The Internal Revenue Service has seen a surge in recent years of taxpayers underpaying their estimated taxes and paying the penalty for it.
The number of taxpayers who were penalized increased nearly 40 percent from 7.2 million to 10 million filers between 2010 and 2015, according to IRS data analyzed by The Wall Street Journal, or nearly 33 percent from almost 7.5 million to nearly 10 million filers between fiscal years 2007 and 2016, according to a similar analysis by USA Today. Both reports relied on figures from Table 17 of the IRS’s Data Book for 2015 and 2016, according to IRS officials.
“If you’re looking at notices issued in FY 2016, which are primarily 2015 returns, you see roughly about 10 million notices, and total assessments of about $1.3 billion,” said IRS spokesman Eric Smith. “Then there were some abatements too.”
The abatements were about $118 million for approximately 145,000 taxpayers in fiscal 2016.
It isn’t clear why more taxpayers and their accountants are underestimating the quarterly tax payments, but the rise of the so-called “gig economy,” or “sharing economy,” could be one factor.
The number of taxpayers who were penalized increased nearly 40 percent from 7.2 million to 10 million filers between 2010 and 2015, according to IRS data analyzed by The Wall Street Journal, or nearly 33 percent from almost 7.5 million to nearly 10 million filers between fiscal years 2007 and 2016, according to a similar analysis by USA Today. Both reports relied on figures from Table 17 of the IRS’s Data Book for 2015 and 2016, according to IRS officials.
“If you’re looking at notices issued in FY 2016, which are primarily 2015 returns, you see roughly about 10 million notices, and total assessments of about $1.3 billion,” said IRS spokesman Eric Smith. “Then there were some abatements too.”
The abatements were about $118 million for approximately 145,000 taxpayers in fiscal 2016.
It isn’t clear why more taxpayers and their accountants are underestimating the quarterly tax payments, but the rise of the so-called “gig economy,” or “sharing economy,” could be one factor.