IRS targets more middle-class taxpayers

NEW YORK, April 16 (UPI) -- More middle-class Americans are likely to be audited by the Internal Revenue Service this year.

The increased focus on the middle class is part of a broad strategy by the IRS, The New York Times reported Monday.

The auditing process had been "out of whack," with too little attention paid to the middle class, Kevin Brown, the IRS deputy commissioner for services and enforcement, told the Times. "We try to run a balanced audit program."

Since 2000, the IRS has nearly tripled the number of audits of tax returns filed by people making $25,000 to $100,000. Audits of these middle-class residents rose to nearly 436,000 in 2006, up from about 147,000 returns in 2000.

That means that the odds of a middle-class person being audited rose from 1 in 377 to 1 in 140, the newspaper said. For taxpayers with incomes more than $100,000 the odds of being audited last year were 1 in 59; more than $1 million, the odds increased to 1 in 16.

Taxpayers reporting incomes below $25,000 faced a 1 in 94 chance of being audited.

In all, the IRS more than doubled the number of individual tax returns audited from 2000 to 2006, increasing from nearly 618,000 audits to nearly 1.3 million, the Times reported.