I’m personally heartbroken that Nina Olson, the National Taxpayer Advocate for the past 18 years, is retiring at the end of July. She and her staff have done an incredible job advocating on behalf of taxpayers, and doing everything they can to help cut government red tape and shift the focus of Congress and the IRS, bringing attention to the real-world situations their laws, policies and procedures can cause.

In her recently-released 37th and final report to Congress, she reiterated key IRS challenges in the areas of:
– Taxpayer Service
– Appropriate Use of Self-Service Applications
– Treatment of Financially Vulnerable Taxpayers

She also shared a 2019 Filing Season Review and outlined TAS Priority Issues for FY 2020, including the creation and online availability of a roadmap of tax controversies, and limitations on the ability of Amish taxpayers to receive full child tax credit benefits.

Nina left us with these parting words: “even as the system works for most taxpayers most of the time, it doesn’t work for millions of others. Taxpayer service is woefully inadequate. . . IRS audit notices are often unclear, leading some taxpayers to ‘agree’ to assessments by default – even when they don’t owe the tax. And the IRS doesn’t screen for ability to pay before it takes collection actions, thereby causing or worsening financial hardships for financially vulnerable taxpayers. Advocating for taxpayers affected by problems like these, both individually and collectively, has been and will continue to be the work of TAS.”

The Taxpayer Advocate Service (TAS) is an independent organization within the IRS that helps taxpayers and protects taxpayer rights. Your local advocate’s number is in your local directory and at https://taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov/contact-us. You can also call TAS toll-free at 877-777-4778. TAS can help if you need assistance in resolving an IRS problem, if your problem is causing financial difficulty, or if you believe an IRS system or procedure isn’t working as it should. The service is free. For more information about TAS and your rights under the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, go to https://taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov. You can get updates on tax topics at facebook.com/YourVoiceAtIRS, Twitter.com/YourVoiceatIRS, and YouTube.com/TASNTA.

Source: National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson delivers her final report to Congress; identifies priority challenges facing the IRS and TAS | Internal Revenue Service

After second-quarter taxes are over and I’m caught up on extended tax returns, I plan to reach out to clients who got surprised with a 2018 tax bill and do a “Paycheck Checkup” with them, to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen for 2019. I’ve had a couple clients already meet to go over their tax returns to figure out “what happened?” The results have most commonly stemmed from the limitation on state/local/property tax deductions to the elimination of the unreimbursed employee expense deduction. However, in some cases it was simply that the new TCJA tax law is too complex to use a regular W-4 to calculate withholding.

So, if you haven’t done a Paycheck Checkup, consider now a good time for it, before it gets too deep into the calendar year to make up the difference via paycheck withholdings.

Source: Done with taxes this year? Use 2018 return to get 2019 withholding right | Internal Revenue Service

“The facts about how a taxpayer conducts their investment activity are more important than whether they are pursuing long-term or short-term results.” -Bryan Camp

I truly enjoyed this engaging article by Bryan Camp in his series “Lesson From the Tax Court” on TaxProf Blog (a member of the Law Professor Blogs network).

The author does a nice job navigating us through three historical tax court decisions, comparing the first two and then using the most recent to explain why the first two still make sense in the context of today’s world and tax code. His reconciliation of the first two cases to (in a sense) produce the third gives us a long history of facts and circumstances that I feel can be used as a pros-and-cons scale (if not an actual template) for arguing a client’s position one way or the other.

If you have any interest in the grey area where “continuity, constant repetition, regularity and extent of effort” comes up against short-term versus long-term investments (stock, real estate, or otherwise), I highly recommend giving it a read.

Source: TaxProf Blog