Tax trade organizations request taxpayer aid from IRS Commissioner, Charles Rettig.
As we speak organizations representing professionals within the tax trade sent a letter to IRS Commissioner, Charles Rettig, and the Division of Treasury’s Assistant Secretary for Tax Coverage, Lily Batchelder, requesting particular aid for taxpayers for the 2022 tax season. The letter reminds the Commissioner and the Assistant Secretary that the IRS “nonetheless has an unprecedented variety of unprocessed returns” in comparison with pre-pandemic years. It additionally notes that these unprocessed returns have resulted in “quite a few mistargeted notices, liens, and levies.” With the IRS solely answering 9% of all calls and solely 3% of calls relating to particular person revenue tax returns, any resolution that reduces name and/or mail quantity or gives an expedient and closing decision to a tax matter ought to be thought of.
The letter notes that the IRS “has not taken cheap actions that might meaningfully cut back pointless burdens throughout this upcoming tax submitting season” and affords the next 4 options:
- Discontinuing automated compliance actions till the IRS has the sources to realize correct and well timed resolutions to the issues.
- Aligning requests for account holds to the time it takes for the IRS to course of a penalty abatement request. In different phrases, if it’s going to take the IRS six months to resolve the matter, the account maintain ought to be for six months.
- Supply an affordable trigger penalty waiver much like the “first time abatement” (FTA)
FTA waiver that doesn’t have an effect on a taxpayer’s future eligibility for an FTA.
- Present taxpayers with focused aid from each the underpayment of estimated tax penalty and the late cost penalty for tax years 2020 and 2021.
Implementing any certainly one of these options would supply taxpayers and their representatives with a lot wanted respiratory room as e-filing for particular person returns for the 2022 submitting season opens on January 24, 2022. Implementing all 4 may very well be a sport changer for taxpayers and tax professionals alike as each the IRS and the Nationwide Taxpayer Advocate have expressed considerations about return processing delays affecting refund supply occasions within the upcoming submitting season. Penalty aid is at all times welcome, however extra so within the face of the expiration of advance Little one Tax Credit score funds, the tip of many eviction moratoriums, and ongoing Covid-related disruptions to highschool, childcare, and work. Adopting procedures that extra carefully align the timing of notices, compliance actions, and account holds with the time the IRS really must resolve a matter given its present state and sources would scale back the necessity for a number of calls and/or mailings to the IRS on a single matter. In different phrases, the advisable options wouldn’t simply assist taxpayers and their representatives, they might additionally assist the IRS by decreasing name and mail quantity and giving IRS representatives the time and authority they should expediently shut these typically minor tax controversies.
Signatories to the letter included the American Institute of Licensed Public Accountants (AICPA), the Nationwide Affiliation of Enrolled Brokers (NAEA), the Nationwide Affiliation of Tax Professionals (NATP), LatinoTaxPro, the Nationwide Society of Black CPAs, and Prosperity Now.
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