In February, the IRS launched its plan to pursue 125,000 “high-income, high-wealth taxpayers” who had not filed taxes since 2017.
The IRS targeted individuals whose third-party materials including a W-2 or 1099 form indicated that they had received income but did not file their tax returns.
The Treasury Department credited the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act for giving the IRS more funding to do this work.
Those funds have been a tense political issue.
Republicans clawed back a portion of the funds, arguing middle-class taxpayers could be targeted. The Biden administration has said the funds are being used only to go after wealthy taxpayers.
“Prior to the Inflation Reduction Act, the IRS non-filer program ran sporadically since 2016 due to severe budget and staff limitations that did not allow these cases to be pursued,” the Treasury Department said.
Within the first six months of the program, nearly 21,000 of those high-income taxpayers have filed, leading to $172 million in taxes being paid so far, according to the department.
“Nearly 80% of these 1,600 millionaires with delinquent tax debt have no made a payment, leading to over $1.1 billion recovered,” the department said.
“This is an additional $100 million just since July, when Treasury and IRS announced reaching the $1 billion milestone.”
The Hill’s Lauren Irwin has more here.
