IRS Commissioner Claims Wealthy Americans Evading $150 Billion in Annual Taxes

High-income Americans are evading tax payments to the tune of billions of dollars, according to Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner Danny Werfel, who admitted that the agency has fared poorly when it comes to auditing this group. “When I look at what we call our tax gap, which is the amount of money owed versus what is paid for, millionaires and billionaires that either don’t file or [are] underreporting their income, that’s $150 billion of our tax gap,” Mr. Werfel said during an interview with CNBC on Feb. 22. “There is plenty of work to be done.” He blamed the lack of funding over the past years for the inadequate audit in this category. A scarcity of monetary support resulted in the agency having lower staff levels and starved it of the technology and resources necessary to fund such audits, the IRS commissioner said....