Silver explains that because of the large number of IRS audits -- approximately 1.5 million a year -- there will always be hundreds of thousands of both conservatives and liberals. "This is exactly what you would expect in a country where there are 1.5 million audits every year." You can't just round up a few anecdotes among your conservative friends who were audited and, solely on that basis, claim that they go after conservatives more often.
It's true that wealthy Americans are more likely to have their tax returns audited, because their returns are complicated and they have more opportunities for loopholes and tax evasion.
It's also true that those with no income at all or those who took the earned income tax credit are also more likely to be audited, presumably because the IRS wants to make sure the non-income status seems legitimate. These would tend to be more liberal.
Silver has made some estimates based on aggregate numbers released by the IRS, in conjunction with exit polls in the 2012 presidential race, and has come up with these estimates:
Estimated number of audits of 2012 individual returns:
Romney voters who were audited: 380,000Peggy Noonan is a great wordsmith, but a lousy statistician. Round 1 goes to Nate Silver.
Obama voters who were audited: 480,000
Ralph
I still can't get too excited about this 501(c)(4) "scndal." The staff at this Ohio IRS office was overwhelmed with a large number of new applications for tax exempt status. They couldn't possibly audit them all.
ReplyDeleteThere had been a large jump in applications from groups with Tea Party or other conservative-sounding names. So that's the ones they went after as the more likely to yield unwarranted exempt status -- which is what they were charged with detecting.
There may have been some politics involved -- or they may have just been trying to do their job, with inadequate resouces.
Part if the job description of a Republican politician or pundit seems to be the ability to turn on a dime and take the opposition position as soon as President Obama takes a position or does something.
ReplyDeleteHaven't they been skewering him for the leaks coming out of the administration? Then he tries to do something about it -- and all of a sudden he's a jack-booted thug running rampant over the Constitution and people's rights.