why the post below is important but focuse the answer on Role of the IRS and Budget Considerations: The discussion on whether increasing the IRS's budget would help close the tax gap is significant. Providing the IRS with adequate resources could enhance tax collection efficiency and increase revenue. However, this also raises questions about the best use of taxpayer money and whether the benefits outweigh the costs; and Legal and Ethical Considerations: The post emphasizes the legal obligation of individuals and corporations to report income accurately and pay taxes. Tax evasion is not only illegal but also unethical, with severe penalties including fines and imprisonment. This reminds taxpayers of their responsibilities and the consequences of non-compliance.

Efforts to ensure that taxpayers pay their taxes are essential to ensure fair and proper taxation and the self-assessment system. The main factors of the tax gap include non-filing, under-filing, and defaulting on payments. An investigation found that the tax gap is about 52% due to the under reporting of individual tax returns (Hutton, Eric, 2017). Frequently, this occurs because individuals are concerned about the financial burden of paying a large amount of taxes or the difficulty in making payments. It was determined that small and medium-sized corporations comprise 4.2% of corporations that fail to report accurately, while large corporations comprise 10.7% (Hutton, Eric, 2017). To prevent investors from selling their shares and leading to a drop in the stock price, companies may falsify financial statements to hide losses and intentionally make the balance sheet black to overstate their reporting.

The US Treasury Department has established a key principle to minimize the tax gap in its efforts such as identifying the causes of non-compliance and addressing both intentional and unintentional errors (Treasury Department to study reasons for U.S. tax gap.(Brief Article), 1996).

Do you think this is a good use of taxpayer money?

I believe an increase in the IRS's budget to close this gap will narrow the tax gap in the future. Even though IRS employees are facing significant staff shortages, boosting their numbers and offering extra resources for taxpayers will improve the effectiveness of tax collection and enhance the additional tax revenue. Furthermore, if the IRS can successfully reduce the tax gap, the resulting revenue could be allocated to support its effective functioning as well. By using the available funds, demonstrating the compliance will find falsely reporting on taxes easily.

Regardless of its merit, using taxpayer money to help balance the IRS budget can be a negative factor. However, if the collected money contributes to enhancing the quality of IRS service for taxpayers, using taxpayer funds for IRS operations is not a negative action.

Is it ever acceptable to not pay taxes or fail to fully report all income?

It is unacceptable to fail to report all income or pay taxes. It is a principle that individuals must correctly report their income to the tax office and pay taxes on it.Criminal penalties may be imposed on individuals if income fraud is believed to be intentional and malicious. In addition to the usual additional taxes and late payment penalties, people who evade taxes can also face criminal penalties, such as fines and imprisonment.

In addition, taxpayers may be eligible to file a tax return which results in a refund of overpaid income tax.