House Report 110-207: Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Bill, 2008 – Closing the Tax Gap: “According to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), taxpayers paid about $1.8 trillion in taxes on time in 2001. Research conducted by the IRS has estimated that the ‘tax gap’, or the difference between total Federal taxes owed and the tax collections received, was $345 billion for tax year 2001. Once IRS collection and enforcement actions are taken into account, the net tax gap is estimated to be $290 billion. Others have disputed this figure and argued that the actual figure is higher. In addition to the effect of the tax gap on overall Federal resources, the very existence of the tax gap stands contrary to IRS efforts to promote compliance. The Committee agrees with the assessment of the IRS Oversight Board in its most recent annual report that ‘the tax gap is an injustice to compliant taxpayers who ultimately are bearing the financial burden of those who do not pay what they owe, whether intentionally or not.’ As the IRS National Taxpayer Advocate noted in her annual report this year, the existence of the tax gap effectively amounts to a per-taxpayer ‘surtax of more than $2,200 to subsidize noncompliance by others.'”