I'm not sure how your statement follows what I said.
I was indicating that there may be a lot of people that appear "poor" to the IRS with neither a lot of income nor a lot of losses/deductions to offset income that may in fact be earning a lot of money. And efforts to enforce tax collection of the "rich" will not identify these people.
This article specifically talks about _unreported income_ among the "top of the income distribution". I'm saying that if they're known to the IRS as being at the "top of the income distribution" what may be lurking below the top that goes uninvestigated.
> After correcting for this bias, we find that unreported income as a fraction of true income rises from 7% in the bottom 50% to more than 20% in the top 1%, of which 6 percentage points correspond to undetected sophisticated evasion. Accounting for tax evasion increases the top 1% fiscal income share significantly.
I was being a little bit facetious in my attempt to point out the problems with the "by definition". There are two factors: the amount earned, and the percentage of that taxed. Tax evasion is paying less than what one "should" (everyone probably knows what I mean, but this can be nitpicked, so I'm adding quotes), for that amount earned. You are right in that the amount of unpaid taxes is more easily larger the more you earn, but by no means is a definition here that follows.
Your point, as you explain it here is still a valid one though, but I didn't read your prior post as to mean the same. Since tax evasion can be both hiding income, as well as finding loop holes. Maybe they are more the same than I had thought. Hm. Maybe I learned something.
As I see it, for rich enough people, tax evasion is akin to a tax on moral conscience. They pay as much as they think they should, or so it seems.
I was indicating that there may be a lot of people that appear "poor" to the IRS with neither a lot of income nor a lot of losses/deductions to offset income that may in fact be earning a lot of money. And efforts to enforce tax collection of the "rich" will not identify these people.
This article specifically talks about _unreported income_ among the "top of the income distribution". I'm saying that if they're known to the IRS as being at the "top of the income distribution" what may be lurking below the top that goes uninvestigated.
> After correcting for this bias, we find that unreported income as a fraction of true income rises from 7% in the bottom 50% to more than 20% in the top 1%, of which 6 percentage points correspond to undetected sophisticated evasion. Accounting for tax evasion increases the top 1% fiscal income share significantly.