FEDERAL INCOME TAX IRS owes $1.3M to Ohio taxpayers; agency adds more audits each year

One Ohio taxpayer is due a federal tax refund of $50,000.
By NANCY TULLIS
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- There's good news and bad news from the Internal Revenue Service.
The good news is that according to Chris Kerns, media specialist for the IRS' Cincinnati office, the IRS is trying to give back more than $1.3 million in Ohio. He said the IRS owes Ohio taxpayers $1.3 million in refunds the agency hasn't been able to deliver.
The average undelivered refund in the state is $637, and one taxpayer in the state is due a refund of $50,000, he said.
The IRS of Cincinnati is seeking thousands of Ohio residents owed income tax refunds -- many of them in the Mahoning Valley -- because the U.S. Postal Service was unable to deliver the checks due to bad addresses, he said.
In Ohio, 2,131 taxpayers have not claimed their refund check from a prior year, he said.
Kerns said each year thousands of IRS checks are returned & quot;undeliverable & quot; when they are mailed. Nationwide, more than $73 million in IRS refunds are undelivered this year.
More audits
What many taxpayers may consider the bad news is that the IRS continues to increase the number of audits it does each year.
Mark W. Everson, commissioner of the IRS, said, however, that conducting audits is part of accountability, both for the taxpayer and the IRS.
Everson is reporting that under his leadership, the number of audits of taxpayers has increased each year and will continue to rise, especially among taxpayers whose annual earnings are $100,000 or more.
Everson recently gave his 2005 report on the IRS enforcement and collection of federal income taxes. He said increasing the number of audits each year is a way to make sure taxpayers are paying their fair share of federal income tax.
Nominated by President Bush in 2003, Everson is at the mid-point of his five-year term as commissioner. In March 2003, he spoke before the finance committee for his confirmation hearing, and listed three goals for the IRS: better service for taxpayers; continued modernization; and enhanced enforcement activities to ensure everyone pays their share.
Some improvements
Everson said the IRS has augmented its enforcement efforts and brought in billions more to the Treasury, but not at the expense of services to taxpayers. He cited some examples of agency improvements this year compared to 2004:
UEnforcement revenues - the money the IRS gets from collection, examination, and document matching activities - increased to a record $47.3 billion.
UTotal individual returns audited increased by more than 20 percent to 1,216,000 from 1,008,000 in 2004. The number completed is back to a level last achieved in 1998.
UAudits of individuals with incomes over $100,000 surpassed 221,000, the highest figure in 10 years, and well over double the 92,000 completed in fiscal year 2001.
UCriminal prosecutions recommended to the Justice Department showed a modest decline of 6 percent from a year ago. The decline is attributable to lower numbers of narcotics and money-laundering cases.
Everson emphasized that IRS enforcement gains have been made while the IRS has continued to make strides in customer service. In 2005, for the first time more than half of all individual returns were filed electronically, and the IRS' toll-free tax law accuracy hit a high of 89 percent.