IRS Delays $700 Billion Unpaid-Tax Estimate as Trump Cuts Audits

1 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Sep 16

The IRS still has not released its annual 2023 tax-gap estimate, a report that was due last fall and tracks taxes owed but not collected.
Roughly a quarter of the agency’s workforce has been pushed out and its budget cut under Trump, eroding capacity for labor-intensive audits that help measure and collect unpaid taxes.
An inspector general report last month found audit revenue fell by more than one-third in the last fiscal year, signaling the tax gap may be widening.
The last estimate, published in October 2024, put uncollected 2022 taxes at about $700 billion, with roughly $90 billion expected to be paid later.
Frank Bisignano, the current IRS leader, has questioned the traditional metric and says the agency is revising its methodology, part of a broader Trump pattern of withholding or reshaping federal data.