IRS Releases 10-Year Enforcement Data: Business Audits Down, Individual Audits Up

The IRS released the Fiscal Year 2009 Enforcement Results, for the years 2000 – 20009.  The IRS statistics show:

• Enforcement revenue up 50% from 2000
• Individual audit rate up 100% from 2000
• A millionaire is six times more likely to be audited than someone earning less than $200,000
• Business audit rate down 15% from 2000
• The only businesses with a higher audit rate in 2009 than 2000 are small businesses (< $10m assets).  The audit rate of larger businesses (including those with over $250m of assets) is lower in 2009 than in 2000

 Here’s the IRS’ summary table

	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009
Enforcement $	$33.8b	$33.8b	$34.1b	$37.6b	$43.1b	$47.3b	$48.7b	$59.2b	$56.4b	$48.9b
Audit Rate
Individuals	0.49%	0.58%	0.57%	0.65%	0.77%	0.93%	0.97%	1.03%	1.01%	1.03%
< $200k							0.93%	0.98%	0.95%	0.96%
> $200k							2.57%	2.68%	2.94%	2.89%
> $1m					5.03%	6.10%	5.25%	6.84%	5.57%	6.42%
Businesses	0.69%	0.55%	0.53%	0.49%	0.36%	0.57%	0.60%	0.66%	0.63%	0.58%
< $10m	0.77%	0.60%	0.63%	0.58%	0.32%	0.79%	0.80%	0.92%	0.95%	0.85%
$10m-$50m	11.7%	9.7%	7.8%	6.2%	9.4%	12.3%	14.2%	15.0%	11.7%	10.1%
$50m-$100m	14.7%	12.3%	10.7%	9.8%	12.9%	16.4%	13.8%	11.4%	11.7%	14.3%
$100m-$250m	17.4%	17.6%	16.0%	12.9%	16.9%	17.5%	14.0%	12.1%	12.8%	13.6%
>$250m	31.4%	32.1%	34.4%	29.8%	39.8%	44.1%	35.2%	27.2%	27.4%	25.7%
Exempt Orgs	0.89%	0.61%	0.67%	0.71%	0.67%	0.58%	0.83%	0.87%	0.88%	1.24%

 See ABC News “Make Less Than $200K? You Probably Weren’t Audited.