Tax Coalition Response to Oversight Hearing

On Feb. 8, 2022, the National Taxpayer Advocate testified before the House Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee hearing on taxpayers’ challenges. In response, NATP, as a part of the Tax Professionals United for Taxpayer Relief Coalition, submitted a letter to Chairman Pascrell and Ranking Member Rice. The letter restates our request that Treasury and the IRS:

• Temporarily discontinue automated compliance actions until the IRS is prepared to devote the necessary resources for a proper and timely resolution of the problems this has created for taxpayers
• Align requests for account holds with the time it takes the IRS to process any penalty abatement requests
• Offer a reasonable cause penalty waiver, similar to the procedures of first-time abate (FTA) administrative waiver, without affecting the taxpayer’s eligibility for FTA in future tax years
• Provide taxpayers with targeted relief from both the underpayment of estimated tax penalty and the late payment penalty for the 2020 and 2021 tax years

While the IRS has addressed some of these requests, we remain concerned. The IRS is not providing taxpayers and practitioners with a detailed and comprehensive approach for mitigating problems in what will be the most challenging filing season in recent history.