Preface
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The National Taxpayer Advocate Purple Book presents a concise summary of 71 legislative recommendations that the National Taxpayer Advocate believes will strengthen taxpayer rights and improve tax administration.
“Over the past five years, I have had the opportunity to closely observe the extraordinary amount of planning, coordination, and sustained effort required each year to deliver a successful filing season. Filing season is not a single event; it is a year-round undertaking that depends on the alignment of technology, staffing, training, legal guidance, and operational execution across the IRS that begins six to 12 months before the start of the filing season. When this alignment works well, taxpayers experience predictability and timely service. When it does not, the consequences are immediate and sometimes financially devastating.”
Erin M. Collins, National Taxpayer Advocate
Each year’s Annual Report to Congress identifies the ten most serious problems facing taxpayers and offers recommendations to fix them. These issues can affect taxpayers’ basic rights and the ways they pay taxes or receive refunds, even if they are not involved in a dispute with the IRS. As your Voice at the IRS, the National Taxpayer Advocate uses the Annual Report to elevate these problems and recommend solutions to Congress and the highest levels of the IRS.
This section discusses the ten federal tax issues most frequently litigated during the preceding year and contains an analysis of cases petitioned in the Tax Court rather than simply decided cases, providing a much broader view of issues taxpayers bring to court.
In this section, TAS reports on its 2025 advocacy updates from its Case Advocacy and Systemic Advocacy functions.
The Executive Summary provides an overview of the National Taxpayer Advocate 2025 Annual Report to Congress and the 2026 Purple Book.
The Report Card provides an easy to read summary of how the IRS has responded to the NTA’s recommendations from prior reports. It tracks progress by listing each recommendation, the IRS response, and TAS’s assessment of whether the IRS has fully, partially, or not adopted the recommendation. This allows anyone to quickly see where meaningful improvements have been made and where action is still needed to strengthen taxpayer rights and improve tax administration.
