Its one thing to have tax laws that protect wealthy people and allow thme to legally pay fewer taxes than you would expect them to. Its another thing to then cut the IRS to the point that they can cheat and get away with it.
In the latest infrastructure bill, there was a proposal to replace funding that has been cut under Republican administrations. The Republicans have forced its removal. Now lets be honest, the IRS is unable to collect all the taxes due and the ones doing the most cheating are not your average taxpayers.
Estimates are in the trillions of dollars that we don't collect.
Do all the big companies cheat?
Depends on what you call cheating.
Tax codes tend to be complex and many deductions can be claimed with just a bit of a stretch. Take something like depreciation which can greatly reduce your taxable income. Mis-categorizing assets can lead to big reductions in current taxes. In fact there are enough areas to result in significantly reduced taxes. Without audits we are not catching them.
In the relatively rare cases we do, they are generally able to negotiate a settlement that is significantly less than what the tax would have been.
Republicans will probably tell people they are reducing Government oversight. Well the average person is unable to cheat like the big boys but is probably more afraid of an audit.
We all pay for this and will continue to pay into the future since we have to borrow more.
No one should cheat on their taxes but some get away with millions or even billions.
That's our money really.
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