WASHINGTON — The amount of money the IRS collects from audits and other reviews fell by nearly $3 billion this year as the agency shifted resources to make sure people got their economic-stimulus checks.
Overall, collections dropped to $56.4 billion for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 — a 4.7 percent decrease from $59.2 billion collected in 2007, the agency said Monday.
It was the first year-to-year decrease in collections in a decade.
In addition to its regular duties, the IRS issued 117 million payments totaling more than $95 billion as part of the federal economic-stimulus program this year.
“There was the challenge of doing stimulus, and it was a tight budget year. Key enforcement resources actually declined slightly,” said Linda Stiff, deputy commissioner for services and enforcement. “The other key point to note is that 2007 was a record-breaking enforcement year, a high- water mark by any and all definitions.”
Stiff said that when comparing 2008 with 2006 and earlier years, “you still have a healthy increase and a good trend even though we weren’t able to repeat the anomalies of 2007.”
