IRS audits completed

Board games rose as IRS audits fell, which sounds like the punchline to a libertarian joke but is, more prosaically, a lockdown coincidence. The country played more games, filed more taxes, and was audited less. The dice were mostly fair.

Board game sales surged in 2020 as locked-down households rediscovered the dining-room table, while IRS audit completions — already declining for years due to budget cuts — plunged further as covid closed field offices and paused in-person audits. Two unrelated trends bent sharply by the same spring for opposite reasons.

So the correlation is the accidental irony of a year. Americans played more and were audited less. Neither was a reward. Both were 2020.