of revenue agents with hiring more tax examiners. These certainly are paid less, but they are also less knowledgeable. While revenue agents used to outnumber tax examiners, this has slowly shifted over time.

[wongarsu]

I'd be interesting to see how the ratio of revenue agents to tax examiners would shift if the IRS would get a portion of discovered tax fraud back into their budget.

[syspec]

There's no way that's a good idea. See police departments + (civil asset forfeiture and small town speed traps)

[TAForObvReasons]

Looked into this years ago in a semi-related discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21874358

https://www.finance.senate.gov/ranking-members-news/irs-budg...

> IRS Research Division estimates in the 2003 GAO report, however, placed returns for activities such as tax enforcement at more than ten – and in some cases more than 20 – dollars collected for every dollar spent. Phone calls to follow up on tax debts owed were estimated to return 13 dollars for every dollar spent. Audits by mail returned as much as 11 dollars for every dollar spent. Using the overall rate of a four to one return, this year’s $100 million budget cut translates to a $400 million loss.

Imagine 20 dollars per dollar spent, that's the type of unicorn investment that basically every VC hunts for.

[DavidPeiffer]

> Imagine 20 dollars per dollar spent, that's the type of unicorn investment that basically every VC hunts for.

It's frustrating that every business person who has ever lived would absolutely throw money at that formula if it was part of their business, but that's not politically popular because the IRS costs money to operate.

Mathemarically it makes sense to go until you hit 1:1. If we increased enforcement until, say, 4 dollars collected for every 1 spent in each of the major categories, the deterrent factor would probably help people be more honest in times of dishonesty, naturally helping the problem for the following year.

[ghaff]

>Mathemarically it makes sense to go until you hit 1:1

Maybe mathematically. But realize that the targets of the audits are probably bearing at least as much of the cost burden of the audit as the IRS whether they did anything wrong or not. And you'll almost certainly cost a lot of people who made honest mistakes a lot of money.

So, no, it's not at all clear that the IRC should be revenue-maximizing.

[powerhour]

If they become more efficient because they get a larger budget, that would very publicly contradict a lot of campaign messaging.

[RhysU]

> Mathemarically it makes sense to go until you hit 1:1.

Nah, until we get better returns on other endeavors for the same dollar.

[patrick451]

We can go a step further and let the individual auditors get a commission too. Revenue will sky rocket and surely this will attract the best, brightest and most ethical. Conflicts of interest be damned.