Here’s How Often Anne Arundel Residents Are Audited

ANNAPOLIS, MD — Crunch-time is nearly here for income taxes and if you’re like most folks, you’re putting off filling out those dreadful forms until Monday, April 15. But some parts of the country are significantly more likely to get audited by the IRS than others.

Fortunately, Anne Arundel County is not one of them. That’s according to a new interactive map created by researchers at Pro Publica, which is based on a recent study authored by Kim Bloomquist, who served as senior economist with the IRS’ research division for two decades. That study was published first in Tax Notes.

According to the map, an estimated 7.1 per 1,000 filings in Anne Arundel County were audited. That’s slightly lower than the national rate of 7.7 per 1,000 fillings.

The map shows a stark geographic divide in who gets audited and who doesn’t. By and large, the IRS audits counties in the South at a much higher rate than those in the North. Robert Marvin, a spokesman for the IRS, told Patch in a statement Tuesday that the agency plays “a critical role” in providing financial help to low-income households. Each year, more than 9 million adults and kids are lifted above the poverty level as a result of the earned income tax credit.

To ensure the process remains fair for all taxpayers, the IRS targets returns that have the “highest likelihood of noncompliance,” he said. Audits are doled out using a scoring system based on risk. The selection process applies the same business rules, filters and scoring to every return to identify “potentially non-compliant taxpayers.”

“The selection criteria does not include any components or factors related to the geographic location or ethnicity of the taxpayers,” Marvin said.

The IRS regularly reinforces its expectations about fairness and integrity when creating or changing the process for selecting returns for audit, he said and all agency workers are informed of the “fair and equitable treatment of taxpayers under the law.”

The audit rates were estimated by combining audit coverage rates in the yearly IRS Data Book with county tax return data. The rates are based on the years 2012 to 2015.

The study comes as many Americans brace for smaller-than-expected refund checks following the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Those concerns may prove to be overblown, though.

On March 22, the latest cumulative IRS statistics showed the average refund was $2,915, just $10 less than the same period in 2018. The total number of refunds, meanwhile, dropped 2.6 percent.

Patch national staffer Dan Hampton contributed to this report.