sound-off: how would accountants fix the irs? join the survey. get the results.
by 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间
tax preparers and taxpayers aren’t the only ones with tax problems. the irs has problems, too.
ten of those problems have been laid out in an annual report to congress from the taxpayer advocate service.
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we covered the top five here. and here are the next five explained.
the first five are:
- processing and refund delays
- irs recruitment, hiring, and training
- telephone and in-person service
- transparency and clarity
- filing season delays
the next five are:
6 – online accounts
in these times of division and partisan strife, there is one issue that appeals to a vast majority of taxpayers: 83 percent would like to use a personal online account to confirm identity and access information, correspondence, and transactions.
that shouldn’t be too much to ask for. but the current fragmented set of irs systems makes it hard to provide all the features taxpayers want (and deserve and need) in one place. that’s probably why only seven percent of taxpayers use an online irs account.
if 83 percent it but only seven percent take it, what’s the problem? it’s probably the irs rattly old coal-fired computers that can’t be upgraded without a massive infusion of funds.
7 – digital communications
when taxpayers need information from the irs, they tend to reach for the phone. the results are less than positive. if you don’t believe it, give the service a jingle and see what you get.
this being the 21st century, 90 percent of taxpayers want to see a website that really provides actionable information. and 81 percent would like to be able to email questions directly to the irs. seventy percent wouldn’t mind having applications that run on mobile devices.
virtually every sizable corporation in the country offers these options. at the irs, however, digital communication is largely confined to compliance activities. a digital communication option would help the irs reduce the awkwardness of dealing with the 4.7 million pieces of paper correspondence that it has yet to work on.
8 – e-filing barriers
nine out of ten taxpayers agree: they’d like to file tax returns electronically. and about that many manage to do so, as do seven out of ten businesses. but many tax forms, schedules, attachments, and other documents cannot be filed electronically, which means that the whole return must be put on paper, loaded onto saddlebags on an old turtle, and dispatched to the deep, dark abyss of the irs.
does it have to be that way? the tas thinks not.
9 – correspondence audits
lower-income taxpayers, who account for over half of all audits, are audited primarily through the mail, are not assigned a single point of contact, and have a hard time reaching the irs. in general, only half of the taxpayers manage to slip through the irs phone system. often the irs closes an audit without even contacting the taxpayer, creating subsequent consequences for taxpayer and irs alike.
subsequent consequences and their related costs and delays are something worth avoiding. if the irs is going to audit by mail, it should have open channels of communication available.
10 – collection
fifty-five percent of taxpayers say that an option to pay tax in installments influences how they report and pay taxes. honest returns are a good idea, but irs collection policies and procedures prevent low-income taxpayers from receiving the relief that congress intends for them. the irs fails to classify millions of taxpayers as low-income, to refund thousands of installment agreement fees, and to adopt procedures that would facilitate a collection pause.
the american system of taxation is largely based on honest and voluntary payment. but when well-intentioned taxpayers hit up against opaque sources of information, antiquated means of filing, a lack of communication, and unfair treatment, the best of intentions can easily go awry. by resolving its top ten problems, the irs could do a long way toward helping taxpayers fulfill their patriotic duty.
one response to “crisis at the irs”
cd giedt
this a nice list but fails to observe the real problem: horrible leadership and even worse if possible management. put simply, the irs has had millions of dollars of resources for 50 years and has been unable to figure out how to update its computer system. commissioners and congress have failed to see this problem and career upper management of the irs have failed to find a way to update systems. before you complain about budgets, all other entities in the world have figured out how to update. career management at the irs needs to be replaced with forward thinking humans to fix the problem.