Taxable Talk

With great fanfare the IRS today announced the adoption of The Taxpayer Bill of Rights. As noted in the IRS announcement,

The Taxpayer Bill of Rights takes the multiple existing rights embedded in the tax code and groups them into 10 broad categories, making them more visible and easier for taxpayers to find on IRS.gov.

Publication 1, “Your Rights as a Taxpayer,” has been updated with the 10 rights and will be sent to millions of taxpayers this year when they receive IRS notices on issues ranging from audits to collection. The rights will also be publicly visible in all IRS facilities for taxpayers and employees to see.

“The Taxpayer Bill of Rights contains fundamental information to help taxpayers,” said IRS Commissioner John A. Koskinen. “These are core concepts about which taxpayers should be aware. Respecting taxpayer rights continues to be a top priority for IRS employees, and the new Taxpayer Bill of Rights summarizes these important protections in a clearer, more understandable format than ever before.”

My question to the IRS: Will anything change? Let’s look at the IRS scandal and these rights. (Six of the ten rights appear to me to be directly applicable to the current IRS scandal.)

1. The Right to be Informed. “[Taxpayers] have the right to be informed of IRS decisions about their tax accounts and to receive clear explanations of the outcomes.” There are a large number of 501(c)(4) organizations that still don’t know exactly what happened.

2. The Right to Quality Service. “Taxpayers have the right to receive prompt, courteous, and professional assistance in their dealings with the IRS, to be spoken to in a way they can easily understand, to receive clear and easily understandable communications from the IRS, and to speak to a supervisor about inadequate service.” Again, a large number of 501(c)(4) organizations had nothing of the kind.

4. The Right to Challenge the IRS’s Position and be Heard. “Taxpayers have the right to raise objections and provide additional documentation in response to formal IRS actions or proposed actions, to expect that the IRS will consider their timely objections and documentation promptly and fairly, and to receive a response if the IRS does not agree with their position.” That didn’t happen.

6. The Right to Finality. “Taxpayers have the right to know the maximum amount of time they have to challenge the IRS’s position as well as the maximum amount of time the IRS has to audit a particular tax year or collect a tax debt.” If not for TIGTA, there wouldn’t have been any finality with the 501(c)(4)’s.

7. The Right to Privacy. “Taxpayers have the right to expect that any IRS inquiry, examination, or enforcement action will comply with the law and be no more intrusive than necessary, and will respect all due process rights, including search and seizure protections and will provide, where applicable, a collection due process hearing.” No comment here is necessary.

8. The Right to Confidentiality. “Taxpayers have the right to expect that any information they provide to the IRS will not be disclosed unless authorized by the taxpayer or by law. Taxpayers have the right to expect appropriate action will be taken against employees, return preparers, and others who wrongfully use or disclose taxpayer return information.” Please see yesterday’s post.

Until the IRS comes clean on the IRS scandal, what was released today makes a great sound bite but is otherwise nothing new. The IRS appears to have violated six of the ten rights, and is still stonewalling Congress on the scandal. The IRS’s budget won’t be increased because of today’s press release.

---

For the record, I do want to note that most IRS employees are professional, courteous, and a pleasure to deal with. I had an Appeals hearing today, and though we did not agree on everything, the Appeals Officer explained his position, and listened intently to my position. This led to a fair resolution of my client’s case. In general, most IRS employees exhibit this behavior. It’s a shame that the IRS scandal is causing damage to the agency, but this scandal emanates from the top (or somewhere near the top).

Tags: IRS.Bill.of.Rights, IRS.Scandal

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 10th, 2014 at 7:33 pm and is filed under IRS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.