IRS Audits of Americans Fall to Lowest Level Since 2002

The percentage of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) audits on Americans last year dropped for the sixth consecutive year, marking the lowest level since 2002, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The IRS audited 1 in 160 individual returns in 2017, down from a peak of 1 in 90 in 2010, the Journal reports.

Since 2010, however, lawmakers have slashed the budget of the agency in the aftermath of the scandal that saw the IRS targeting conservative groups that were applying for tax-exempt status. The IRS was slow-walking or entirely holding up those applications.

The agency's budget was $11.2 billion last year, down 8 percent from its high in 2010, the Journal reports.

High-income households are the greatest beneficiaries of the decline in audits, The IRS audited 4.37 percent of returns last year from those making more than $1 million annually, down from 9.55 percent in 2015.

"We get far more state audits of our clients than IRS audits," Andy Mattson, a certified public accountant at Moss Adams LLP in Silicon Valley, told the Journal.

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