tax advocate asks irs to cut taxpayers a little slack.
by 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 research
the novel coronavirus has made a mess of many things, including deadlines. the u.s. tax court closed on march 19, 2020, leaving taxpayers confused about what has to be filed by when, and often tax practitioners aren’t real sure either.
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here is a summary of key developments that tax clients may need to be aware of:
- when the court closed, it stopped opening mail. some of it piled up. some of it got returned to timely and well intentioned taxpayers, stamped “undeliverable.”
- the court’s website (ustaxcourt.gov) explains:
“mail sent by standard delivery of the united states postal service has been held during the tax court building’s closure. if, however, you previously sent a document to the court and it was returned to you, resend the document to the court as soon as possible after july 10, 2020. please include with your resubmission a copy of the original envelope or container in which the document was first sent. you should retain a copy of any document sent to the court.” (emphasis added.)
- the court was to resume mail acceptance on july 10. it also added a drop box at the entrance of the court building in washington, d.c.
- mailing of “courtesy copies” of e-filed documents longer than 50 pages has been suspended.
- the deadline to file a court petition was extended from any date between april 9 and july 14 to july 15.
- on may 29, the court adopted procedures for conducting proceedings remotely. u.s. tax court administrative order no. 2020-2 – available as a pdf at the court website – explains the proceedings and process.
- to ease the backup of cases, the irs office of the chief counsel has established a virtual settlement days program. “underrepresented” taxpayers can access the program remotely to work toward resolving pending court cases. they can receive free tax advice and possible representation from lower income taxpayer clinics and certain pro bono organizations. ideally, the program helps taxpayers reach a fair settlement in an informal setting rather than in continued litigation.
the bottleneck at the tax court has been exacerbated by the shutdown and subsequent slowdown of the irs.
meanwhile, the taxpayer advocacy service has been able to minimize disruptions by allowing staff to work remotely, but there have been inevitable limitations.
- remote tas agents cannot access, receive or mail paper case files, and assistance that necessarily involves an irs agent is often delayed because of closure of irs offices.
- the tas has been able to help taxpayers seek penalty abatement for reasonable cause, but it does not have authority to make adjustments. after triaging for economic burden, the tas has been issuing operations assistance requests to the irs. as irs functions have been changing daily, responses to oars have been spotty.
- in-person outreach and education has been suspended.
- in-person training classes, including those for new hires, have been suspended, which will impact the readiness of employees for the rest of the post-filing season.
- because of high call volume, tas agents are not accepting calls regarding economic impact payment issues.
the tas is asking the irs to relax some of its requirements and deadlines. it has also made some suggestions for preparing for the next national emergency. among them:
- prepare alternate means of delivering mission-critical services.
- develop secure technologies for remote services.
- generally modernize antiquated information and communication hardware and software systems.
- use digital information more, paper less.
- make functions more portable to remote offices and to alternative sites.
if every crisis is an opportunity, covid-19 offers a vast horizon of hope. but the silver lining around the covid-19 cloud is in the preparation for future crises. congress should fund and mandate the requisite preparations.