A bipartisan group of 100 lawmakers within the Home and Senate wrote a letter to IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig asking him to offer additional reduction to taxpayers who’ve been receiving warning notices from the IRS this tax season.
The letter comes after the IRS, underneath stress from lawmakers and a coalition of accounting and tax teams together with the American Institute of CPAs and the Nationwide Affiliation of Tax Professionals, agreed final month to droop the issuance of sure sorts of notices, together with assortment notices, stability due notices and unfiled tax return notices (see story).
Lawmakers and tax and accounting teams have additionally expressed concern over the backlog of hundreds of thousands of unprocessed tax returns from final yr that the IRS continues to be coping with, and the IRS introduced plans final week to ramp up hiring of an extra 10,000 workers over the approaching yr to deal with the overload, on prime of making so-called “surge groups” this tax season made up of workers from different capabilities on the company (see story).
Nonetheless, the lawmakers need the IRS to offer extra readability about which notices it’s suspending in addition to develop its reduction, in addition to think about delaying the submitting of the Schedules Okay-2 and Okay-Three for reporting worldwide earnings for partnerships, which the AICPA and different teams have been asking the IRS to do.
“We stay involved that the IRS doesn’t have a complete plan to treatment the quite a few issues affecting taxpayers, even if this submitting season is already properly underway,” the lawmakers wrote to Rettig of their letter. “For instance, there’s continued confusion about which notices could also be unilaterally suspended by the IRS, past the notices the IRS has already suspended, amongst different points.”
They requested for responses to plenty of questions: “Which remaining unsuspended notices does the IRS have the authority to droop? Please clarify why the IRS has left these remaining notices unsuspended. Is the IRS within the means of working to droop further notices? If that’s the case, when will that work be accomplished? Which notices are statutorily required to be issued inside a selected time? Would the IRS droop these statutory notices if the IRS had the authorized authority to take action? Clarify why the IRS has not suspended discover CP2000, Discover of Underreported Earnings? However the publication of Discover 2021-39, widespread controversy surrounding Schedules Okay-2 and Okay-Three stays, together with latest further directions, the lack to electronically file, and lingering uncertainty surrounding many necessities. As such, is the IRS considering reduction, akin to delaying implementation to 2023? In early February, the IRS suggested Congress that it was contemplating a systemic course of to determine pending penalty abatement requests, and likewise evaluating penalty reduction choices. Has the IRS decided if it could actually present penalty reduction for taxpayers as beforehand supplied by the IRS for the 2020 and 2021 tax yr? If not, why not?”
The letter was led by Sen. Bob Menendez, D-New Jersey, and Invoice Cassidy, R-Louisiana, who’re members of the Senate Finance Committee that oversees the IRS, alongside Rep. Jimmy Panetta, D-California, Abigail Spanberger, D-Virginia, Brian Higgins, D-New York, Gus Bilirakis, R-Florida, and Mike Kelly, R-Pennsylvania. The letter was supported by the coalition of tax and accounting teams, together with the AICPA, NATP, Nationwide Affiliation of Enrolled Brokers, Nationwide Society of Accountants, Nationwide Convention of CPA Practitioners, Nationwide Affiliation of Black Accountants, Latino Tax Professional, Padgett Enterprise Companies, Various Group of Companies Advocacy Committee , Nationwide Society of Black Licensed Public Accountants, Prosperity Now and Nationwide Society of Tax Professionals.
“Because the starting of tax season, the AICPA, Members of Congress, and numerous organizations representing taxpayers and practitioners have urged the IRS to take important and significant steps to mitigate the anticipated challenges of this tax season,” mentioned AICPA president and CEO Barry Melancon in an announcement. “The AICPA is grateful to Senators Menendez and Cassidy, together with Representatives Panetta, Spanberger, Higgins, Bilirakis, and Kelly, for his or her persistent efforts to get taxpayers important reduction as we strategy the March 15th submitting deadline. The AICPA stands in assist of the letter, signed by 100 members of Congress, to Commissioner Rettig urging him to reply to questions and considerations and provide clarification on discover suspensions. The tax season is properly underneath method, and we hope the IRS will heed the widespread requires significant reduction and take the mandatory steps to ease taxpayers’ burden and frustration.”