Democrats Seek Unpaid Taxes, Setting Up Clash
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
New York Times
WASHINGTON, Feb. 2 — Congressional Democrats, hoping to finance an ambitious agenda without raising taxes, are on a collision course with the Bush administration about pursuing the potentially vast amount of money that people hide from the Internal Revenue Service.
House and Senate Democrats say the government could collect as much as $100 billion more a year by whittling the tax gap — the unpaid taxes, mostly on unreported earnings, that the I.R.S. estimated was about $300 billion a year.
But the Treasury Department, which oversees the I.R.S., says it cannot realistically recover one-tenth as much as Democrats suggest.
On Monday, as part of President Bush’s budget proposal, the Treasury Department will unveil more than a dozen proposals to pursue tax cheats. But officials said those ideas would bring in less than $10 billion a year in extra revenue.
Mark W. Everson, the I.R.S. commissioner, has expressed far greater optimism. At a hearing of the Senate Budget Committee a year ago, he told lawmakers that the government could recover “between $50 billion and $100 billion without changing the dynamic between the I.R.S. and the people.”
(Continued here.)
New York Times
WASHINGTON, Feb. 2 — Congressional Democrats, hoping to finance an ambitious agenda without raising taxes, are on a collision course with the Bush administration about pursuing the potentially vast amount of money that people hide from the Internal Revenue Service.
House and Senate Democrats say the government could collect as much as $100 billion more a year by whittling the tax gap — the unpaid taxes, mostly on unreported earnings, that the I.R.S. estimated was about $300 billion a year.
But the Treasury Department, which oversees the I.R.S., says it cannot realistically recover one-tenth as much as Democrats suggest.
On Monday, as part of President Bush’s budget proposal, the Treasury Department will unveil more than a dozen proposals to pursue tax cheats. But officials said those ideas would bring in less than $10 billion a year in extra revenue.
Mark W. Everson, the I.R.S. commissioner, has expressed far greater optimism. At a hearing of the Senate Budget Committee a year ago, he told lawmakers that the government could recover “between $50 billion and $100 billion without changing the dynamic between the I.R.S. and the people.”
(Continued here.)
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