New Numbers on I.R.S. Liens, Levies, and Seizures

Step right up folks — you won’t want to miss this exciting new attraction — direct to your computer screen from the wilds of deepest Washington, D.C. — it’s the Internal Revenue Service Data Book 2006!

<frog class="kermit"> Yaaaaaaaay! </frog>

I’m going to try to find something interesting in its 84 pages of statistics. Here goes:

Each year, people like myself file their tax returns but don’t include enough payment to cover the assessed tax, penalties, and interest. Here’s how much overdue tax, penalties, and interest have been assessed in each of the past few years (this doesn’t include the interest and penalties that continue to accrue on past-due accounts):

The IRS collected almost $41 billion (59%) of this last year (but this amount does include accrued interest and penalties, so there’s an apples and oranges aspect to this comparison) — $1.7 billion of this through their new program of outsourcing some cases to private debt collection agencies. Of the total that was collected, taxpayers sent in $15 billion (37%) in response to the first nastygram from the IRS, and another $13 billion (33%) in response to the second nastygram. The last $12 billion (30%) was recovered through “taxpayer delinquent accounts and additional actions.”

Liens, levies and seizures are all up over recent years:

Oh, there’s more… but I’ve got my boredom threshold too.

Link dump time:

• Ron Jacobs reports on The Showdown at Port Tacoma where anti-war activists are using direct action techniques to try to impede the shipment of war materiel to U.S. forces in the Middle East.
• WhatDoIDoWithThis.com looks like it’s trying to be an industrial-grade recycled goods swap meet with an emphasis on construction supplies — might be worth checking out if you’re building or refurbishing.
• The Tax Foundation points out a study that seems to support the hypothesis that as a tax system becomes more efficient, the savings don’t get passed on to the taxpayer, but to the government. In other words, if the government can reduce the difficulty and annoyance involved in taxpaying, it can compensate by raising the tax rate!
• The Senate Budget Committee has approved a federal budget that increases the IRS enforcement budget to $7.2 billion, well above the already-increased $4.93 billion Dubya requested. The budget would also change the rules about how that enforcement budget is accounted. The IRS has complained that increases to its enforcement budget are unfairly categorized as government expenditures even though they result in a positive “return on investment” to the government. Under the newly-proposed rules, the government could break its discretionary spending limit to provide more money for enforcement.
• There’s a new war tax resistance blogger on-line. Welcome to the web, Paul Sheldon of Peaceful Ways.
• Unless the “Stop Funding the War in Iraq” rally on Monday managed to change Pelosi’s mind, the Iraq War Supplemental Funding, Peanut Storage, Spinach Surplus, Citrus Farmer Bonanza, Food and Drug Administration Building Conversion, Shrimp and Menhaden Industry Booster, Let’s Have Another Moon Shot, Increase the House of Representatives Payroll, and Bailout State Health Insurance Boondoggles for the Children Act should come to a vote any time now.
• Steven Landsburg, in Slate reports on the increase in leisure time among Americans over the last 40 years — particularly among people at the poorer end of the economic scale.