Just this morning I stumbled across this enlightening report released earlier this year from the folks up at Syracuse University who run the TRAC database. (For those who don't follow arcane data analysis groups as closely as OMB Watch does, TRAC is the Transactional Record Access Clearinghouse - a data gathering and analysis group that uses the Freedom of Information Act to access and analyze government information. See them at http://trac.syr.edu.) The report shows that the tax returns of Americans earning over $1 million a year are the least likely to be audited by the IRS. Using the lastest available data from the federal government, TRAC found only 30 out of 180,000 returns showing over $1 million in income in 2004 were audited face-to-face. The report also found that Americans making less than $25,000 per year were six times more likely to be audited face-to-face than those making over $200,000 per year. Even when the more common "correspondence" audits are included, poor taxpayers were still more than twice as likely to be audited. With the recent news that the IRS intends to drastically reduce its estate and gift tax division, a pattern appears to be emerging out of the government's revenue collection agency - a pattern that indicates it is easier for the rich to avoid paying taxes. Considering wealthy Americans already have both more incentive and more means to manipulate the tax code to their advantage, logic seems to dictate higher income returns should be reviewed more, not less, than low-income ones. Does the IRS really need to go farther and make it even easier for the rich to cheat on their taxes?