At tax time, both the Post and the NYT looks at efforts to crack down on tax cheating. The Post tells us that "Unpaid Taxes Tough to Recover." The NYT tells us that increases in IRS auditing efforts have been focused on middle class taxpayers. It also reminds us that the IRS does nearly 600,000 audits a year of people reporting income of less than $25,000. The main target of these audits is improper claims for money under the Earned Income Tax Credit. The maximum possible haul from this sort of fraud is $4,600, if a person claims the maximum credit and is actually entitled to nothing.
--Dean Baker
