About a month ago I wrote Nina Olson, the IRS National Taxpayer Advocate, regarding the IRS’s new policy on redacting transcripts. I noted several issues:
1. While an unredacted transcript is available, it is only available to taxpayers, not tax professionals.
2. The redacted transcripts should have more characters available for the name.
3. Most issues will take longer to resolve under the new policy.
4. Tax professionals are being treated as second (or third) class citizens by the IRS.
5. Compliance issues for expatriates will be even harder to resolve in the future.
6. If the IRS extends the redactions to AUR notices, resolving such notices will be difficult.
You can read the entire letter here.