
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 27, 1993                   TAG: 9310270021
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

IRS OFFERS TAX AVOIDERS SECOND TRY

The 10 million individuals and businesses that fail to file federal tax returns include more than 74,000 with incomes of more than $100,000 a year, the Internal Revenue Service said Tuesday.

About half of the well-off non-filers had some income from self-employment or farming, more than 60 percent had wages and about four of every 10 had actually overpaid their taxes through withholding and estimated payments.

IRS Commissioner Margaret Milner Richardson disclosed the figures in testimony to the House Ways and Means oversight subcommittee about the agency's year-old campaign to bring non-filers onto the tax rolls. Non-filers cheat the federal treasury of about $10 billion a year.

Richardson repeated the agency's standing offer to delinquents: "It is not too late to file."

The non-filer campaign assumes that most people and businesses that fail to file do so out of ignorance, fear or inability to pay. So, the IRS offers delinquents a more lenient installment payment plan, is more willing to negotiate a settlement and promises no criminal prosecution for those who step forward before they are caught.

Rep. J.J. Pickle, D-Texas, called the campaign "a new and promising strategy" but said the IRS must do a better job of advertising it.

by CNB