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Grab Bag: Posts and Articles of Note on EITC, Compliance, IRS Guidance, Alimony, Private Debt Collectors and Tax Return Simplification

Posted on Sep. 23, 2016

Today’s extra post looks to some other blog posts and articles that may be of interest for people looking for some weekend reading.

EITC and Compliance

We have been reading and enjoying many of the posts on the Surly Subgroup Blog. Francine Lipman’s 2015 Poverty Measures Released: Antipoverty Relief Delivered through the IRC = EITC & CTC discusses the anti-poverty effects of refundable credits such as the Earned Income Tax Credit. While not a procedure post, the intersection of tax procedure and administration and refundable credits is a major issue. While I am plugging away on my article on EITC compliance (as Steve discussed last week) there are some really good articles on that topic that have come out in the last few months. Two of the articles that stand out are Steve Holt’s The Role of the IRS as a Social Benefits Administrator and Michelle Drumbl’s Beyond Polemics: Poverty, Taxes and Noncompliance.  For those interested in how recent trends in family life complicate tax administration, and administering refundable credits in particular, I recommend the Tax Policy Center’s report Increasing Family Complexity and Volatility: The Difficulty in Determining Child Tax Benefits. I will be appearing on a panel with Elaine Maag, one of the authors of the Family Complexity paper, at next week’s ABA Tax Section meeting, where we will discuss some of the report’s implications for tax administration as well as some of my research on EITC compliance.

Speaking of noncompliance and more from Surly Subgroup Blog, Shu-Yi Oei in Does Enforcement Reduce Compliance? discusses Leandra Lederman’s draft paper and presentation on that topic at the Boston College Law School Tax Colloquium. I look forward to reading that paper.

Alimony and Tax Compliance Again

Last week I discussed the procedural issues that spun out of Leslie v Commissioner in African Diamond Scam and Millions in Alimony: (and Some Reasonable Cause and Chenery). My Villanova colleague Jim Maule in Mauled Again discusses the alimony issue in his post on the case. As usual, Jim clearly describes the issue and offers some practical advice for practitioners. For good measure, and while relating back to compliance, I recommend Jim’s thought-provoking post from September 2 where he discusses a Washington Post op-ed piece by Catherine Rampell that offered six reasons why cheating on taxes is likely to increase. Jim’s take, as with many of his posts, takes the reader outside the tax world:

It is the increase in self-focus, the increase in greed, and the increase in harsh economic conditions that coalesce to tempt people to cheat on their taxes. It is the weakening of concerns for integrity and responsibility that make it possible for increasing numbers of people to succumb to that temptation. These are problems that will not go away with a simplified tax law and adequate IRS funding, as Rampell advocates. Of course I support simplifying the tax law and adequate funding of the IRS, but I also support increased attention to tax education in middle and high schools, and a broader dissemination and explanation of what happens with tax revenue. And somehow, some way, the sense of integrity and responsibility that was once a core value of the culture needs to be reinvigorated. That, however, is more than just a tax compliance problem.

IRS Guidance

Former PT guest poster Andy Grewal has a post on Notice & Comment discussing a recent GAO report called Treasury and OMB Need to Reevaluate Long-standing Exemptions of Tax Regulations and Guidance. Andy hits some important points in his post, including his highlighting that “[t]he GAO recognizes that the IRS puts out many forms of guidance, but notes that the IRS’s procedures for choosing one method of guidance (e.g., regulations) as opposed to another (e.g., Revenue Rulings, Announcement, Procedures) is a bit of a mess.”

Litigants are likely to continue to press the adequacy of IRS guidance and the choice IRS makes in issuing that guidance. We discussed this briefly in our latest review of the AICPA litigation challenging the IRS’ voluntary testing and education program for tax return preparers (IRS Wins Latest Battle on Voluntary Return Preparer Testing and Education Though Other Battles Likely Remain). In that case, the district court opinion, while finding against AICPA, suggests that a different litigant could challenge the IRS’s use of a revenue procedure to create the voluntary program.

Private Debt Collectors

Keith has discussed private debt collection a few times, including his most recent this past February Private Debt Collection which noted problems with prior two versions and raised concerns with the new legislation mandating its use. The IRS asked for permission to push back the deadline on implementing the new debt collection program so it has not yet gone live. Last week Accounting Today ran a post Here Come the Private Tax Debt Collectors…Again by H&R Block’s Jim Buttonow, where he discusses how the IRS will select the collectors and the plan is set go live in 2017. In his post, he highlights seven things about the new program, including how IRS and the collectors themselves will be letting people know by snail mail if they have the golden ticket and private debt collectors will be working their accounts. No doubt we will be hearing more about the program in the months ahead.

Simplified Return Filing

Finally, ABA Tax Times this past August has a fascinating point /counterpoint with longtime tax return simplification protagonist (and my former law school professor) Joe Bankman discussing his views on how technology can make tax filing time less painful and my Villanova colleague Jim Maule offering thirteen reasons why he believes Professor Bankman’s proposals make for bad tax policy.

Happy reading and enjoy the weekend.

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