In recent years, the Internal Revenue Service has been processing around 150 million to over 160 million tax returns annually, doing the work with a shrinking staff and an inflation-adjusted budget that’s shrinking too.
Speaking of shrinking, that’s also what’s been happening to IRS audit rates. By one count, audit rates on all returns dropped from 0.9% in tax year 2010 to 0.25% during tax year 2019.
So…