Victim in MLK Blvd. shooting identified as social media influencer The victim of the Martin Luther King Boulevard shooting has been identified as a local social media influencer.
Fixing failed back surgeries More than a million and a half people in the U.S. undergo back surgery each year. However, classic back surgery has one of the highest failure rates of any surgery.
WINK NEWS Getting an inside look at the FEMA discount controversy Picking up the pieces after Hurricane Ian has been difficult for many and moving on can impact our wallets.
FGCU FGCU pitcher Dylan Wolff playing for hometown team after labrum injury FGCU pitcher Dylan Wolff is living the dream playing for the hometown team after he overcame a labrum injury.
LEHIGH ACRES Frustrated Lehigh parents want action after violent school fights go viral online Violence at a Lehigh Acres Middle school was captured and posted online.
Turtle Club beachfront restaurant relaunches in Naples After a series of private friends and family events this week, The Turtle Club will reopen May 5 and begin taking reservations again May 6.
Jimmie The Beef Guy opens in Fort Myers Jimmie “The Beef Guy” Hart opened the first Jimmie The Beef Guy in 2021 on the southeast corner of Bonita Beach Road and U.S. 41.
SARASOTA Distressed endangered sawfish euthanized nearly a month after rescue Wildlife officials euthanized a distressed smalltooth sawfish that was rescued from Cudjoe Bay in the Florida Keys where it was swimming in circles.
FORT MYERS Help identify driver of SUV related to Fort Myers shooting Police hope someone can help identify the driver of an SUV involved in the shooting on Dr. Martin Luther King Boulevard and Michigan Avenue.
FORT MYERS Owners of Richards Building speak out over paint job of historic property The Richards Building in downtown Fort Myers, aged 101 years, recently underwent a controversial transformation with a fresh coat of white paint, defying a stop-work order and sparking public outrage.
FORT MYERS Jake’s story: What needs to change to protect other young people? November 8, 2021, Jake Pfeiffer took his own life. His mom shared Jake’s story with WINK News in the hopes of saving another life.
FORT MYERS Man accused of fatal shooting of truck driver appears in court A man facing second-degree murder charges following an altercation with a pickup truck driver made an appearance in court.
NAPLES SUV crashes into Naples restaurant’s window; no injuries A popular Naples restaurant is cleaning up after an SUV partially crashed into it, but luckily, nobody was hurt.
PUNTA GORDA 20th annual Hibiscus Festival begins in Punta Gorda The 20th annual Hibiscus Festival at Gilchrist Park in Punta Gorda begins Friday morning and runs all weekend.
WINK NEWS Lehigh Acres senior caretaker accused of stealing over $70K of patients’ jewelry A senior caretaker has been arrested for allegedly stealing over $70,000 of her patients’ jewelry and pawning it.
Victim in MLK Blvd. shooting identified as social media influencer The victim of the Martin Luther King Boulevard shooting has been identified as a local social media influencer.
Fixing failed back surgeries More than a million and a half people in the U.S. undergo back surgery each year. However, classic back surgery has one of the highest failure rates of any surgery.
WINK NEWS Getting an inside look at the FEMA discount controversy Picking up the pieces after Hurricane Ian has been difficult for many and moving on can impact our wallets.
FGCU FGCU pitcher Dylan Wolff playing for hometown team after labrum injury FGCU pitcher Dylan Wolff is living the dream playing for the hometown team after he overcame a labrum injury.
LEHIGH ACRES Frustrated Lehigh parents want action after violent school fights go viral online Violence at a Lehigh Acres Middle school was captured and posted online.
Turtle Club beachfront restaurant relaunches in Naples After a series of private friends and family events this week, The Turtle Club will reopen May 5 and begin taking reservations again May 6.
Jimmie The Beef Guy opens in Fort Myers Jimmie “The Beef Guy” Hart opened the first Jimmie The Beef Guy in 2021 on the southeast corner of Bonita Beach Road and U.S. 41.
SARASOTA Distressed endangered sawfish euthanized nearly a month after rescue Wildlife officials euthanized a distressed smalltooth sawfish that was rescued from Cudjoe Bay in the Florida Keys where it was swimming in circles.
