On March 5, 2019, the US Department of Treasury (Treasury) issued a policy statement on the tax regulatory process. We previously wrote an article for Law360 on the policy statement, which can be accessed here. In our article, we noted the disclaimer language in the policy statement that “is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or inequity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, it officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.” We further noted that this same limiting language can be found in Executive Orders issued by the President of the United States, and that courts have generally rejected attempts to rely on such orders containing this language, although it might be possible to analogize the positions in the policy statement to the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) statements in CC-2003-014, which instructs IRS employees not to take...
The LB&I Campaigns Keep Coming!
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Large Business and International (LB&I) Division continues to churn out new audit “campaigns.” The most recent announcement on October 30, 2018, identifies five new campaigns, which were identified through LB&I data analysis and suggestions from IRS employees. With the addition of these new campaigns, LB&I has now identified 50 campaigns since the program’s initial release on January 13, 2017. The five new LB&I campaigns are listed verbatim by title and description. Individual Foreign Tax Credit Phase II Section 901 of the Internal Revenue Code alleviates double taxation through a dollar-for-dollar credit against U.S. tax on foreign-sourced income in the amount of foreign taxes paid on that income. Individuals who meet certain requirements may qualify for the foreign tax credit. This campaign addresses taxpayers who have claimed the credit but do not meet the requirements. The IRS will address noncompliance...
Impact of Government Shutdown on IRS
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has posted the following regarding the impact of the government shutdown on IRS employees: This message applies to all IRS employees. Due to the lapse in federal appropriations, the Internal Revenue Service began an IRS-wide furlough January 20, 2018. All IRS employees with the exception of those notified and deemed “excepted” employees are furloughed. Those furloughed (or “non-excepted) are being placed in a non-pay and non-duty status until further notice. To achieve an orderly shutdown, all furloughed employees must contact their supervisors for procedures to account for government-issued equipment, personal effects requiring retrieval and to transition to furlough status. Employees are allotted up to four (4) hours for orderly shutdown activities. For continuing information on the furlough, IRS employees are encouraged to monitor this page, news outlets, OPM.gov and the 24/7 Emergency Hotline — 866-743-5748. For TTY...
More Changes to IRS Appeals, in Response to Taxpayer and Practitioner Concerns
As we have recently discussed, Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Appeals has been making a number of changes to their administrative review process in the last few years. While many of these changes have been driven by lack of resources, others—like the standing invitation of Exam into the Appeals process—have the potential to undermine the independence of Appeals, which has historically been a vital component of the taxpayer’s right of redress with the Service. In this week’s American Bar Association conference in Austin, Texas, IRS Appeals clarified that, for field cases worked by revenue agents, taxpayers may still receive in-person conferences, despite recent pronouncements that phone conferences are the preferred or default method. Conferences in campus cases (or correspondence audit cases) will still be generally handled by telephone, but there will eventually be a move to in-person conferences by request. Campus cases are being treated differently because...