Even if they’re aware of unpaid taxes, IRS is too overstretched to prosecute.
Huang ’20 [Chye-Ching; February 11; Senior Director of Economic Policy of the Federal Fiscal Policy Team at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, LLM from Columbia Law School, Bachelor of Commerce in Economics from the University of Auckland; Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, “Depletion of IRS Enforcement Is Undermining the Tax Code,” https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/depletion-of-irs-enforcement-is-undermining-the-tax-code]
Funding cuts have also reduced the IRS’ ability to detect and prosecute tax evasion and corruption. Cases brought by the IRS’ criminal division have dropped by about a quarter since 2010.[12] As ProPublica notes, recent high-profile prosecutions for tax evasion, including of Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen, and Michael Avenatti, occurred because they attracted the attention of federal investigators for other reasons.[13] Such trends may, in turn, hurt anti-corruption efforts more generally: as an OECD-World Bank report notes, “[while] viewed as distinct crimes, tax crime and corruption are often intrinsically linked.”[14]
Funding cuts that hobble IRS enforcement and empower the well-resourced to game the tax code not only shrink federal revenue, but also undermine honest filers’ confidence in the integrity of the tax system. This is a serious threat to a system that relies on voluntary compliance.