On top of that you have huge accountant costs to file these complicated penalty prone returns even if you end up not owing any taxes year over year.
It's still 'negligence', your IMF example is just in part instead of in full.
And from American citizens by birthright, born outside of the US, and who have never set toe inside the country nor made a penny of US income.
Perhaps my snark should've more explicitly called out Charlie Rangel. Nothing like misreporting your income while also being chairman of the Ways & Means Committee.
But really, all of the examples just underscore how insane the tax code has become.
His excuse for not claiming the income is plausible too since the payments went straight against the mortgage through the resort it was attached to, so the money never hit his savings account. If you owned a home, rented a room on AirBnB, and then AirBnB paid off a small part of your mortgage, would most people know to claim that money as income?
That being said, the Nabors tax shelter mess, the unreported checking accounts, the multiple rent-controlled apartments, etc. all add up to show Rangel as a typical corrupt politician.
But really, all of the examples just underscore how insane the tax code has become.
Not filing taxes for 5 years is fraud.
Filing and paying taxes while working for the IMF -- but not realizing you should've been paying the 'employer' half of payroll taxes as well -- is negligence.