The Inner Income Service must do a greater job of administering the partial cost installment agreements it provides to taxpayers with delinquent tax money owed as a lot of them find yourself defaulting, in line with a brand new report.
The report, launched Tuesday by the Treasury Inspector Common for Tax Administration, discovered the IRS hasn’t supplied taxpayers with sufficient data on PPIAs on its web site nor with directions on the shape they should fill out to ask for an installment settlement. On prime of that, the IRS hasn’t created an efficient means for taxpayers to request partial cost installment agreements or enchantment rejected PPIAs as required by legislation.
Many taxpayers fall brief on paying their overdue taxes, particularly within the midst of the pandemic, and with financial challenges now confronting them, similar to surging inflation and housing prices.
The IRS headquarters in Washington.
Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
Taxpayers with such installment agreements received’t be capable to utterly fulfill their delinquent tax legal responsibility instantly, TIGTA acknowledged, however they need to nonetheless pay the utmost quantity decided by an entire monetary evaluation. “Taxpayers granted a PPIA is not going to totally pay all of their delinquent tax legal responsibility instantly, so it is necessary that PPIAs are fastidiously and precisely administered,” stated the report. “Nevertheless, the IRS shouldn’t be all the time correctly selling or establishing PPIAs. When this occurs, taxpayers could also be unaware that the PPIA is a set software obtainable to them to resolve their excellent stability.”
Congress added the PPIAs provision in Part 6159(a) of the Tax Code so taxpayers with some capability to pay might make funds in installments to facilitate partial assortment of their tax money owed. In contrast to streamlined installment agreements or assured installment agreements, the IRS has extra discretion to approve or disapprove PPIAs. Partial cost installment agreements aren’t practically as widespread as streamlined installment agreements. PPIAs typically accounted for lower than 2% of the brand new installment agreements established from fiscal years 2016 via 2020, whereas streamlined installment agreements accounted for 56%.
Nevertheless, TIGTA discovered PPIAs had been established by the IRS with out proof of an entire monetary evaluation of the taxpayers’ capability to pay. The IRS does delete a few of that proof frequently, although. Primarily based on a pattern it examined of 30 PPIAs, TIGTA decided that the taxpayers’ monetary assertion had been deleted from IRS information for 11 PPIAs as a result of multiple yr had elapsed for the reason that PPIA was established. Thus, with no monetary assertion within the file, TIGTA couldn’t decide whether or not the IRS had correctly computed the utmost month-to-month cost quantity the taxpayers had the flexibility to pay.
Nonetheless, the gathering default knowledge, which is obtainable, signifies the IRS is organising PPIAs for quantities that taxpayers can not afford. The default price for PPIAs is larger at 23% than all different sorts of installment agreements at 9% and in some years, the quantity defaulted was larger than the quantity put in PPIAs.
TIGTA discovered 1,007 taxpayers defaulted on their PPIA, with an unique PPIA stability over $197 million, once they did not adjust to an important time period of their settlement. Between fiscal years 2016 and 2020, the IRS established PPIAs for practically $19.7 billion, however taxpayers defaulted on PPIAs totaling $17.6 billion.
Regardless of these issues, TIGTA believes the IRS ought to supply a PPIA possibility as a part of its procedures for closing instances as presently not collectible. The report famous the choice course of for figuring out a presently not collectible case is much like the steps taken by the IRS earlier than granting a PPIA. TIGTA reviewed a random pattern of 51 taxpayer accounts closed as uncollectible throughout fiscal yr 2020 and located the IRS ought to have supplied 4 of the taxpayers a PPIA as a substitute of closing the case as presently not collectible. If PPIAs had been arrange for these 4 taxpayers, TIGTA estimates they might have paid over $79,724 earlier than their respective assortment statutes expired. Primarily based on its pattern, TIGTA estimates the 16,026 taxpayers who had tax liabilities closed as uncollectible might have entered PPIAs and paid a complete of over $319 million earlier than their assortment statutes expired.
TIGTA made six suggestions within the report about how the IRS might enhance the administration of PPIAs. IRS officers agreed to tell taxpayers of the provision of PPIAs and supply outreach; discover and think about further adjustments to the directions for Type 9465, “Installment Settlement Request”; lengthen the Accounts Administration System historical past observe retention necessities; remind staff in its assortment perform to conduct and doc a monetary evaluation; and request a change to Laptop Paragraph 522, “Installment Settlement – Overview Monetary Situation,” to inform taxpayers that the monetary data they supply might lead to the next or decrease installment quantity or no change to their installment quantity. In response to the suggestions, IRS administration agreed with a number of of the suggestions and partially agreed to revise its presently not collectible procedures.
Darren Guillot, commissioner of the IRS’s Small Enterprise/Self-Employed Division, famous that the PPIA program is distinctly completely different from the presently not collectible hardship procedures the place the monetary evaluation signifies a taxpayer presently doesn’t have the flexibility to pay. “Contemplating PPIAs with these taxpayers danger obligating them to month-to-month funds they can’t afford and probably exacerbates a present hardship,” he wrote. “I agree it is going to be useful to make extra taxpayers conscious of the PPIA and we’ll remind staff to contemplate all cost choices (together with PPIAs) when the taxpayer’s monetary situation exhibits that the taxpayer can afford to make funds however can not pay their tax debt in full earlier than the expiration of the gathering statute.”