Recommendations for Executive Action

1. Status: Open

   Comments: As of August 2020, IRS disagrees with this recommendation and does not plan to take action on it. IRS officials said their Chief Counsel Directives Manual provides sufficient guidance and flexibility to allow for enhanced collaboration when appropriate. However, officials acknowledged that this collaboration was particularly helpful in implementing TCJA provisions and greatly contributed to IRS's successful implementation. By implementing this recommendation, IRS can help ensure that institutional knowledge and beneficial practices from TCJA implementation will be documented and effectively leveraged to support implementation of future time-sensitive or complex tax law changes without restricting IRS's flexibility. Documenting procedures would ensure IRS can retain organizational knowledge and mitigate the risk of having that knowledge limited to a few personnel.

   Recommendation: The Chief Counsel of the Internal Revenue Service, in coordination with appropriate offices, should identify and document parameters and procedures for applying enhanced collaborative approaches to regulation and other guidance development with IRS Business Operating Divisions. (Recommendation 1)

   Agency Affected: Department of the Treasury: Internal Revenue Service

2. Status: Open

   Comments: As of August 2020, IRS disagrees with this recommendation and does not plan to take action on it. IRS officials acknowledged inconsistencies in reports but said these inconsistencies were not detrimental to overall implementation. We maintain that accurately and thoroughly capturing implementation status on ongoing projects would provide accurate information to decision makers and could prevent potential misreporting, mismanagement, or inefficient resource investment in the future.

   Recommendation: The Commissioner of Internal Revenue should develop a process to accurately and thoroughly capture implementation status of ongoing projects in accordance with Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government. (Recommendation 2)

   Agency Affected: Department of the Treasury: Internal Revenue Service

3. Status: Open

   Comments: As of August 2020, IRS disagrees with this recommendation and does not plan to take action on it. IRS officials said the retroactive transcription of TCJA returns would be a time intensive activity with significant opportunity costs, and that the benefits of retroactive transcription are currently not quantifiable. A high-level analysis of costs and benefits could help IRS management determine what, if any, data would benefit compliance and enforcement efforts. IRS could use readily available existing information (such as the number of returns affected by a certain provision, LB&I and IT cost data on conversion efforts already implemented, or the usefulness of past compliance analytics in similar areas) to inform the analysis. For example, IRS staff are manually reviewing certain forms associated with one TCJA provision for compliance purposes and IRS could use information from this effort (e.g., amount of time and any compliance results) to inform a high-level estimate of costs and benefits.

   Recommendation: The Commissioner of Small Business/Self Employed should coordinate with appropriate IRS divisions or offices to identify the costs and benefits of retroactively transcribing taxpayer data resulting from TCJA. (Recommendation 3)

   Agency Affected: Department of the Treasury: Internal Revenue Service

4. Status: Open

   Comments: As of August 2020, IRS disagrees with this recommendation and does not plan to take action on it. IRS officials said that implementing this recommendation would require identifying the costs and benefits, which they do not plan to take action on. However, IRS officials acknowledged that IRS operating divisions and offices make strategic decisions regarding how best to use TCJA-related return data for compliance and enforcement purposes. We believe that converting data in instances where the benefits outweigh the costs would better position IRS to more effectively and efficiently pursue its mission of ensuring taxpayer compliance. For example, in the case of one TJCA provision, because IRS is not collecting information in an easily accessible format, IRS staff are manually reviewing forms to help with compliance efforts.

   Recommendation: Based on the costs and benefits identified in recommendation 3, the Commissioner of Small Business/Self Employed should determine which TCJA provisions' data should be converted into a more useful electronic format for compliance and enforcement purposes and work with the appropriate offices to obtain the transcribed data, as appropriate. (Recommendation 4)

   Agency Affected: Department of the Treasury: Internal Revenue Service

5. Status: Open

   Comments: As of August 2020, Treasury disagrees with this recommendation and does not plan to take action on it. Treasury officials said the analyses underlying Treasury's tax regulations have fully complied with the Memorandum of Agreement established with the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which focuses on non-revenue effects. We maintain that decisions Treasury and IRS made when developing regulations to implement TCJA could potentially impact tax liability by billions of dollars per year; however, Treasury's internal guidance dictates that these revenue effects should not be included in its economic analyses of the regulations. In some regulations, Treasury has addressed revenue effects in its analyses, but this has not been done consistently. By adjusting its internal guidance to ensure that distributional effects of revenue changes are consistently reflected in its analyses, it would better inform the regulatory decision-making process, while also providing the public with greater transparency.

   Recommendation: The Assistant Secretary of Tax Policy should update Treasury's internal guidance to ensure that Treasury's regulatory impact analyses include examination of the distributional effects of revenue changes when regulations influence tax liability. (Recommendation 5)

   Agency Affected: Department of the Treasury: Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury (Tax Policy)

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