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.

In my previous blog post, I discussed the challenges taxpayers face when searching for information on IRS.gov. In this post, I will examine how the visual layout of IRS.gov adds unnecessary complexity and how duplicative, ambiguous, or incorrect content on IRS.gov confuses taxpayers and recommend improving the utility and ease of the site. I also want to acknowledge and applaud the IRS and the Office of Online Services for its continued efforts to improve the website to enable greater ease of use, navigation and search, and applications to facilitate the discovery and use of IRS content and functions online. Unfortunately, this will not be an easy or quick fix.

Part I of this series addressed ten things that individuals should know about the Advance Child Tax Credit (AdvCTC), including qualification, reasons someone might want to unenroll from receiving monthly payments, and first-time parents. Part II will focus on issues experienced by taxpayers with Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs) and the issuance of paper checks versus direct deposits for the August payment. Part III will explain how AdvCTC tools work, including ID.me, and will discuss the struggles some taxpayers are facing in receiving their AdvCTC.

When the IRS uses its math error authority to correct an error on a taxpayer’s return, the taxpayer, under IRC § 6213(b)(2)(A), has 60 days from the time the notice was sent to dispute the correction and request an automatic abatement.  After the abatement is made, the IRS must follow the deficiency procedures to reassess the tax, and it cannot collect the assessed amount during the 60-day period that the taxpayer has to request abatement.

As mentioned in the Math Error Blog: Part I, the IRS omitted the 60-day time period language for requesting abatement from over five million math error notices where the only adjustment was for the Recovery Rebate Credit (RRC).  Ironically, neither the CP 11 nor CP 12 notices include the term “math error” or the authority provided by the Code.  So how are taxpayers even supposed to know what they are looking at?

Over the years, the IRS has gotten quite good at processing tax returns and issuing refunds quickly and efficiently. The IRS website says that normal processing time for an electronically filed return is 21 days, but in reality, millions of taxpayers receive their refunds even quicker — sometimes within a week, sometimes in days. Similar to past years, IRS employees are working tirelessly to get taxpayers their much-needed refunds as quickly as possible. However, a combination of the high volume of 2020 tax returns requiring manual processing, the backlog of unprocessed 2019 paper tax returns, congressional mandates to issue economic impact payments (EIPs) and provide other relief to taxpayers during the pandemic, limited resources, and technology issues have contributed to more refund delays and longer refund delays than are typical in a normal filing season.

The Taxpayer Advocate Service encourages you to use the Tax Withholding Estimator now.

Don’t let a passport revocation ruin your international travel plans The Internal Revenue Service is urging taxpayers to resolve their significant tax debts, $64,000 or more, to avoid putting their passports in jeopardy. If you owe $64,000 or more and haven’t made payment arrangements, please contact the IRS now to avoid travel delays later.

Learn if Medicaid waiver payments are tax-exempt, how to report them, and when to file an amended return to claim a refund or tax credits.

Running out of time to file your taxes? Request an extension, understand deadlines, and avoid costly penalties by taking the right steps now.

You may have seen that the IRS is moving away from paper checks. If you usually receive a tax refund by paper check, you might also be experiencing some confusion about how you will receive your refund this filing season.

If you claim a refund on your 2025 tax return, new rules may affect how the IRS issues the refund if you don’t provide direct deposit information or if your direct deposit is rejected. These changes are part of the IRS effort to modernize payments to and from America’s bank accounts.

Here’s what you need to know to avoid delays and understand your options.

The IRS is sending notices CP59R, CP59SN, and CP59 to individual taxpayers. The CP59R reminds taxpayers to file the tax return before the due date. The CP59SN tells taxpayers that the IRS hasn’t received their tax return for this year. The CP59 tells taxpayers that it hasn’t received a tax return for the prior year. Some taxpayers who have filed for extensions may also receive the CP59R or CP59SN notice. 

Today, I want to take a quick break from my deep dive into the discussion draft of the Taxpayer Assistance and Service Act to spotlight an important observance: National Small Business Week (NSBW), celebrated this year from May 4 – 10.

Have you moved since you filed your 2022 tax return? If so, make sure you update your address with the IRS now.

The IRS expects to issue all refunds for individual returns that do not have errors (or other issues that would delay processing) by direct deposit and paper checks. But if you have not received your 2022 tax refund by the end of December, you will need to update your address in order to receive it timely. That’s not the only reason you should keep your address up-to-date.

The IRS has the authority in certain situations to postpone filing deadlines, such as for disaster relief, to provide taxpayers who are dealing with difficult circumstances some much-needed additional time to prepare and file their tax returns. However, these postponements can also create a trap for some taxpayers several years down the road, preventing them from receiving a refund even if they could otherwise file a meritorious, timely claim.  While this trap is known to some, it catches most people off guard.

Bottom line: If you are filing a refund claim you need to be aware of both the filing due date AND the date of your prior payments, which creates a separate, additional deadline for your claim. You must meet BOTH deadlines for the IRS to pay your refund.

The trap arises because filing deadline postponements can cause something known as the “lookback period” to fall out of sync with refund claim filing deadlines. I’ll describe how this happens below but, first, some good news: This trap would be easy to fix through a simple change to the tax code that I believe members of Congress would agree is the right answer.

The IRS resumed sending automated collection notices in January following a lengthy, but much needed, pause to address paper processing backlogs that built up during the pandemic. Recently the IRS began sending Intent to Levy notices, including Federal Payment Levy Program (FPLP) notices. The FPLP is an automated process the IRS uses to systemically levy federal payments owed to taxpayers, including Social Security benefits.

No matter what kind of collection notice you receive, don’t ignore it! Ignoring a collection notice can have costly consequences.

Here are some tips to assist you if you receive an IRS collection notice.