As the adage goes, the only sure things in life are death and taxes.

But tax audits are another thing entirely.

A taxpayer's chances of getting audited by the IRS have fallen significantly over the past decade.

The agency audited 0.45% of individual tax returns in fiscal 2019, which ran through Sept. 30, 2019. That figure is down from 0.59% in 2018, and down by more than half from what it was in 2010, when 1.11% of taxpayers were audited.

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In other words, roughly 1 out of every 220 taxpayers were audited last year. A decade ago, those odds were closer to 1 in 90.

"Very few people get audited," said Steve Rosenthal, a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.

The dip in audits over the past decade is largely due to budget and personnel reductions over that time period.

The IRS budget of $11.4 billion in 2018 was about 20% less than it was in 2010, when adjusted for inflation, according to the Congressional Budget Office.