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Under government rules, tax returns are accepted as filed unless the IRS audits and then challenges a return. The two years that Bush’s return would have been most likely to be selected for audit, 2000 and 2001, were the record low years for audits of high-income Americans. The richest taxpayers benefited mightily those years because, at the insistence of the most right-wing Republicans in Congress, the IRS focused on tax returns filed by the working poor. In 1999, for the first time, those who made less than $25,000 were more likely to be audited than those who made more than $100,000.
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David Cay Johnston (Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You with the Bill))