What the IRS Wants to Know

http://www.futureofcapitalism.com/2011/04/what-the-irs-wants-to-know

The Wall Street Journal, along with its article on the IRS targeting "rich" taxpayers for audits (Forbes had a similar article last week), has a copy of a nine page, 47-question "information document request" that one taxpayer received from the IRS. The story doesn't mention General Electric, but it made me think of GE's 975-person tax department in a somewhat different light than did the New York Times article that reported it. After all, if the IRS is showering requests like this on taxpayers — at some large companies, the IRS even has full-time teams of auditors on site who work full time on just those companies — it's a labor-intensive task simply to respond to the requests, let alone dream up ways of lowering a company's tax exposure. The "information document request" is also interesting reading in the context of Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid's claim that the American income tax system is "voluntary."

by Editor  |  Apr 4, 2011 at 9:24 am Related Topics:  General Electric, Politics, Taxes receive the latest by email: subscribe to the free futureofcapitalism.com mailing list