alt Hacker NewsMeta is actually at a huge disadvantage here. The IRS has a litigation success rate of 93%. It's an astoundingly successful legal entity.
Replies
aljgz • yesterday at 6:15 PM
What's the success rate when data is limited to only very large companies, say top 50 in size?
That's a success rate that largely is based on suing people who don't have the resources to fight it (no claims made about if they're right or not).
However, the IRS has had reductions in staff and funding which made it harder to go after the bigger accounts who have more forensic accounting needing to be done to find the money in the various tax shelters.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/irs-faces-challenges-in-...
> "The IRS is simultaneously confronting a reduction of 27% of its workforce, leadership turnover, and the implementation of extensive and complex tax law changes" mandated by Republicans' tax and spending measure that President Donald Trump signed into law last summer, Collins said in her report.
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-fiscal-impact-o... (May 2025)
> The Global High Wealth department of the IRS is designed to audit ultrawealthy individuals and corporations, who often hire highly sophisticated tax advisors to devise ways to avoid taxes and to respond to the IRS if they are challenged. But, as of late March, the department was cut by nearly 40 percent—and likely more by now with the additional RIFs.
I would be willing to contend that while they've got a 93% overall, that's historical numbers and the teams that would go against Meta and others are severely understaffed.