FORT MYERS Help identify driver of SUV related to Fort Myers shooting Police hope someone can help identify the driver of an SUV involved in the shooting on Dr. Martin Luther King Boulevard and Michigan Avenue.
FORT MYERS Owners of Richards Building speak out over paint job of historic property The Richards Building in downtown Fort Myers, aged 101 years, recently underwent a controversial transformation with a fresh coat of white paint, defying a stop-work order and sparking public outrage.
FORT MYERS Jake’s story: What needs to change to protect other young people? November 8, 2021, Jake Pfeiffer took his own life. His mom shared Jake’s story with WINK News in the hopes of saving another life.
FORT MYERS Man accused of fatal shooting of truck driver appears in court A man facing second-degree murder charges following an altercation with a pickup truck driver made an appearance in court.
NAPLES SUV crashes into Naples restaurant’s window; no injuries A popular Naples restaurant is cleaning up after an SUV partially crashed into it, but luckily, nobody was hurt.
PUNTA GORDA 20th annual Hibiscus Festival begins in Punta Gorda The 20th annual Hibiscus Festival at Gilchrist Park in Punta Gorda begins Friday morning and runs all weekend.
WINK NEWS Lehigh Acres senior caretaker accused of stealing over $70K of patients’ jewelry A senior caretaker has been arrested for allegedly stealing over $70,000 of her patients’ jewelry and pawning it.
(Daniel Brosam / U.S. Air Force/MGN) Taxpayers are half as likely to be audited by the Internal Revenue Service as they were a decade ago following a sharp reduction in staff over the past several years. The audit rate for individuals declined to 0.45% for fiscal-year 2019, down from 0.9% in 2009, according to IRS data. Even a decade ago, the audit rate was sharply lower than in the 1970s, when the agency audited about 2.5% of individual returns. The IRS now has fewer auditors than at any point since World War II. The staffing reduction at the IRS is taking a toll on auditing, with some critics saying the trend is allowing billions in potential tax revenue to go uncollected. Former U.S. Treasury chief Lawrence Summers has argued that the federal government could collect an additional $100 billion a year without raising taxes a cent — simply by increasing the audit rates for millionaires. But audit rates for taxpayers who make over $1 million a year fell by half between 2010-2018, according to a Syracuse University analysis. Middle-class Americans aren’t as lucky. The audit rate for taxpayers earning between $50,000 to $75,000 has declined, but at a slower rate. Audit rates for individuals in that income bracket have declined 31%, dipping to 0.54% in 2018. Taxpayers with incomes between $1 up to $25,000 have seen their audit rates drop by 42%, to 0.69%, while those earning between $25,000 up to $50,000 have had their audit rates decline by 34% to 0.48%. In other words, audits for lower-income and middle-class taxpayers have dropped far less than the decline enjoyed by millionaires. Audit rates may continue to slip, given the IRS’ forecast that it will lose up to 31% of its current workforce, or almost 20,000 full-time workers, to retirement within the next five years. The IRS hasn’t released audit rates for last year, but data for 2018 shows the percentage of returns that got audited based on your income: $1-$25,000: 0.69% $25,000-$50,000: 0.48% $50,000-75,000: 0.54% $75,000-100,000: 0.45% $100,000-$200,000: 0.44% $200,000-$500,000: 0.54% $500,000-$1 million: 1.1% $1 million-$5 million: 2.2% $5 million-$10 million: 4.2% Over $10 million: 6.7% Audits for rural Americans And previous research has found that individuals in poor, rural counties are more likely to be audited than those from rich areas. The county where residents are most likely to face an audit is Mississippi’s tiny Humphreys County, where the median household income is less than $24,000 a year, or less than half the income of a typical U.S. family. The reason is due to an IRS policy of scrutinizing taxpayers who claim the Earned Income Tax Credit, or EITC, a refundable tax credit aimed at low- and moderate-income Americans, researcher Kim M. Bloomquist, a former senior economist in the IRS Office of Research, said last year. Many of those rural counties with high audit rates have larger minority populations. By contrast, the counties with the lowest audit rates tend to have higher incomes and a population that’s mostly white. Denali, Alaska, with the lowest audit rate of all U.S. counties — at 2.17%, compared with 4.8% for Humphreys County — is 84% white and has a median household income of more than $83,000, according to Census data.