With the pandemic, the IRS has faced a lot of issues. One that has faced my clients is the IRS ignoring responses to Automated Underreporting Unit (AUR) notices. These notices are sent when the IRS receives notification of items of income that the IRS thinks should be on the return but are not on the return. These are not audits. These typically arrive to taxpayers as CP2000 notices. Taxpayers have 30 days to respond to the notice, either by mail or by fax.
Unfortunately, several of my clients received CP2000 notices and responded (or I responded on their behalf) and the IRS ignored the response and sent a statutory Notice of Deficiency. You can respond to the IRS to a Notice of Deficiency; however, if the IRS doesn’t respond back to you within 90 days the tax will be assessed (unless you file a petition for Tax Court). I had clients respond both by fax and by mail and their responses were ignored.
One such client isn’t a systemic issue (mistakes do happen), but when it is several it’s a systemic issue. I reported this on the Systemic Advocacy Management System (SAMS). The IRS was aware of mail issues, but had not been aware of the issues with faxes. I could prove to the IRS that the faxes were sent (we had the receipts generated by my fax machine showing that all pages were sent and received). The SAMS group–which works within the Taxpayer Advocate Office–agreed that it’s a systemic issue and is working to (hopefully) prevent this from recurring.
Figuring out what went wrong will help protect taxpayer rights and reduce the burden on both taxpayers and the IRS. I’ve spoken to SAMS representatives a few times on this issue, and they are trying to resolve this. It may not help my clients (unfortunately, the deadline on a Notice of Deficiency is a ‘set in stone’ date though the IRS is trying to resolve the problems faced by my clients), but it will help others.
I encourage any of you to use the SAMS system if you see an issue that faces multiple taxpayers and are “big picture” issues:
These systemic issues:
- Always affect multiple taxpayers;
- Don’t apply to just one taxpayer (but if you personally have an unresolved IRS problem, TAS may be able to help);
- Involve IRS systems, policies, and procedures;
- Involve protecting taxpayer rights, reducing burden, ensuring fair treatment, or providing essential taxpayer services.
You can report such issues on the SAMS system. The Taxpayer Advocate does look at these, and resolving these issues helps everyone.
Tags: SAMS