More evidence the campaign to target high-income taxpayers with more audits isn’t going too well. A new report by the Inspector General for Tax Administration at the Treasury Department (TIGTA) suggests the expanded audits are failing to raise the promised revenue.  Here’s the WSJ’s take:

Unlike bank robbers, IRS auditors tend to look where the money isn’t. That’s what happened after the agency started scrutinizing more tax returns from the wealthiest Americans. A new report says increased targeting of these taxpayers was hugely ineffective.

The policy, launched in 2020 by former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, required the IRS to audit …

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Under the category of “Care to elaborate?” this month’s CBO analysis of the fiscal cliff costs includes estimates of the Section 461(l) excess loss provision that are, shall we say, significantly revised. The new numbers are much more believable, but they do beg the question of what took the JCT so long to rework their original estimates.

To review, the TCJA capped the ability of pass-through business owners to deduct their active business losses. Under the old rules, those losses could immediately offset other forms of owner income (wages, capital gains, investment income, other business income, etc.).  This approach …

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