Taxpayer Advocate Calls for Aggressive Protection of Taxpayer Rights

Washington (July 8, 2004) -- A report to Congress by National Taxpayer Advocate Nina E. Olson calls for enhanced protection of taxpayer rights by tax administrators and improvements in the offer-in-compromise, collection due process and tax e-filing programs.

The report said the procedural requirements for obtaining consideration of an offer in compromise are excessive and too many offers are rejected. Olson also said that the Office of the Taxpayer Advocate will work with the Office of Appeals in the coming fiscal year to make the collection due process procedures less confusing to taxpayers and their representatives.

To place e-filing on a more equal footing with paper filing, Olson recommends that the IRS make a template available on its Web site that would allow all taxpayers to file their returns electronically without incurring any cost.

The template would provide taxpayers with the ability to fill in the lines on the Internet-based return, but would not contain the added features built into commercial software products and thus would not be intended to compete with private industry.

The report is available on the IRS Web site at http://www.irs.gov/advocate/article/0,,id=124943,00.html.

-- WebCPA staff

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