IRS hiring provides information on the Tax Gap

A recent report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) about IRS hiring provides some information about the size of the “tax gap.” The tax gap is the difference between the amount of tax owed for a tax year and the amount that’s actually paid on time and voluntarily. In the report, the IRS estimates that the gross annual tax gap for 2014 to 2016 was $496 billion per year, and projects that for 2017 to 2019, it’ll increase to $540 billion per year. TIGTA states that “a reduction in the number of enforcement function employees may affect the IRS’s ability to maintain sufficient audit coverage of entities and individuals contributing the most to the tax gap …”