The American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) had a Town Hall meeting on Thursday, January 6, 2022, to cover updates related to the tax profession. One of the items they highlighted is how dysfunctional the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) currently is. The biggest problem is they aren’t opening their mail or reading the faxes that are sent to them.
There are horror stories all through the tax community about the IRS sending tax notices to taxpayers, a response to the notice is sent to the IRS, and then the IRS ignores the response and escalates the notice. Sometimes, they even end up threatening to place a levy on the taxpayer’s assets before they’ve even acted on the responses that have been submitted. It is definitely becoming a big issue and Congress needs to step in.
This is where you can help out. If you’re a taxpayer and you receive these notices, in addition to contacting your tax professional to help you resolve the issue, you really need to complain to your Congress members (House and Senate). It doesn’t matter what political party you identify with or your representatives are part of, this is a societal issue that threatens to fray the whole notion of trust in the IRS to fairly tax and respond to citizens of the USA.
One piece of advice from the AICPA is to request your House Member cosponsor H.R. 5155, The Taxpayer Penalty Protection Act. Here is a link to the bill where you can see the current sponsors and the status of the bill through the legislative process.
WHAT: Raise Congressional Awareness of Penalty Relief
Request your House Member to cosponsor H.R. 5155.
HOW: Use Draft Language to Connect with Congress
Email to Congress
“Tax practitioners are entering their third filing season during a
pandemic that has brought IRS service levels to unprecedented lows. Clients are
receiving unnecessary and erroneous notices because the IRS is backlogged and
short staffed. We also can’t get through to live assisters to quickly fix the problem.
With new tax changes around the corner, these issues will only get worse. In order to
help taxpayers and minimize contacts with the IRS as it struggles to provide
adequate services, we ask that you cosponsor H.R. 5155, the Taxpayer Penalty
Protection Act, and urge the IRS to provide reasonable penalty relief measures to
taxpayers now.”
Social Media Post
“Tax practitioners and taxpayers are entering their third filing
season during a pandemic with dismal IRS service levels. Taxpayers need relief from
tax penalties now – we ask the @IRS to grant penalty relief. #COVIDPenaltyRelief
@AICPA @[mediaoutlet] @[member of Congress]”
Here’s a post I Tweeted that you can use as an example:
Tax practitioners and taxpayers are entering their third filing season during a pandemic with dismal IRS service levels.
— Brian Streig, CPA (@cbriancpa) January 9, 2022
Taxpayers need relief from tax penalties now – we need HB 5155 #COVIDPenaltyRelief@AICPA @nytimes @washingtonpost @RepLloydDoggett #TaxTwitter pic.twitter.com/LvdZGPqYLW
Resources
Find your rep: https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative
Members of Congress Twitter handles: https://twitter.com/i/lists/34179516/members
IRS Social Media: @IRSnews and @IRStaxpros