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Chris Edwards


Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D‑OR) held a hearing last week to counter the House Republican plan to cut the recent IRS enforcement boost. Sen. Wyden said, "If you're looking for the big winners of the McCarthy IRS defunding plan, it's billionaires and corporations who cheat on their taxes … Repealing that funding is a $191 billion giveaway to wealthy tax cheats."
I offered a different view at the hearing. I noted that tax enforcement imposes collateral damage, that the tax gap has been stable for decades, and that the U.S. tax gap appears to be smaller than Europe's. The "tax gap" means unpaid taxes from errors and cheating.
Here's one problem with Sen. Wyden's view: IRS audits find relatively smaller errors and cheating on higher‐​income returns than lower‐​income returns. As shown in the table below, IRS audits recommend additional tax of 5 to 8 percent of income for middle‐​income households, but just 1 to 4 percent of income for high‐​income households. These are averages within income groups over 2017 to 2021.
For example, for households facing additional tax, the average is $6,100 for those earning $75,000 to $100,000, which is 7.0 percent of income, and it is $117,033 for those earning $5 million to $10 million, which is 1.7 percent of income. Note that the average audit change of $117,033 for this high‐​income group may seem large, but that is just 6 percent of the average tax paid by these households. Also note that the large relative audit change in the bottom group mainly stems from errors and cheating on the earned income tax credit.
Why does the IRS find relatively smaller errors and cheating at the top? It may because these households are more likely to hire expert accountants and lawyers who have their reputations on the line. The relatively smaller errors at the top are impressive, given that high‐​income returns often involve complex issues such as business income and capital gains.







Data Notes. The IRS publishes aggregate results of audits in its annual Data Book. My table is based on a Government Accountability Office summary of the IRS data in GAO-22–104960 (p. 34).
The income groups are based on "total positive income" not adjusted gross income (AGI). However, the IRS and GAO do not appear to provide average total positive income within the income groups, so I roughly estimated it using average AGI for 2019 within AGI income groups.
A final note is that these are the additional taxes "recommended" by IRS auditors. But many taxpayers appeal these amounts and get them reduced. Also, some taxpayers challenge IRS audit results in court and many of them win, as discussed here.

Feminism is world history's most significant historical force and should be presented in classrooms as the central narrative in world history from the Protestant Reformation to the present. Democratic ideals created both the American congress and the feminist movement, but which is more important?.

Volume I. Introduction -- H.G. Wells: The Outline of History -- A short history of the world for children -- Will and Ariel Durant's The Story of Civilization -- Variations on the world historical approaches -- Conclusion -- Volume 2. Introduction -- World history through Islam -- The Silk Roads: a new history of the world -- A people's history of the world -- Fransic Fukuyama's political theory of world history -- World history in academia and the development of bid history -- Conclusion: world history for education and analogical thinking.

"For Chris Edwards, the decision to transition from female to male was black and white. The question was, did he have the balls to do it? Did he have the balls to come out at a company board meeting made up of white, middle-aged executives? To endure 28 painful and extensive surgeries? Show up at his 10-year high school reunion? Date a member of the Nashville Bikini Team? The answer is yes, yes he did--and with great success. Well, except for the bikini model part ... At a time when the term "transgender" didn't really exist, and with support from family, friends, and a great therapist, Chris summoned up the courage to become the man he always knew he was meant to be. He used what he learned working in advertising along with his ever-present sense of humor to rebrand himself and orchestrate what was quite possibly the most widely accepted and embraced gender transition of its kind"--Publisher's web site

Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Original Title -- Original Copyright -- Contents -- LIST OF TABLES -- LIST OF FIGURES -- PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS -- 1 The world division of labour and economic theories -- 1.1 The world division of labour - what do we have to explain? -- 1.2 Economic theories - the competing explanations and their sources -- Notes on further reading -- Summary -- 2 The free-marketeers and the rise and fall of the Heckscher-Ohlin theory -- 2.1 'Free to choose' - the essence of subjective theory -- 2.2 The rise of the Heckscher-Ohlin theory -- 2.3 The fall of the Heckscher-Ohlin theory -- Notes on further reading -- Summary -- 3 The rise of cost-of-production theory -- 3.1 Pluralism and distribution -- 3.2 The 'Sraffian' approach to trade theory -- Notes on further reading -- Summary -- 4 Neo-Ricardianism and unequal exchange -- 4.1 From Prebisch to Emmanuel - the foundations of unequal exchange -- 4.2 Emmanuel's unequal exchange -- 4.3 Neo-Ricardian policies on distribution and development - an overview -- Notes on further reading -- Summary -- 5 Marxist theories - underdevelopment or uneven development? -- 5.1 Marx's method and the critique of capitalism -- 5.2 Neo-Marxist theories of underdevelopment - origins and analysis -- 5.3 Theories of underdevelopment - the criticisms -- Notes on further reading -- Summary -- 6 Trade, money and crisis -- 6.1 Trade, money and balance-of-payments adjustments -- 6.2 World crisis - excess money supply, distributional conflict, or capitalist contradiction? -- Notes on further reading -- Summary -- 7 Capitalism, international money and transnational corporations -- 7.1 The expansion of capitalism -- 7.2 The international monetary system -- 7.3 Transnational corporations -- Notes on further reading -- Summary -- 8 The Third World, nationalism and a NIEO.