irs surprised
The IRS spearheaded an effort to find some taxes they believed were slipping through the cracks. The results shocked even them:

A government effort to persuade people and companies to come forward with questionable tax shelter arrangements has netted 577 disclosures involving more than $16 billion in claimed deductions, the IRS announced Thursday.

"It exceeded our expectations," said Larry Langdon, commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service's large and mid-size business division. "We're learning about transactions we didn't know about before."

For a four-month period, "accuracy-related" penalties were not assessed against those who made a disclosure. This helped people who thought that their tax situation might be legally questionable less afraid to step forward.