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Reliability of Information on Taxpayers Claiming Many Withholding Allowances or Exemption from Federal Income Tax Withholding

GAO-03-913R Published: Sep 15, 2003. Publicly Released: Sep 15, 2003.
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Highlights

When taxpayers claim more withholding allowances than they are entitled to or improperly claim exemption from withholding, either no tax or too little tax is withheld from their wages. As a result, some taxpayers end up owing the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) additional taxes, and if the taxes are not paid on time, they become delinquent. This report responds to a Congressional request for information on these taxpayers. Specifically, we provided information on (1) how many taxpayers claimed more than 10 allowances for federal income tax withholding purposes and (2) how many taxpayers claimed exemption from federal income tax withholding and, of those taxpayers, what proportion did not file federal income tax returns and had invalid Social Security numbers.

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AllowancesFederal taxesIncome taxesTax administrationTax violationsTaxpayersTax exemptionsTaxesTax returnsTax compliance