Book Description

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) estimates that $7 billion in 1987 federal taxes were not paid because people did not file required income tax returns. IRS identified over 4 million potential individual nonfilers in 1987, which was the most recent year being investigated when GAO did its review. This number represents a 24-percent increase in the number of potential nonfilers since 1985. The 1987 nonfilers included about 40,000 whose annual income exceeded $100,000; these are high-income nonfilers. The Chairman of the Subcommittee on Commerce, Consumer, and Monetary Affairs, House Committee on Government Operations, expressed concern about IRS not pursuing high-income nonfilers. He asked GAO to determine whether IRS could investigate more of them and do so more effectively.