With the U.S. tax code running thousands of pages long, even Americans who try to obey the tax laws can find themselves at risk of an audit.
But the IRS itself didn’t fare so well when it was audited by the Government Accountability Office.
The GAO found an $8 billion discrepancy in how much taxes the American people owe. The IRS uses two different accounting systems to track taxes owed, and the numbers didn’t match.
Maybe now the IRS can understand the public’s frustration with the complicated, expensive process of filling out tax forms.
As Reason magazine joked, “At least now they know what it feels like to fail an audit.”