This is not exactly news, but it is nice to see a fellow over at CounterPunch quantifying tax cheating.
Here's the key passage:

"How much of this tax cheating involves big-time business people and how much involves mom-and-pop business operators? The IRS doesn’t say. The agency doesn’t break down the new tax evasion data by taxpayer income class.

But eight years ago, economists Andrew Johns and Joel Slemrod went through earlier IRS raw data and did just that.

Americans who make between $500,000 and $1 million a year, these two researchers found, misreport their income at triple the rate of taxpayers making between $30,000 and $50,000, and well over double the rate of taxpayers making $50,000 to $100,000.

One key point to keep in mind here: We’re not talking about loopholes in the tax code when we talk about the “tax gap.” Loopholes let the deep-pocket set legally sidestep what otherwise would be a significantly higher tax bill. The IRS tax gap numbers only apply to outright illegal tax cheating."
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/05/26/americas-cosmic-tax-gap/

It is enraging that the media cannot and will not report this kind of context in discussions about wealth, income and inequality. It's the equivalent of reporting on torture without mentioning that torture is not the most effective interrogation method--it's not even AN effective interrogation method. If we'd had that truth repeated as often as the lie that we gained 'valuable intel' from waterboarding, we might, as a nation, have a different perspective. But the media are hopeless (another topic for another post, when i have more time).

This is another thread in the poxy income inequality blanket we sleep with, and the type of thing I know Bernie would attempt to address. Given that the need is primarily for leadership and staff, I would think an executive branch with integrity could do make a difference even without help from Congress.

Incidentally, this is my first post, or diary, or story, or whatever one calls it. I started at TOP last fall, and was warming to my first post there in early March. Then the edict came down, and the conversation deteriorated fast. Grateful to have this new space.