A Treasury Department report released Wednesday estimates that the richest 1% of Americans are responsible for more than $160 billion in unpaid taxes per year, a finding that comes as Democratic lawmakers are working to bolster IRS enforcement capacity in their emerging reconciliation package. Each year, according to the Treasury analysis, the top 1% of earners in the U.S. don’t pay $163 billion in taxes they owe by law. The bottom 10% of earners, by contrast, account for less than $3 billion in unpaid taxes annually. Persistent tax dodging by the wealthiest people in the country has resulted in a staggering $7 trillion “tax gap”—the difference between taxes owed and taxes the federal government actually collects. The sheer magnitude of lost revenue is striking: it is equal to 3% of GDP, or all the income taxes paid by the lowest earning 90% of taxpayers.
— source commondreams.org | Sep 9, 2021