Staff, with files from The Associated Press
Millions of Americans are racing to meet the IRS’s tax deadline.
The good news is their chances of being audited are lower than they have been in years, reports The Huffington Post.
Read: Undo interest deductibility mistakes
That’s because “budget cuts…are straining the IRS’s ability to police tax returns. This year, [it] will have fewer agents auditing returns than at any time since…the 1980s.” Read more.
Associated Press says the U.S. tax agency audited less than 1% of returns in 2013. However, people’s chances of getting audited very greatly, depending on their income levels.
Audit highlights from 2013:
- Out of the 146 million individual income tax returns filed, only 1.4 million, or 0.96%, were audited in total.
- Out of all Americans who earned less then US$200,000 (141 million people), only 1.2 million, or 0.88%, were audited.
- Out of all Americans who earned more than $200,000 but less than US$1 million (5.3 million people), only 172,000, or 3.3%, were audited.
- Out of all wealthy Americans who earned US$1 million or more (363,000 people), 39,000, or 11%, were audited.
- Out of all business returns (10 million), only 61,000, or 0.61%, were targeted for audits.
- 1.8 million small corporations (those with assets of less US$10 million) filed tax returns, but only 17,600, or 0.95%, were audited.
- 62,300 large corporations (those with assets of more than US$10 million) filed tax returns, and 9,900, or 16%, were audited.
For more on tax, read:
Feds bury FATCA in Budget bill, and Finance bites back at FATCA criticism
How to deal with cross-border estate