Still Letting Them Off

The New York Times today reports that there has been an increase in the number of IRS audits of wealthy individuals and large corporations - welcome news considering just a few years back the Times reported that the IRS was more likely To audit the poor than the rich. However, even today's news shows how bad things have become:

"The audit rate for high-income taxpayers last fiscal year rose to nearly 1.5 percent, up from 1.1 percent in fiscal year 2003. But it was well below the rate for 1996, when 3.2 percent of high-income taxpayers were audited...Corporate audits have been sharply declining for nearly a decade."