Wasting and Wanting: Our Politicians and Our Needy

Wasting and Wanting: Our Politicians and Our Needy
 by: Walter "Bruno" Korschek

In this time of Thanksgiving and the year end holidays, I was quite annoyed by a recent Associated Press article. According to the article, the IRS has determined that it is losing out on about $380 million a year in income taxes when separated or divorced parents both claim their children as deductions on their tax forms, basically double counting the deductions they are entitled to and underpaying the IRS.

What was really annoying was the IRS spokesperson who said that while the tax agency had identified and quantified the non-payment of income taxes, they would do nothing to go after the abuse since it was not worth their time and resources. This kind of attitude raises any number of questions:

- When is a taxpayer abuse big enough for the IRS to get interested? $380 million sounds like a lot of money to me to go wanting, especially if you have done enough work to identify the abuse and quantify the abuse. Obviously, the IRS has already done some work on the issue.