Latest IRS Sweep of Wealthy Tax Cheats Has Recovered $172M So Far

By John Manganaro

News September 06, 2024 at 04:11 PM

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An IRS back-tax collections campaign stood up earlier this year with funding from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act has so far recovered some $172 million from 21,000 wealthy taxpayers who have missing tax returns dating back to 2017.

The haul announced Friday by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel is the total for the first six months of the initiative, which formally kicked off in February. The amount comes on top of more than $1 billion collected in a related campaign that was expanded in the fall of 2023 — also thanks to funding from the Inflation Reduction Act.

In remarks delivered at IRS campus in Austin, the pair emphasized the need for sufficient and consistent IRS funding to drive such collections efforts.

The $172 million in collections announced Friday is part of an ongoing effort targeting more than 125,000 high-income, high-wealth taxpayers who have not filed taxes in nearly a decade.

These are cases where the IRS has received third-party information — such as through W-2 and 1099 filings — indicating these people received income above $400,000 but failed to file a tax return.

The separate campaign that was expanded in September is concentrated on taxpayers with more than $1 million in income and more than $250,000 in recognized tax debt. After collecting $38 million from more than 175 initial cases, the IRS expanded the effort last fall to around 1,600 cases.

Nearly 80% of these 1,600 millionaires with delinquent tax debt have now made a payment, according to the IRS, leading to over $1.1 billion recovered. This is an additional $100 million since July, when Treasury and IRS announced reaching the $1 billion milestone.

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