The IRS, in its continuing effort to squeeze every last dime out of every single one of us, is planning 6,000 audits of companies and their compliance with employment taxes over the next three years.
The Service apparently figured it was about time they started putting the screws to companies since they hadn’t done an analysis since 1984:
Continued, after the jump
The Treasury Department in 2005 estimated, based on the 1984 IRS data, that companies underpay employer taxes by about $14 billion annually. In particular, federal agencies have raised concerns about whether employers are properly classifying workers as company employees or independent contractors.
The Service isn’t wasting any time, already proposing a $14 million tax on FedEx after auditing the courier’s 2002 tax return. The Service is also looking at the company’s 2004 through 2008 tax returns, so FedEx should probably get the check book.
The Service is promising to make company’s experience as ‘least burdensome as we can’ but we’re guessing they’re going to want the money, Lebowski, and being a nuisance will probably be of secondary importance.
IRS to Audit 6,000 Companies to Test Employment Tax Compliance [Bloomberg]
IRS Plans 6,000 Employment Tax Audits [Web CPA]
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Actually he has quite a ways to go to get to the nearly $14 million that NC agreed to pay the IRS and isn’t even close to the $33 million that “Douche of the Decade” Joe Francis owed (that has now been dropped we should add) but a $3 million tax lien is nothing to sneeze at.