Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olsen
Kay Bell doesn’t much care for the Taxpayer Advocate’s “apology payment” proposal, where the IRS would pay $1,000 as a token of apology to taxpayers who had gotten the runaround from the agency:
In order to avoid spurring an apology payment, employees could be reluctant to challenge taxpayers in situations where such added attention is warranted. The ensuring refusal by workers to aggressively, but fairly, go after taxpayers will make for a less, not more, effective tax enforcement agency.
So instead of establishing an apology payment system, the $1 million should instead go to the IRS for it to do its job, albeit do it better. That’s also recommended by Olson in her report.
So Kay probably wouldn’t much care for my “sauce for the gander” rule, which would impose penalties on the IRS, payable to the taxpayer, anytime the IRS maintains an unreasonable position on audit. I would also apply it automatically anytime the IRS asserts an accuracy-related penalty and then loses in court on the underlying issue.
Jana Luttenegger, IRS Statement on DOMA and Tax Tips for Newlyweds (Davis Brown Tax Law Blog).
The IRS quietly issued a statement on June 27. Quite, likely because it was of little value to any taxpayers. The statement is available from the IRS Newsroom, and essentially states they are reviewing the recent decision, and will “move swiftly to provide revised guidance in the near future.”
In what may or may not be a coincidence, the IRS Summer Tax Tip released today relates to Tax Tips for Newlyweds.
So maybe the IRS does have a sense of humor.
TaxGrrrl, As Taxpayers Scramble To Make Sense Of DOMA, IRS Issues Statement
Russ Fox, Licensing Stops All Tax Preparer Fraud…Well, No. But it does make it fraud with a government seal of approval.
Howard Gleckman, New Study: Tax Subsidies Do Little To Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions. But they do help keep stray birds out of foreign airspace.
Missouri Tax Guy, Travel Expenses. Why these expenses are not like the others.
TaxProf, IRS Scandal, Day 54.
Jack Townsend, Depositor Pleads to Failse Return; Depositor in Luxembourg Branch of Israeli Bank
William Perez, “Blank-Slate” Tax Reform Proposed by Baucus, Hatch
Tax Justice Blog, Top Senate Tax-Writers’ Call for “Blank Slate” Approach to Tax Reform Avoids Most Crucial Issue
Martin Sullivan, Tax Reform: Coming Around the Clubhouse Turn? (Tax Analysts Blog)
Clint Stretch, Tax Reform or Shotgun Wedding? (Tax Analysts Blog)
Tax reform, we are told, will encourage economic growth by reducing complexity, inefficiency, and unfairness. It probably could, but there are no guarantees. I have had to read most of the tax legislative histories written in the past 40 years. I cannot recall any instance in which the committee reports confessed that the wrong balance of fairness, economic growth, and simplification was struck.
Yet it would have been true every time.
Kyle Pomerleau, Misleading Corporate Tax Talk: (Tax Policy Blog)
When a company pays employees, either through wages or stock options, they are legitimately allowed to deduct that compensation.
It is not like this money is never taxed. This compensation is taxed as ordinary income at the individual level.
A point often overlooked when they talk about stock option “loopholes.”
Janet Novack, GAO: Big Companies Paid A 12.6% Effective Federal Income Tax Rate
Jeremy Scott, Obama’s Climate Change Proposals Lack Major Tax Component (Tax Analysts Blog). They also lack a snowball’s chance in a high-carbon Hades.
TaxDood, GAO: Bitcoin Presents Tax Compliance Risks
It’s Tuesday, so it’s time for a fresh Buzz from Robert D. Flach.
Grant at work.
Peter Reilly is taking a few days off from his usual tax topics to cover commemorations of the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, which occurred July 1-3, 1863:Hopes of Our Country Were on Our Bayonets
Gettysburg Day 1 – First Shot – Where Fate Meets History
Gettysburg Day 1 – Passing Into Legend And History With The Iron Brigade
I’m sure there will me more great posts. But remember that this week is also the 150th anniversary of the fall of Vicksburg to General Grant — a more spectacular campaign and arguably a more important achievement, but not so well-remembered as Gettysburg.
