Unfortunately, taxpayer ignorance about the first time abate program is keeping most of them from taking advantage of its very taxpayer friendly penalty abatement provisions.
In the Internal Revenue Manual, under the reasonable cause penalty abatement provisions for the failure to file and failure to pay penalties, is an underutilized provisions for penalty abatement called the first time abate program. See IRM 20.1.1.3. The program was instituted in the early 2000s, is not publicized, and the IRS does not notify taxpayers about the program when it imposes penalties. The program is essentially a free pass for the first time a taxpayer makes a mistake.
read more...In December of 2012, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration issued a fairly scathing report on the Service’s implementation of the program, highlighting that the lack of taxpayer knowledge of the program undermines its stated goal of encouraging voluntary compliance. TITGA estimated that close to 1.5 million qualifying taxpayers did not take advantage of the program, and close to $200MM in penalties were paid that could have been abated. The Internal Revenue Manual was updated in April of 2013 to clarify the current level of compliance of taxpayers’ trying to enter the program, but the changes do not appear to be that significant. The Service has posted a public web page about the program, which can be found here. The page indicates that taxpayers can request abatement by mailing the request to the applicable service center, by calling the service, or by filing Form 843, Claim for Refund and Request for Abatement.
I have reviewed a few penalty assessments over the last month or two, and the Service is not issuing notice regarding the program, and each of these taxpayers probably qualified. I also currently know of a handful of taxpayers requesting abatement, including a few with very high dollar penalty amounts. Each appears to be clearly within the guidelines, and I will update the blog with the outcomes and practical experiences.
Moving forward, it will be interesting to see if the Service takes any additional steps to disseminate information about the program. It will also be interesting to see what happens if/when qualifying taxpayers are denied abatement. There is no statutory framework creating this abatement, which would appear to give the IRS wide latitude in deciding whether the penalties should be abated. Conversely, holdings like Kearney Partners, LLC v. United States, where the Middle District of Florida held that an IRS announcement created a substantive right in a taxpayer that was reviewable by the courts, would indicate such a denial could be appealed. I’ve greatly oversimplified Kearney, which is a very dense case with lots of great procedural issues. I believe Les will be writing about other aspects of that case shortly. The issue of informal IRS statements creating taxpayer rights is touched upon in greater detail in IRS Practice and Procedure, 3.04[9].
About Stephen Olsen
On two recent occasions I requested a penalty abatement under Rev. Proc. 84-35. In both instances the letter from the IRS stated that they were abating the penalty on a one time basis because the clients had a good filing and payment history. I take issue with a request for abatement using the Rev. Proc. and being told by the IRS that they were granting an abatement based upon the “first time abatement program” They are two entirely different reasons in my opinion. What do you think ?
Hi, Joe,
I agree, and do not believe Rev. Proc. 84-35 has been superseded by FTA and provides separate relief. My knee jerk reaction is that FTA has provisions prohibiting its use if penalties have been abated within the previous few years for various reasons. I am not sure if abatement under Rev. Proc. 84-35 is included, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was. If that were the case, then I’m not sure there are negative impacts to the taxpayer. If penalty relief under the Rev. Proc. doesn’t preclude FTA in future years, then there could be an issue for the taxpayer if he or she is non-compliant again and has used its FTA for that time period. I can understand your frustration, but I also find it interesting and positive that the Service offered that relief up, as that seems counter from most other anecdotes we have heard.