The number of Internal Revenue Service audits of large corporations has decreased, according to an analysis by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse—which shows how important whistleblowers can be for uncovering tax fraud and other tax violations.
The research group, based at Syracuse University, says, “Among corporations reporting assets of $250 million or more, the IRS since FY 2005 has cut back by a third (33 percent) the hours it spends examining their books. IRS has also sharply reduced the number of large corporate returns it examines — these audits have fallen by 22 percent since 2005.”
The IRS disputes TRAC’s conclusions, Reuters reports. Steven Miller, deputy commissioner of services and enforcement, said the IRS audits about half of the corporations with assets of between $5 and $20 billion and all corporations with assets greater than $20 billion.
