IRS audits completed

The IRS has been auditing fewer Americans even as more Americans publish their own books, which suggests a country quietly opting out of one bureaucracy and into another. The tax form is in retreat. The novel is not.

Both trends have separate, durable causes. IRS audit completions have been falling for over a decade due to chronic budget cuts and staff shortages, while self-published book counts have exploded thanks to Amazon KDP and the falling cost of print-on-demand. One bureaucracy hollowed out by Congress, one literature unleashed by a platform.

So the correlation is two trends headed in opposite directions for completely unrelated reasons. The audit shrank. The slush pile grew. Neither has read the other.