Millionaires Fork Over $1 Billion to the IRS in Past-Due Taxes

The IRS has recovered more than $1 billion from millionaires who failed to pay their tax debts, doubling the total collected from its last update earlier this year.

“The $1 billion collected is a staggering number,” IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said in a press call Wednesday. “It is further proof of what our employees can do when properly staffed and resourced to ensure people are following laws already put on the books by Congress.”

This announcement is the latest result from heightened IRS enforcement aimed at wealthy individuals and companies that aren’t paying what they owe. The IRS has launched several initiatives to help lower the tax gap, or the difference between taxes paid and owed, since becoming flush with the tens of billions in funding from the Democrats’ 2022 tax-and-climate law. Now, the agency is in a race to prove that the extra cash—some of which has already been clawed back by Congress—is bringing results.

The IRS last year announced a campaign to concentrate on taxpayers with more than $1 million in income and more than $250,000 in recognized tax debt.

To date, it has assigned more than 1,500 of the 1,600 cases to senior employees, who have collected more than $1 billion. The agency said in January that it had assigned 900 of these cases, with the overall collected total previously at $520 million.

Werfel said he expects the total collected to grow over the next several months.

Separately, the IRS in February sent letters to 125,000 taxpayers who have incomes over $400,000 who didn’t file their returns between 2017 and 2021. But it is too early to have results from the project, Werfel said, adding that he expects to have another update in the fall.