broken system. broken trust. broken tax season.
by 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间
the government shutdown of 2018-19 was a traumatic experience that cpas and tax preparers will remember, with a shudder, for years to come.
more on busy season: the irs mess: taxpayer’s roadmap is a plumber’s nightmare | fixing the irs: tax professionals speak out | refunds rebound, up 1.3% from last year | tax refund fury roils busy season | irs in crisis: tax professionals bear the brunt | the tax season funnies: worst video game ever | taxpayer advocate slams congress over funding | 1.6 million tax clients gone missing? | busy season: fear, hope & frustration | alternative minimum tax: what’s it like today? | clients’ top worry: going broke | the latest rules on charitable donations |
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it was the longest shutdown in history, and it hit precisely at crunch time for the tax cuts and jobs act and just as tax season was getting underway.
look at some of the stats from the taxpayer advocate service for service just before and just after (not during) the shutdown:
- on the accounts management (am) phone line, the level of service (los)—a metric of how well the irs serves taxpayers—dropped from 75.4 percent the week before the shutdown to 48.3 percent the week after the shutdown ended.
- during those pre- and post-shutdown weeks, the average speed of answers to am calls shot up from 12.8 minutes to 17 minutes.
- the los for the installment agreement (ia)/balance due phone line plunged from 54.6 percent to just 6.7 percent.
- the average speed of answer for incoming calls regarding ias rocketed from a barely reasonable 23.2 minutes to a totally unacceptable 80.6 minutes.
prior to the shutdown, significant improvements
what a shame to see such degradation of service! prior to the shutdown, the irs had actually accomplished significant improvements in service.
- the los for the am lines improved by 32.7 percent from december 2017 to 2018.
- the average speed of answers from 22 percent, from 16.4 minutes o 12.8. minutes
- the average speed of answer for ias dropped 13.4 percent, from 26.8 minutes to 23.2 minutes.
taxpayer property at risk
the shutdown was not a surprise at the irs. the service had a plan for the foreseen “2019 filing season lapse.” the plan excepted (that is, allowed to work during the shutdown) many irs employees, including whoever was needed to “protect property.”
unfortunately, that exception referred to government property, not taxpayer property. taxpayer property at risk during the shutdown included several billion dollars in refunds, bank accounts, and various kinds of credits and claims, not to mention stolen identities.
with most irs employees on furlough, taxpayers saw some of their rights furloughed as well. taxpayer obligations, however, continued unabated. unfortunately, some obligations could not be met because the irs was closed. for example, a taxpayer has 21 days to make payment arrangements following the issuance of a levy. some 18,000 levies expired during the shutdown, so banks and employers were required to fork over funds to the irs.
among the situations harmful to taxpayers:
- statutorily mandated releases of levies for economic hardship were not affected.
- premature or improper notices of federal tax liens could not be withdrawn.
- a taxpayer with a levy issued against a bank account could not arrange an ia.
- a taxpayer with a new ia could not get a levy released.
- the irs could issue notices with deadlines yet could not know if the deadline was met because nobody was opening or processing the mail.
harmed trust
neither the filing season lapse plan nor the tax code nor any statutory mandate allowed the irs to waive taxpayer rights. the abuse of those rights did more than harm taxpayers with delays, unwarranted levies, and denial of claims. it harmed the trust that taxpayers are supposed to have when they voluntarily report their income and render their taxes.
pointing out the seriousness of this negligence, taxpayer advocate nina olson notes in her annual report to congress that “the irs is the federal agency that touches everyone.”
indeed it does. and it’s a heavy touch. it’s a touch that has, in olson’s words, the “awesome power to audit and assess taxes, and to seize income and assets, without the need to obtain a judgment.”
as the disburser of hundreds of billions of dollars in federal refunds and payments, the irs constitutes a huge portion of american financial activity. last year,
- 112 million individuals received an average refund of $2,900.
- 25 million received a total of $63 billion in earned income tax credit.
- six million received nearly $28 billion in premium tax credits to defray the cost of health insurance.
it’s a huge amount of money, a ponderous portion of the economy, and a significant part of every family’s finances. to have the irs choke off the flow of these funds, even temporarily, is little different from a stroke that blocks an artery. the consequences are felt long after the actual event.
five crucial steps
the government shutdown and consequent irs slowdown were by no means the entirety of the problems at the irs. they simply made the many inadequacies more obvious, more severe, and more painful. when nina olson summarized five crucial steps that must be taken to protect taxpayer rights, she started off by addressing the problem of shutdowns. then she went on to address the more systemic problems.
her recommended steps:
- the anti-deficiency act (ada) needs to be amended. the act implements the constitutional provision that no funds may be drawn from the treasury unless duly appropriated, and it outlines how tax can be collected. the act should be amended to provide that when the government takes enforcement action during a shutdown, irs personnel must be on duty to ensure taxpayer protections and rights are still in force.
- the irs should be given multi-year funding to replace its antiquated information technology systems.
- the irs should improve its communications with taxpayers so that notices of deficiency and collection due process hearings are designed around rights, not enforcement, thus emphasizing taxpayer education and better engagement with the service.
- congress should ask the irs to consider modifying its withholding system to create a hybrid pay-as-you-earn system that embraces sources of income other than wages.
- the irs needs to re-examine how it measures performance in all activities—outreach education, audits, collection— and assess whether its initiatives are increasing or undermining voluntary compliance.
all five of these steps would do much to make life easier not just for taxpayers but for their intrepid tax preparers.
“it is true that taxes are the ‘lifeblood of government,’” olson says, “but…it is the taxpayers of the united states who pay that lifeblood. we need to honor our taxpayers by providing them the best tax administration possible.”