Alexandria, VA, November 22, 2021 — NSA sent a letter to the IRS and Congress calling attention to the need for improved transparency from the IRS in its communications with both taxpayers and practitioners, as well as the importance of increased funding for the agency.
It is NSA’s position that there is a crisis occurring involving the IRS, taxpayers, and practitioners, much of which can be attributed to insufficient funding. Therefore, NSA encourages Congress to fund the IRS more adequately and consistently. “The steady increase of responsibility that Congress continues to legislatively place upon the IRS year-after-year greatly exceeds the declining and often stagnant appropriations for the agency.”
However, it is equally vital for the IRS to do its part to rectify the situation and recognize its own shortcomings in communication with taxpayers and practitioners during this ongoing crisis.
Currently, the IRS continues to lag in the processing and issuing of refunds for 2019 and 2020 returns. NSA asserts that greater transparency and improved communication from the IRS are needed to assuage the growing frustrations and fears among tax and accounting professionals regarding the 2022 tax filing season.
NSA urges the agency to take the following steps:
- Stop all automatic collection notices and actions of liens and levies (at least for certain categories that have low compliance risk) until the agency has completed its backlog of opened yet unprocessed mail;
- Provide taxpayers with targeted, automatic relief from the underpayment of estimated tax penalties and late payment penalties for the 2020 tax year; and
- Utilize irs.gov to more frequently and specifically provide status of operations updates for taxpayers and practitioners. These updates would include current processing times for various categories of returns and replies to correspondence and notices.
Download and read NSA’s letter to the IRS and Congress here.
Download the press release here.
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NSA represents members who provide accounting, auditing, tax preparation, financial and estate planning, and management services to thousands of individuals and business clients across the nation. Most members are sole practitioners or partners in small- to medium- size accounting firms. For more information, visit www.nsacct.org.
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