The IRS is going after high-income earners who skipped out on filing federal income tax returns in more than 125,000 instances since 2017, the agency said Thursday.
They’re believed to owe, based on a conservative estimate, hundreds of millions of dollars, the IRS said. The number could be much higher – but the IRS said it can’t be sure of an exact amount since the agency doesn’t know what potential credits and deductions these people may have.
“At this time of year when millions of hard-working people are doing the right thing paying their taxes, we cannot tolerate those with higher incomes failing to do a basic civic duty of filing a tax return,” IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said in a press release. “The IRS is taking this step to address this most basic form of non-compliance, which includes many who are engaged in tax evasion.”
Most of the tax goes to Healthcare and Social Security, 45% of the budget. Defense is 13%.
SS and Medicare are largely funded by dedicated taxes (the payroll tax), and the spending is mandatory - it is spelled out in the laws that created these programs.
The discretionary part of the budget is where general taxes on income, inheritance, etc. go, and where everything else the government does is financed. Foreign aid, infrastructure investment, grants, disaster relief… everything besides SS Medicare/Medicaid.
US Military spending is more than half of discretionary spending.
I’m household terms (which is a bad analogy) after paying the mortgage and utility bills, we spend more than half of what is left of the paycheck on guns and ammo.