The Wall Street Journal-20080118-Wealthy Are More Likely to Face IRS Audits
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Wealthy Are More Likely to Face IRS Audits
Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- There is at least one advantage to not being among the rich: less chance of being audited by the Internal Revenue Service.
The tax agency said yesterday that in the 2007 budget year it audited one out of every 11 with incomes of $1 million or more. Among those with incomes of $100,000 or less, 99 out of every 100 escaped further IRS scrutiny.
Still, the IRS said its auditing rates were generally up for people of all income levels. The rates were 9.25% for those with incomes of more than $1 million, up from 6.3% in 2006; 2.87% for those with incomes above $200,000, up from 2.57%; and 0.93% for those earning under $100,000, compared with 0.89% the previous year.
Overall, the IRS looked at 1,384,563 returns in fiscal 2007, 1.03% of the total individual returns of 134.4 million in the previous calendar year. The audit rate was up 7% from the previous year.
