IRS budget cuts have reduced the chances for the average taxpayer to be audited to less than 1%, the lowest in more than a decade. (See http://time.com/money/3820009/irs-tax-audit-chances/)
The chances of being audited are moderately higher if one reports no or very little income, because the IRS checks carefully on the earned Income Tax credit and rise steadily once one’s income exceeds $200,000, as shown in the table below:
Adjusted Gross Income Audit
| No adjusted gross income | 3.42% |
| $1- $25,000 | 1.22% |
| $25,000-$50,000 | 0.73% |
| $50,000-$75,000 | 0.83% |
| $75,000-$100,000 | 0.82% |
| $100,000-$200,000 | 1% |
| $200,000-$500,000 | 2.66% |
| $500,000-$1,000,000 | 5.32% |
| 1,000,000-$5,000,000 | 5.38% |
| $5,000,000-$10,000,000 | 20.75% |
| over $10,000,000 | 29.93% |
(See http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/what-are-the-odds-being-audited.html)
Since the IRS looks for particular patterns of income and deductions, the actual chance of an individual taxpayer being audited can vary substantially from these income-level averages.
