Amnesty for Tax Evaders

Something about the incisive article on tax evaders (“IRS Expects Evaders to Cause $127-Billion Collection Gap,” April 11) led me to search for another Times article I’d clipped. I found the March 22 Associated Press news brief. It stated that the deficit grew $110.6 billion in the first five months of 1991. The 1990 total deficit was $220.4 billion.

With some round-figure math, it is easy to see that the $127 billion in uncollected taxes would pay for the first five months’ deficit with $17 billion left over.

Now comes a third Times story on April 10 telling of our state government’s economic plight (“Budget Remedy Likely to Hurt State”). Don’t you just bet that some of those same federal tax evaders do it in California, too?

And, in case you missed one or all of these news stories, note this fact: “In 1987, the latest year for which IRS figures are available, at least $7 billion in taxes went unpaid because the government never got returns it expected from more than 4 million people.” Furthermore, a General Accounting Office study shows that 40,000 of the above non-filers earned more than $100,000 a year.

MARY MEYER

Pasadena