United States Government Publishing Office publisher pbl distributor dst United States Government Accountability Office author aut Government Organization text government publication eng GAOREPORTS Legislative Agency Publications gao legislative 2010-08-12 U.S. Government Printing Office 2007-08-23 monographic deposited born digital 19 p. GA 1.13:GAO-07-1062 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-GAO-07-1062 P0b002ee18037fc29 f:d071062 DGPO 2010-08-12 2011-03-28 GAOREPORTS-GAO-07-1062 machine generated eng fdlp REPORT GAOREPORTS-GAO-07-1062 GAO-07-1062 Administrative costs Collection procedures Fines (penalties) Inflation Price adjustments Price indexes Tax administration Tax law Tax violations Taxpayers Voluntary compliance Cost estimates Program implementation Other Written Product A74974 Civil tax penalties are an important tool to encourage taxpayer compliance with the tax laws. A number of civil tax penalties have fixed dollar amounts--a specific dollar amount, a minimum or maximum amount--that are not indexed for inflation. Because of Congress's concerns that civil penalties are not effectively achieving their purposes, we agreed to (1) determine the potential effect of adjusting civil tax penalties for inflation on the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) assessment and collection amounts and (2) describe the likely administrative impact of regularly adjusting civil tax penalties on IRS and tax practitioners. GAO examined IRS data on civil tax penalties and conducted interviews with IRS employees and tax practitioners. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-GAO-07-1062/html/GAOREPORTS-GAO-07-1062.htm https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-GAO-07-1062/pdf/GAOREPORTS-GAO-07-1062.pdf GAO-07-1062 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-GAO-07-1062 Other Written Product GAO-07-1062; Tax Compliance: Inflation Has Significantly Decreased the Real Value of Some Penalties; Administrative costs Collection procedures Fines (penalties) Inflation Price adjustments Price indexes Tax administration Tax law Tax violations Taxpayers Voluntary compliance Cost estimates Program implementation Public Law 101-239