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Correction on Making Offers in Compromise Public

Posted on Mar. 29, 2022

On February 21, 2022, I wrote a post because of the FOIA case involving EPIC v. IRS, 128 AFTR 2d 2021-6808 (DDC 2021).  My description of the EPIC case was accurate and my conclusion on how to get information about offers in compromise from the IRS was accurate – use FOIA; however, my description of the IRS method for delivering information about accepted offers in compromise was outdated.  I thank Steve Bauman of IRS SB/SE Collection for setting me straight.

In the earlier post I wrote about the system the IRS had devised for allowing public inspection of accepted offers.  The system did not make sense to me and was criticized in a TIGTA report in 2016 to which I cited in the post.  The IRS took the criticism from TIGTA to heart and revamped the system for accessing accepted offers.  I cannot say that I find the new system very user friendly for reasons I will describe further below, but it is not a system which will cost $100,000 per offer viewed which is what TIGTA calculated was the per view cost of the prior system.

The IRS closed the public reading rooms as the depository of accepted offers back in 2018 and now keeps all accepted offers in a computer database that inquiring persons can access through the process described below:

Public Inspection files contain limited information regarding accepted Offers in Compromise such as the taxpayer name, city/state/zip, liability amount, and offer terms. View a sample Form 7249, Offer Acceptance Report PDF, to see the information you will receive by requesting a copy of a public inspection file.

The IRS makes available for public inspection a copy of Form 7249, Offer Acceptance Report, for one year after the date of acceptance.

If you wish to submit a request, complete and send the Offer in Compromise Public Inspection File Form PDF [aka Form 15086.] We will respond in 15 business days. Fax is the preferred method; if mailing, allow an additional 5 business days for a response.

If you link to the Offer Acceptance Report, you will see that you obtain very little information about the person or the offer.  As I mentioned in my original post several years ago about making offers public, I don’t find the information the IRS chooses to make public particularly helpful for stopping the type of abuse and scandal that caused offers to be made public in the first place.  Here’s my brief discussion of the history behind making offers public:

In the early 1950s, a scandal came to light in which an IRS employee used the compromise provisions to write off the liabilities of members of the criminal element.  The employee was prosecuted (see page 148 for a brief discussion of the events) and President Truman issued an executive order requiring that the IRS make accepted offers public.  Subsequently, Congress passed IRC 6103(K)(1) which provides for public inspection and copying of accepted OICs.

You can look at the information provided on Form 7249 and decide for yourself if that information will assist in ferreting out inappropriate offers that might cause a scandal.

Moving past the information on the publicly available form which has not changed, I need to explain how the IRS has made its offer disclosure system better. I think it is better but still not what it should be. Gone are the remote reading rooms. In their place the IRS has digitized its system for storing and retrieving Forms 7249. Now, you send a request to the IRS via fax using the inspection file form linked above. The problem with this form is that it will only cause the IRS to send you information about offers you already know about. The first box on the form requests you to

Identify the Accepted Offer in Compromise (e.g. offer number, name, state) as specifically as possible below.

You can only do that if you already know about the offer. How many people are looking for offers who already know an offer exists. Maybe lots of people but I am unconvinced. There is now way to browse through accepted offers to try to get a sense of what was accepted. You must make a targeted request to use the new system.

The new system eliminates the wasteful reading room. For that it is to be applauded. If the goal is to prevent another scandal like the one in the 1950s, I think more information needs to be provided on Form 7249 and the accepted forms need to be browsed.

The IRM was updated in December of 2019 and provides the following guidance:

5.8.8.9 (12-17-2019)

Public Inspection File

1. Public inspection of certain information regarding all offers accepted under IRC § 7122 is authorized by IRC § 6103(k)(1).

2. Treasury Reg. § 601.702 (d) (8) requires that for one year after the date of execution, a copy of Form 7249 Offer Acceptance Report, for each accepted offer with respect to any liability for a tax imposed by Title 26, shall be made available for inspection and copying. A separate file of accepted offer records will be maintained for this purpose and made available to the public for a period of one year.

Note:

Revenue Ruling 117, 1953-1 C.B. 498 complements Treasury Reg. § 601.702(d)(8) and explains that Form 7249 serves two different purposes. First, it provides the format for public inspection, which is mandated by Executive Order 10386. Second, it satisfies the filing requirement and other criteria arising under section 7122(b).

3. For each accepted offer, a copy of the Form 7249 should be uploaded to the PIF SharePoint site. Form 7249 must be free of any PII.

4. The office that has accepted the offer will be responsible for providing the Form 7249. The PIFs should be uploaded, without delay, to the PIF SharePoint site after acceptance.

5. The PIF must be:

– Maintained for one-year.

– Uploaded in the appropriate monthly folder and designated location based on the taxpayer’s entity address at the time of acceptance.

– Created with the established naming convention for uploading documents to the PIF SharePoint site.(Offer number. Name Control. Date Accepted) i.e. (1234567890.ABCD.MMDDYY)

– If within one year of acceptance a Form 7249 needs to be corrected (e.g. to remove periods that were discharged in bankruptcy, compromise of a compromise, or to obtain the signatures required in Delegation Order 5-1), the original Form 7249 should be deleted from the PIF SharePoint site, and the corrected Form 7249 uploaded with the same naming convention

6. Due to the potential disclosure of Personal Identifiable Information (PII) the Form 7249 will be reviewed and any PII will be redacted.

7. Memphis COIC will be the centralized PIF site which will monitor and track all Form 15086 PIF requests. Requests for OIC PIF will be provided by mail or fax per the instructions on www.irs.gov, the taxpayer will complete and submit Form 15086. If a request is received to copy more than 100 pages, contact OIC Collection Policy.

Note:

A visitors log with the Form 15086 information will be retained on the PIF Sharepoint site. The visitor log book and the Form 15086 will be maintained by Memphis COIC.

I asked Steve how someone would make a broad request. He said that for those seeking large volumes of data that would point to trends such as numbers of offer accepted, submitting a FOIA request would be necessary. That’s why I said at the outset that although I wrongly described the continued existence of the reading rooms, the bottom line is that FOIA may be the only way to obtain meaningful information about accepted offers (as meaningful as you can get with the information provided on Form 7249) is by making a FOIA request. I didn’t ask and it’s not clear to me if a FOIA request can allow someone to obtain information about offers going back past one year

Aside from my continued disappointment at the amount of information available and the process for getting the information, I want to thank Steve for taking the time to set me straight.  He disclosed useful information to me about the process of obtaining information about offers.

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