National Taxpayer Advocate Delivers Annual Report To Congress

IR-2017-02 (Jan. 10, 2017), National Taxpayer Advocate Delivers Annual Report to Congress; Urges IRS Reform and Tax Reform:

National Taxpayer Advocate Nina E. Olson today released her 2016 annual report to Congress, recommending that the IRS revamp its “Future State” plan to adopt a taxpayer-centric focus and urging Congress to emphasize simplification when it considers tax reform later this year.

In assessing the compliance burdens of the current tax code, the Taxpayer Advocate Service (TAS) analyzed IRS data and determined that individuals and businesses spend about six billion hours a year complying with the code’s filing requirements – not including the millions of additional hours spent responding to IRS audits or notices.  “If tax compliance were an industry, it would be one of the largest in the United States,” the report says.  “To consume six billion hours, the ‘tax industry’ requires the equivalent of three million full-time workers.” 

• Bloomberg, The IRS’s Annual Report Card Is In, and It Isn’t Pretty
• Forbes, Taxpayer Advocate Urges Congress To Reform The IRS And Overhaul The Tax Code
• USA Today, Should IRS Focus on Taxpayer Service, or Tax Enforcement?