The Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) mission and strategic plan state expectations for IRS to improve the taxpayer experience and services it provides. However, IRS and its divisions that manage programs serving the largest taxpayer groups—the Wage and Investment (W&I) and the Small Business/Self-Employed (SB/SE) divisions—did not have performance goals to specify the desired improvements. Fo

In April 2019, GAO identified 23 priority recommendations for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Since then, IRS has implemented 6 of those recommendations by, among other things, increasing the frequency at which incoming W-2 information was made available, which would expand the agency's efforts to systematically verify wage information reported on tax returns and avoid issuing invalid refunds

The Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) Publications 590-A and 590-B serve as a general handbook for millions of taxpayers with individual retirement accounts (IRA). However, the two-part publication provides limited information for IRA owners with unconventional assets surrounding complex tax rules in four compliance areas: (1) barred investments, (2) prohibited transactions, (3) unrelated business

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has made considerable progress issuing guidance to taxpayers for Public Law 115-97—commonly known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA)—but has additional work remaining to issue all planned guidance, as shown in the figure. To improve efficiency of TCJA guidance development, IRS internally collaborated earlier and more frequently than during more rout

En vísperas de la temporada de presentación de 2019, el Servicio de Impuestos Internos (IRS, por sus siglas en inglés) colaboraba con el Departamento del Tesoro (Tesoro) y la Oficina de Administración y Presupuesto (OMB, por sus siglas en inglés) al implementar cambios significativos en la ley tributaria proveniente de la Ley Pública 115-97—comúnmente conocida como la Ley de Empleos y Re

In advance of the 2019 filing season, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) collaborated with the Department of the Treasury (Treasury) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to implement significant tax law changes from Public Law 115-97-commonly known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). This included publishing guidance, creating tax products (e.g., forms), and reprogramming systems. IRS a

Taxpayers have used a variety of abusive tax schemes involving tax-exempt entities. In some schemes, the tax-exempt entity is complicit in the scheme, while in others it is not. For example, an abusive tax scheme could involve multiple donors grossly overvaluing charitable contributions, where the tax-exempt entity is not part of the scheme. Conversely, some patient assistance programs—which ca

The Department of Labor (DOL) has a process to grant administrative exemptions for individual retirement account (IRA) transactions that would otherwise be prohibited by law, such as an IRA buying investment property from the IRA owner. DOL evaluates applications using statutory criteria and follows administrative procedures codified in regulations. Applications for proposed transactions that are

The Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) latest tax gap estimate (2016) found that taxpayers voluntarily and timely paid about 81.7 percent of owed taxes for tax years 2008-2010, leaving an annual gross tax gap of $458 billion. IRS estimated a net tax gap—after late payments and enforcement actions—of $406 billion. GAO's work has found that three important factors contribute to the tax gap. (1) L

In March 2018, GAO identified 16 priority recommendations for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Since then, IRS has implemented one of those recommendations by using more complete performance information to make decisions that justify the use of resources to audit certain types of tax issues and returns. In March 2019, GAO identified eight additional priority recommendations for IRS, bringing t