Oxnard

Has the IRS Put a Bullseye on you? Let National Tax Attorney shield you from a direct hit!

In September 1997, Congress held several days of hearings to determine how to best restructure the IRS. During the course of those 3-day hearings, Congress heard from citizens who had been unfairly targeted by the IRS as well as from IRS agents and former IRS employees who indicated that they were encouraged to target middle class and poor citizens as those cases were easier to win. Testifying before Congress, IRS agent Jennifer Long stated she had personally witnessed the use of egregious tactics used by agents with the encouragement of management. In her statement she indicted agents with the IRS were using tactics, not found in the IRS manual, to target middle class and poor in order to entice them to pay unfairly assessed taxes. Ms. Long indicated these tactics destroyed families and businesses and further went on to state that sometimes the payments were obtained “illegally."⁽¹⁾ During that same hearing Robert Shriebman, who was a tax professor at the University of Southern California and at the time had written 8 books on the IRS also testified before Congress. In his testimony he indicated that the IRS could take someone’s home with just the signature of the district director. Shriebman said that by simply filing a few papers in federal court and obtaining the judge’s signature, the IRS could close down a business with a mere seizure order. The IRS was not required to give notice and there was no opportunity for the taxpayer to contest the legality of the assessment the IRS claimed was owed. Additionally, Shelly Davis, an IRS historian testified that she was made aware of lists of American citizens targeted for their political activities and of agents shredding documents to remove any paper trail of their activities.  

The Commission released their report in June 1997 which outlined their recommendations relating to oversight and management of the IRS, customer service and taxpayer compliance, implementation of electronic filing, changes needed to simplify existing tax laws, taxpayer rights and IRS financial accountability.

Additional hearings were held in January and February of 1998. During those subsequent hearing, Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi addressed the Finance Committee with the following on the reorganization “…I look forward to studying your reorganization plan. I think you should have that opportunity. I hope you will lead. In the past, I think what we have had is a little lip service, while quietly the word is being sent down to the agents, just keep doing what you’ve been doing. I am not going to say absolutely how much of that was going on. But you must make it clear that this culture of threats, intimidation, quotas, and unfair treatment of American taxpayers is going to end. So we will look at your reorganization plan. We will have what I hope will be some helpful legislation for you to be able to do that. Until I have evaluated your proposal I will not deem it too little or say anything critical. I am going to be hoping for the very best. But you are there at a critical time. You must be aggressive and work with us. If you need tools, tell us what it is. You do not work, really, for the President and you do not work for us, you work for the American people. This agency is in a mess and it is important that we restore the trust of the American people in at least being treated fairly.” ⁽²⁾

Subsequently Congress passed the Internal Revenue Service Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998. The Restructuring and Reform act of 1998 (RRA98) dramatically changed not only the tax law but also the structure and function of the IRS with the primary goal of the changes focused on improving customer service and to expand the rights of taxpayers.  ⁽³⁾  With the passage of the act, Congress established an Oversight Board to oversee IRS procedures and disciplinary procedures for misconduct by IRS employees. Employees had to identify themselves to taxpayers and established the rule requiring 90-day letters as Statutory Notices of Deficiency that notified taxpayers of their rights to contact a Taxpayer Advocate Service(TAS) and provide the phone number of the TAS which would be appropriate for the residence or business of the taxpayer.

With all These New Protections Why Bother with a Professional?

It would be great if we could count on all these protections put in place in 1998 to keep life simple. However, we know that is not reality. Case in point, after the passage of the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act in 2000 there were abundant stories of overzealous seizures of funds of small businesses and individuals who were found to be making deposits less than $10,000. Remember Shelly Davis’ testimony that the IRS made lists to target taxpayers based on political activity during the 1997 hearings on restructuring? Did that sound familiar when you read it? As recently as this past October, the IRS was investigated for similar issues. In fact, the New York Times published an article on October 25, 2017 indicating the Treasury Department’s inspector general was investigating unfair treatment by the IRS of conservative politically active groups seeking exempt status for filing. During the investigation, the inspector general also found the IRS was scrutinizing organizations associated with liberal political actions over the past decade. ⁽³⁾ Now take into consideration an article written by Richard Wolf for USA today in which he describes the Supreme Courts complaint that a law passed by Congress in 1988 is “gibberish”. ⁽⁴⁾ That particular law was passed to give federal courts the responsibility to resolve security based class-action lawsuits. The article goes on to state that a short time later, Justice Elena Kagan called the wording of a stipulation supposed to protect Wall Street whistle blowers as "odd" and "peculiar"  but the article goes on to indicate the extent of the provisions ability to provide protection is dubious because of how it’s written.

Now we have a New Tax Code passed for 2018. While we were promised the Tax Code would simplify filing, given what we now know about gibberish wording and IRS practices regarding customer service, you might want to consider hiring a professional to help you prepare your taxes. With the rules changing, if you owe back taxes, now might be the time to get right with the IRS. Remember that the IRS still retains the same bag of tricks to make taxpayers pay up. They still can issue Bank and wage Levies, put a lien against or even seize your property. 

You Have Help at Your Fingertips in Oxnard

The good news is that as a citizen of Oxnard, help is right around the corner. National Tax Attorney has an office near you. All you need to do is contact us. We are on top of the new tax code changes so you won’t have to be and we have a team of CPAs, EAs, tax attorneys who are more than qualified to tackle whatever problem you have with the IRS.

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