If you have determined you do not quality for an Employee Retention Credit (ERC) you claimed, the IRS has provided guidance on whether you can withdraw your claim, and if so, how to withdraw your claim.

If you are unable to pay your taxes in full, the IRS has several options that you can consider based on your financial situation.

As a result of taxpayer confusion, lack of clear guidance, concerns about the existing backlog, and impact on the upcoming filing season industry and stakeholders urged the IRS to postpone the implementation of the new reporting requirements of the Forms 1099-K. Good news: The IRS listened, and on Friday, December 23, the IRS issued Notice delaying the requirement for electronic payment networks to report transactions over $600 to the IRS on a Form 1099-K, Payment Card and Third Party Network Transactions, until 2024.

Properly classify digital cash application payments sent or received from others for something other than business transactions.

Waiting on your tax refund can be difficult. It can be even more so when you are unsure about the status or why there might be a delay beyond the timeframe you expected your refund. While you are checking the status of your refund or responding to any IRS requests for additional information, make sure you to protect your personal and tax account information.

View our interactive tax map to see where you are in the tax process. It could help you navigate your way through the IRS.

Notice CP71C is an annual reminder notice of your balance due (taxes you owe), including tax, penalties, and interest. The notice also provides information on the criteria for denial of your passport application/renewal or revocation of your passport due to tax debt.

All too often we turn on the news and hear of yet another disaster affecting hundreds of thousands of people and businesses. These disasters can upend every aspect of an affected individual’s life, including damage or destruction to their home, business, and critical documents. To assist taxpayers, the President may declare the event a federal disaster, which allows the federal government to help affected taxpayers under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act. Once this declaration has been made, the IRS will often provide these taxpayers with certain relief, most commonly by exercising its authority under IRC § 7508A to postpone certain tax deadlines, including filing and payment deadlines.

It is that time of year again – school is out and so are report cards. It is also time for TAS to publish its report card for the IRS. Each year, I submit the National Taxpayer Advocate Annual Report to Congress (ARC) with recommendations for administrative actions the IRS can take to resolve problems encountered by taxpayers. The IRS is statutorily required to respond to our recommendations. TAS’s recommendations, the IRS’s responses, and TAS’s comments on the responses are then incorporated into the Annual Report to Congress Report Card. Of the 77 administrative recommendations I made in the 2024 ARC, the IRS has agreed to implement 42 (or 55%) of the recommendations in full or in part. I appreciate the IRS’s efforts to incorporate TAS’s recommendations on behalf of taxpayers to improve tax administration.

In the coming weeks, I will address the IRS’s responses to recommendations I made regarding specific most serious problems (MSPs) included in my 2024 ARC. This blog highlights the IRS responses to some of my Criminal Voluntary Disclosure Practice (VDP) recommendations.

Identity theft is a constant threat that can happen to anyone. As the saying goes: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. With the annual filing season beginning this week, it is a good time to highlight resources available to help mitigate the potential of becoming a tax-related identity theft victim. Generally, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is the federal agency tasked with identity theft prevention, reporting, and recovery. The FTC annually holds Identity Theft Awareness Week, and its 2025 iteration is underway this week. For additional tax-related identity theft information, the Security Summit, a public-private partnership working to protect against identity theft fraud in taxation, recently held its ninth annual National Tax Security Awareness Week.

On June 26, 2024, I submitted to Congress the National Taxpayer Advocate Fiscal Year 2025 Objectives Report to Congress, which outlines the 2024 filing season and identifies key objectives my organization will undertake for the upcoming fiscal year. The report identifies our key objectives for the upcoming fiscal year, including 11 systemic advocacy objectives, five case advocacy and other business objectives, and four research objectives.

In July, we will publish the IRS responses to each of the 78 recommendations I made in my 2023 Annual Report to Congress. I’m pleased to report the IRS has agreed to implement 62 of the recommendations in full or in part.

I have written frequently about the burdens the complexity of the Internal Revenue Code imposes on taxpayers and the IRS alike.  One of the burdens it imposes on the IRS and its Office of Chief Counsel is the responsibility to clarify ambiguities in the law and make reporting requirements workable so that taxpayers, tax professionals, and tax return software developers know how to report items of income, deduction, and credit on federal income tax returns.

This is Part Three of a blog series on IRS Processing and my recent experience at the IRS’s Kansas City campus, where I had the privilege of working alongside mailroom employees.