The Tax Times: TIGTA - IRS Is Generally Protecting Taxpayers' Rights For Certain Collection Actions

Tuesday, September 24, 2024

TIGTA - IRS Is Generally Protecting Taxpayers' Rights For Certain Collection Actions

TIGTA released Report Number: 2024-300-056 - 2024 Statutory Review of Compliance With Legal Guidelines When Issuing Levies and reviewed levies issued by Field Collection revenue officers for more than 48,000 taxpayers during the period July 1, 2022, through June 30, 2023.

They found that IRS generally complied with legal and administrative requirements. However, TIGTA identified more than 1,900 instances of noncompliance that resulted in potential violations of taxpayers’ rights or taxpayers being burdened, including:

Summary of results

Furthermore, they found that Appeals officers only verify that the taxpayer received timely notice of the lien or levy and were willing to address any issues raised by the taxpayer.

For each hearing case, the Appeals officer is required to attest that they independently obtained verification that the requirements of all applicable law or administrative procedures were met. TIGTA believes that Appeals officers should also independently verify whether the IRS took prohibited levy action on the tax modules subject to the hearing.

TIGTA made nine recommendations to help improve the proper issuance of levies by the IRS, including that the IRS should revise the Internal Revenue Manual to require revenue officers to check their mail and faxes for any CDP levy hearing requests prior to issuing levies; implement several different programming fixes to ensure that the Integrated Collection System does not allow levies to be issued improperly; and contact taxpayers who were not given the opportunity for a CDP levy hearing, if appropriate, and obtain authorization to retain any improper levy proceeds or refund the proceeds to the taxpayer. IRS management agreed with all nine recommendations and plans to take corrective action.

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