While about 95 percent of all IHP recipients of disaster relief assistance following hurricanes Katrina and Rita paid their federal taxes, tens of thousands owed federal taxes at the time of the disaster. We identified about 80,000 of the 1.5 million individuals (about 5 percent) who received disaster assistance benefits for hurricanes Katrina and Rita and owed over $700 million combined in unpai

While most recipients of payments federal grant and direct assistance programs pay their federal taxes, tens of thousands of recipients collectively owed $790 million in federal taxes as of September 30, 2006. This included over 2,000 individuals and organizations that received $124 billion of payments directly from the federal government and who owed more than $270 million of unpaid taxes (almos

Over 30,000 Medicaid providers, about 5 percent of those paid in fiscal year 2006, had over $1 billion of unpaid federal taxes. These 30,000 providers were identified from a nonrepresentative selection of providers from seven states: California, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas. This $1 billion estimate is understated because some Medicaid providers may have understa

Nearly 55,000 exempt organizations had almost $1 billion in unpaid federal taxes as of September 30, 2006. About 1,500 of these entities each had over $100,000 in federal tax debts with some owing tens of millions of dollars. The majority of this debt represented payroll taxes and associated penalties and interest dating as far back as the early 1980s. Willful failure to remit payroll taxes is a

Nearly 55,000 exempt organizations had almost $1 billion in unpaid federal taxes as of September 30, 2006, with charitable organizations being responsible for more than 85 percent of the $1 billion in debt. About 1,500 of these entities each had over $100,000 in federal tax debts, with some owing multi-million dollars in federal taxes. The majority of this debt represented payroll taxes and assoc

Multiple approaches are needed to reduce the tax gap. No single approach is likely to fully and cost-effectively address noncompliance since, for example, it has multiple causes and spans different types of taxes and taxpayers. Simplifying or reforming the tax code, providing IRS more enforcement tools, and devoting additional resources to enforcement are three major approaches. Moreover, providi

Multiple approaches are needed to reduce the tax gap. No single approach is likely to fully and cost-effectively address noncompliance since, for example, it has multiple causes and spans different types of taxes and taxpayers. Simplifying or reforming the tax code, providing IRS more enforcement tools, and devoting additional resources to enforcement are three major approaches, but providing qua

IRS tax records had inaccurate information that resulted in it erroneously excluding cases from the FPLP and other tax collection actions. The FPLP is a cost-effective automated system used to collect unpaid taxes from certain federal payments. GAO estimates that as of September 30, 2005, over 500,000 tax records' equating to about $2.4 billion in tax debt--contained inaccurate codes that IRS sys

Simplifying the tax code or fundamental tax reform has the potential to reduce the tax gap by billions of dollars. IRS has estimated that errors in claiming tax credits and deductions for tax year 2001 contributed $32 billion to the tax gap. Thus, considerable potential exists. However, these provisions serve purposes Congress has judged to be important and eliminating or consolidating them could

Our nation's fiscal policy is on an imprudent and unsustainable course. As long-term budget simulations by GAO show, over the long term we face a large and growing structural deficit due primarily to known demographic trends, rising health care costs, and lower federal revenues as a percentage of the economy. GAO's simulations indicate that the long-term fiscal challenge is too big to be solved b