ODDS MIGHT BE STACKED AGAINST LAS VEGAS RESIDENTS.Byline: Associated Press Associated Press: see news agency. Associated Press (AP) Cooperative news agency, the oldest and largest in the U.S. and long the largest in the world. Mississippi and Manhattan. Idaho and San Francisco San Francisco (săn frănsĭs`kō), city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with San Francisco co., W Calif., on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, which are connected by the strait known as the Golden . What could these places possibly have in common? A study says they shared an unwelcome fate: Their residents faced the highest chance of an IRS An abbreviation for the Internal Revenue Service, a federal agency charged with the responsibility of administering and enforcing internal revenue laws. civil audit in 1995. An analysis of Internal Revenue Service enforcement data by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC TRAC - Text Reckoning And Compiling , shows a seemingly inconsistent regional pattern of which communities the IRS targeted for audits and criminal investigations. Las Vegas Las Vegas (läs vā`gəs), city (1990 pop. 258,295), seat of Clark co., S Nev.; inc. 1911. It is the largest city in Nevada and the center of one of the fastest-growing urban areas in the United States. , Nev., topped the list with 2 percent of individual returns audited, while Louisville, Ky., ranked last with 0.3 percent of individual returns audited. ``Of course, there is going to be a variation. One would expect a variation. On the other hand, some of these variations are very puzzling,'' said David Burnham, a former New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Times reporter who's now a research professor at Syracuse University. Burnham, along with statistician and Syracuse Professor Susan Long, found that in fiscal year 1995, the IRS targeted 63 of its districts for audits 10 times more than its other districts. The study - released Saturday on the Internet - said IRS data also show Manhattan, Los Angeles, Jackson, Miss., and Boise, Idaho, among the IRS districts with the highest audit rates. The head of the IRS criminal investigations unit, Ted Brown, agreed that IRS enforcement records do show ``some variations across the country.'' ``We think that is completely appropriate,'' said Brown, adding that income levels, trends in white-collar crime white-collar crime, term coined by Edward Sutherland for nonviolent crimes committed by corporations or individuals such as office workers or sales personnel (see white-collar workers) in the course of their business activities. and location of IRS auditors account for which communities see the most enforcement. But Brown also criticized the TRAC study as misleading, saying the group's figures don't match IRS data. ``We would get different answers than they do if we use our data,'' Brown said. Burnham said the TRAC study is based on data from the IRS, federal court records and the Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys, which handles federal prosecutions. He said IRS officials declined to meet to discuss TRAC's findings. |
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