One of Ours

You may all remember that several years ago the IRS came under a lot of criticism, some of it justified, for the highhanded way it handled audits and collections. Congress subsequently ordered the IRS to shift its focus from enforcement to taxpayer service, and since then both the number of audits and the rate of collection have dropped dramatically. Here's the result:

Struggling with rising workloads and stagnant staff levels, the Internal Revenue Service walked away from more than 2 million delinquent tax accounts last year, totaling nearly $16.5 billion, according to the Treasury Department.

....The median size of the delinquent accounts was $14,000. The largest account not being pursued involved more than $50 million.