It's statistical. They are not calculating everyones taxes, they are saying "well you act like a duck and quack like a duck earning this much, is what your paid/what you purchased within some confidence interval of normal?" No? audit.

Do you have actual knowledge that it's statistical, or are you just guessing? Because the IRS absolutely does have all the data they need to perfectly fill in most people's tax returns. Sure, having that data doesn't mean they've done the work to be able to do things with that data, but it's not hard to imagine they have a system to calculate everyone's taxes, given the data at hand.

Where is the IRS getting data on my purchases?

real estate property, form 8300 (say for car purchases in cash)

unclear to me if 1099-k could be used to track purchases. I'd guess if you're audited perhaps credit card records.

In the future, from FedNow maybe, a federal payment processor proposal, meaning they could track everything. (gotta feed the big government tumor?)

https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/othe...

But gov won't tell you the correct number, they only tell you when you do it wrong and they want to fine you. lol

Right, that's kind of the point of the article. The government should tell us that number with a pre-filled form. Then we can either accept it as is, or make whatever corrections are necessary.

In Taiwan, this is how it currently works. It used to be like US and you need to fill everything manually. But now you only need auth your id card into gov website, fill additional reduction that is not on list and click accept. Probably just a 15 min task.

I guess it is also possible for US to do this if they are ever willing to?

Work both ways: last year I got a letter notifying me I was wrong about my taxes, and that a refund to me is due.