Re: Why I Pay Too Much in Taxes

[Duncan Frissell <frissell@panix.com>]

At 08:31 PM 5/4/96 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote:

>Not being prepared to risk imprisonment for tax evasion, and being desirous
>of living in the United States rather than on a coral atoll, I answer the
>questions that Macintax asks me, gulp when I see the final figure, and
>write out a check (which I then have to sell even more stock to
>cover...perpetuating the cycle).
>
>--Tim May

The Transaction Records Clearinghouse has expanded their site on actual IRS
criminal prosecutions into a neat table (for 1994) which shows:

odds of referral (per million pop)                17
odds of conviction (per million pop)               8
odds of prison (per million pop)                   4
# of referrals for prosecution                 4,542
# convicted after prosecution                  1,991
# sentenced to prison terms                      957
population of federal district           260,340,990

http://www.trac.syr.edu/tracirs/analysis/IRS017tab.html

For comparison, the annual risk of being murdered is about 80 per million (8
per 100,000).  In addition, only 40% of the above refferals are for ordinary
tax fraud and evasion.  Sixty percent are for drug and money laundering
kinds of offenses. 

Even though the population of those who regularly violate federal tax laws
is smaller (20 million?) the records show that even for this population the
odds of being convicted are approximately the odds of being nurdered.

http://www.trac.syr.edu/tracirs/analysis/IRS019page.html 

Shows that the *median* prison sentence and *median* fine after conviction
is Zero in both cases.

DCF