Over the past year, government regulators have recovered $1 billion from high-income, high-wealth individuals through taxation schemes.
The Department of the Treasury and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced the taxation milestone as part of ongoing legislative work.
U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen said that the “new initiative to collect overdue taxes from a small group of wealthy taxpayers is already a major success, yielding more than $1 billion in revenue so far.”
Both government watchdogs have cited that the retention of the tax funds has been made possible due to last year’s Inflation Reduction Act.
Inflation Reduction Act responsible for government tax boon
The tax entities are investigating individuals with $1 million in income and more than $250,000 in recognized tax debt. The IRS took in a staggering $38 million from nearly two hundred high-income, high-wealth individuals last year.
The income regulator has also deployed more than a thousand senior staff to chase down taxes owed by big earners across the country.
The IRS has made it a mission to use its new funding to hunt for high earners who have avoided paying taxes. Over the past two years, the regulator has put in place legislation that estimates a return of $50 billion in the next decade.
They have also carried out nearly one hundred audits, according to the recent statement, on major asset holders of “hedge funds, real estate investment partnerships, publicly traded partnerships, and large law firms.”
The IRS are aiming to close the gulf between taxes owed and the taxes paid, which will be a large change for the highest corporate earners who average high tax debt. Sixty of the largest corporate entities have been audited by the IRS over the past year, with a collective of total assets of $24 billion.
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