The report assigns a forward-looking value
TIGTA’s October 15 audit of selected Working Families Tax Cuts Act provisions lists four recommendations and $122,397,402 in funds for better use. The same federal record lists zero questioned costs.
Those fields are not interchangeable. Funds for better use estimates prospective value from a recommended change; questioned costs generally identify spending auditors challenge under rules or documentation.
| Measure | Published value |
|---|---|
| Recommendations | 4 |
| Funds for better use | $122,397,402 |
| Questioned costs | $0 |
| Report date | October 15, 2026 |
The ratio cannot be treated as money already recovered
Dividing the better-use estimate by four produces an average of about $30.6 million per recommendation, but that arithmetic is not an allocation. Recommendations can carry very different values, and the registry does not assign equal shares.
Most importantly, the $122.4 million is not a receipt. Realized benefit depends on implementation, taxpayer behavior and the audit’s estimation assumptions.
Selected provisions limit the scope
The title says the audit covered selected provisions. It should not be read as a complete assessment of every change in the tax law or the entire filing season.
A useful implementation ledger would link each recommendation to the responsible IRS function, due date, status and eventual measured result.
Method and limits
The newsroom analyzed the official federal report metadata and separated the two cost categories. It did not reproduce TIGTA’s taxpayer-level testing or independently validate the projection.
The finding is about the watchdog’s quantified opportunity and recommendation count, not proof that the IRS lost or misspent $122.4 million.