Source: https://www.propublica.org/article/irs-sorry-but-its-just-ea...
There is evidence he worked out a deal with the removal of deductions regarding his charity... why did they remove those deductions? If he’s entitled to them... clearly it was done as a negotiating piece.
How many average Joe’s have 180 million in deductions to negotiate with?
yes, it is 3-pronged
a) easy to identify
b) liquidity, easy to use for payment
c) kickback and relax, emphasis on kickback
c might sound annoying, but the revenue service has the primary goal of revenue. replenishing the treasury so it can make its own interest payments. you might say, "well take that and still jail the people". okay, I guess. it could have happened here.
all parties in this case acknowledge that a court case would not have any guaranteed results, specifically because of your second sentence:
> Not only is the magnitude of their crime bigger, but their is less justification for it.
The justification is actually broader. Like, sure if the billionaire lacks a justification for paying yes, but the reality is that the government doesn't know WHICH justification the billionaire is using. That's the game. They can be totally blindsided. And then there's the jury, yeah sure a jury with populist sentiment against billionaires combined with a jury judging a black man, doesn't sound great for the defendant but that overlooks everything that was attempted. The man tried to use the amnesty program that the US government set up, and the government denied him! The man already snitched for the government on his first investor who set him up for life! The man tried filing amended tax returns. The jury might actually take a dim view on the state for that, I could totally see a hung jury. And then his lawyers can totally drop some legal opinions they made years ago that showed a justification the government didn't expect at all, shifting liability away from the defendant.
Not quite.
You need to think about when they have the money. It is “capitalism” after all, not “moneyism.” If you build/invest-in something using $10mil that should have been tax, with a decent ROI you might make that money back in 5-10 years. Now you have the original money, plus own something that continues to make money. Income++, but your “back taxes” are still the same for the earlier fraudulent period.
(assuming the IRS doesn’t take stuff like this into account when dealing with collecting “back taxes”)
By that logic, if they just pay their taxes it won't affect their lifestyle either, so their incentive to cheat is also lower.
> the payoff for a billionaire successfully cheating on their taxes is much higher than for a non-billionaire
In absolute terms, sure. And in absolute terms the penalties are much bigger too.
> the IRS prosecutes a lot more low-income people than high-income people (by percentage as well as by absolute numbers) so a billionaire has much better odds of not getting caught
Your conclusion doesn't follow from your evidence. It's possible that low income people are cheating taxes at a higher rate than billionaires. I really don't have a lot of trouble believing this; small tax fraud is widespread, even accepted by a lot of people.
> billionaires have access to better layers, accountants, publicists and politicians to give them negotiating leverage if they do get caught
I don't see any evidence that this guy got a better deal than he should have.
The point of tax enforcement is not to punish billionaires for being billionaires. The point of tax enforcement is to ensure taxes are collected. If you think taxes are too low, or just want to punish billionaires more harshly because they're billionaires, then Congress is the place that has to be changed.