Thursday, June 16, 2022: 9 a.m. – 4:20 p.m. virtual conference The 2022 IRS Research Bulletin (Publication 1500) PDF features selected papers from the IRS-Tax Policy Center (TPC) Research Conference held on June 16, 2022. Conference presenters and attendees included researchers from many areas of the IRS, officials from other government agencies, and academic and private sector experts on tax policy, tax administration, and tax compliance. 9 a.m. - 9:30 a.m. – Opening Eric Toder* (Codirector, Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center) Melanie Krause* (Chief Data and Analytics Officer, Research, Applied Analytics and Statistics (IRS)) 9:30 a.m. - 11 a.m. – Session 1: Balancing Audits: Enforcement vs. Measuring Non-Compliance Moderator: Aaron Katch* (IRS, RAAS) Improving Risk Models by Supplementing Random NRP Audits with Non-Random Operational Audits Using Statistical Controls for Bias Ishani Roy, Brett Collins, Alex Turk*, Mark Payne (IRS, RAAS) Augmenting National Research Program Tax Change Estimates by Incorporating Operational Audit Information: A New RAAS Research Initiative Lou Rizzo*, John Riddles, Xiaoshu Zhu, Richard Valliant (Westat); Kimberly Henry (IRS, RAAS) Integrating Reward Maximization and Population Estimation: Sequential Decision-Making for Internal Revenue Service Audit Selection Peter Henderson*, Ben Chugg, Kristen Altenburger, Daniel E. Ho (Stanford University); Brandon Anderson (Stanford University/IRS); John Guyton, Alex Turk (IRS, RAAS); Jacob Goldin (Stanford University/U.S. Department of the Treasury) Discussant: Alan Plumley (IRS, RAAS) 11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. – Session 2: Burden vs. Opportunity Moderator: Alex Ruda* (IRS, RAAS) The Spiderweb of Pass-Through Tax Planning Jacob Goldin, Ryan Hess*, Daniel E. Ho, Rebecca Lester, Mansheej Paul (Stanford University) Automatic Tax Filing: Simulating a Pre-Populated Form 1040 Automatic Tax Form Lucas Goodman, Andrew Whitten (U.S. Department of the Treasury, Office of Tax Analysis); Katherine Lim* (Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis); Bruce Sacerdote (Dartmouth College) The Distribution of the Individual Income Tax Underreporting Tax Gap Drew Johns* (IRS, RAAS) Discussant: Steve Rosenthal* (Tax Policy Center) 12:30 p.m. - 12:40 p.m. – Break 12:40 p.m. - 1:15 p.m. – Keynote Speaker John M. Abowd* (Associate Director and Chief Scientist, Research and Methodology Directorate, U.S. Census Bureau) 1:15 p.m. - 2:45 p.m. – Session 3: Improving Audit Outcomes: Thinking Inside the Box Moderator: Evan Schulz (IRS, RAAS) Graph-Based Machine Learning Methods for Case Selection and Population Segmentation Matt Olson*, Ben Howard, Devika Mahoney-Nair (MITRE); Annette Portz (IRS, RAAS) Automated Discovery of Tax Schemes Using Genetic Algorithms Karen Jones, Camrynn Fausey, Eric O. Scot*t, Geoff Warner, Sanith Wijesinghe (MITRE); Hahnemann Ortiz (IRS, LB&I) Incorporating the Specific Indirect Effect of Correspondence Audits Into IRS Resource Allocation Decisions Alan Plumley*, Daniel Rodriguez (IRS, RAAS); Leigh Nichol (MITRE) Discussant: Mike Stavrianos* (ASR Analytics) 2:45 p.m. - 4:15 p.m. – Session 4: Why Do Taxpayers Comply? Moderator: Robert McClelland (Tax Policy Center) To File or Not to File? What Matters Most? Brian Erard (B. Erard & Associates); Tom Hertz, Pat Langetieg, Mark Payne*, Alan Plumley (IRS, RAAS) Economic Influencers of Total Enforcement Revenue Collected and Operational Implications Jess Grana*, Lucia Lykke, Sam Schmitz (MITRE); Ron Hodge (IRS, RAAS) Non-Monetary Sanctions as Tax Enforcement Tools: Evaluating California’s Top 500 Program Chad Angaretis, Allen Prohofsky (California Franchise Tax Board); Brian Galle* (Georgetown University Law Center); Paul R. Organ (University of Michigan) Discussant: Alex Yuskavage* (U.S. Department of the Treasury) 4:15 p.m. - 4:20 p.m. – Wrap-up Barry Johnson* (Deputy Chief Data and Analytics Officer, Research, Applied Analytics, and Statistics (IRS)) Link to other conferences and resources: Tax Stats IRS Research Conference
