Yep. And here's the rest of the story...
The No-Change Rate Anomaly
From 2010 through 2021, the IRS’s budget for tax enforcement—the largest of the IRS’s appropriations accounts—fell by 25 percent, after accounting for inflation.
The conventional wisdom is that when the IRS has less money for enforcement, it goes after the lowest-hanging fruit—the audits that yield a relatively high ROI. But that’s not what the data suggest: Across the board, the no-change rate for large corporations rose from
28 percent in 2010.
The result:
...
To outside tax experts, the reason for the high rate of no-change audits is obvious. Sharon Katz-Pearlman, Global Head of Tax Dispute Resolution and Controversy at KMPG; University of North Carolina professor Jeff Hoopes; and University of Georgia professor Erin Towery agreed that the IRS, with its constrained budget and reductions in staff, can’t compete with the big accounting firms and the high-priced law firms that bring sophisticated models and highly-paid tax professionals to the battle.
The result? Firms successfully characterize very aggressive positions as legal tax avoidance and avoid the IRS’s initial charges of illegal tax evasion.
...
Amazingly, lawmakers appear ready to boost funding for the perennially unpopular IRS. Just this month, the
Biden Administration proposed increasing the IRS’s enforcement budget by $900 million over three years, largely for oversight of the wealthy and corporations.
Too Many IRS Audits of Big Businesses Result In No Change In Tax Liability
Result will be more corporate tax cheats will be caught, and the IRS will spend relatively less time on individuals of normal means.