IRS audit statistics

IRS audit statistics show that only a small percentage of total tax returns the IRS receives a year get IRS audits. Moreover, IRS audit statistics show that tax returns filed in the western united states is more likely to be audited than those filed in the eastern united states .

How likely is an IRS audit

The chances that a tax payer will get audited by the IRS are small. An IRS audit of a tax return makes up only a small percentage of total number of tax returns the IRS receives. The IRS does not have enough IRS tax employees to audit a high percentage of the year tax returns filed.

IRS audit statistics

The IRS audit statistics show that the IRS audited about 1.38% of all tax returns filed during 1995 which was a total of 2,135,819 IRS audits out of 155,275 600 filed tax returns and 1.36% of all tax returns in 1994 which was a total of 2,100,144 IRS audits out of 154,293,700.

Over time the number of IRS audits have decreased. One contributing factor of the reduced number of IRS audits is the reduced number of IRS tax auditors and IRS reorganization that resulted in redistributing IRS tax audit resources and some IRS tax auditors are moved to different tax job functions.

In 2000 only 0.48% of tax returns filed with the IRS were audited which was 8,815,057 out of 168,184,400 tax returns. Since then the IRS has made efforts to do more IRS tax audits.