Tax Lawyer's Blog

Paul Caron of TaxProf Blog has found a neat little list from SmartMoney.com of 10 things the IRS won’t tell you.

Here it is in it’s entirety:

1. Like it or not, you may need help with your taxes
2. You don’t have to be rich to get audited
3. Fear is often our best weapon
4. The AMT is our ATM
5. Just because we billed you doesn’t mean you owe us money
6. If you don’t pay, we’ll sic a collection agency on you
7. Want to go green? We’ll help pay
8. April 15 isn’t necessarily a hard deadline
9. We may be a government agency, but that doesn’t mean your data’s safe
10. We may still have your refund

Here’s my list of 5 things the IRS will tell you:

1. Instead of paying a lawyer, just pay us – We have written about this before at IRS Regularly Tells Taxpayer’s Not to Hire an Attorney. On paper the IRS is good at acknowleding a taxpayer’s right to representation, but in practice far too many revenue officers make comments and/or take actions that diminish that basic and essential due process right. 
2. If you don’t pay your taxes, you might go to jail - The companion to number 3, above – “Fear is often our best weapon.”  We have found that when an IRS collection officer is alone with a delinquent taxpayer he or she will say untrue things that are designed to frighten the taxpayer into paying his alleged tax debt. Incidentally, this also partly explains why some Revenue Officers discourage taxpayers from hiring a representative (i.e. the scare tactics won’t work on an experienced tax pro.)
3. Now it’s personal - Again, another attempt to frighten a taxpayer into doing what he or she may not think is appropriate. The implication of this veiled threat, of course, is that the IRS agent will now use extraordinary and perhaps extra-legal means of making sure this particular taxpayer suffers. For a real life example see our post titled Horrifying Tax Tales.
4. Your attorney isn’t returning my calls – In the real world, business etiquette requires that you return a telephone call within 24 hours of the call. In the world of some IRS’ collection agents, however, failure to return a telephone call within just a few hours may result in the by-pass of a taxpayer’s right to counsel. We have had many cases where we were unable to return a telephone call until the next business day and the IRS collection agent contacted the taxpayer directly. Again, this is a gross violation of taxpayer’s right to counsel and any IRS official violating this right should be terminated under the IRS’s Non-Retaliation (and anti-harassment) Policy.
5. Your attorney isn’t cooperating – Another attempt to drive a wedge between a taxpayer and his lawyer. The taxpayer, after paying several thousand dollars to his lawyer so that he does not have to interface with the IRS, is now being told that his attorney isn’t doing his or her job. The taxpayer, being inexperienced in the ways of IRS collection agents, believes this to be a statement of truth and, consequently, becomes enraged at his lawyer. The damage done by comments like this made directly to taxpayers is sometimes irreparable.

Numbers 1, 2 and 5 are sneaky ways of diminishing a taxpayer’s right to counsel. 

Of course, not all IRS revenue officers engage in shenanigans like these, but enough of them do to make it a real problem.

Finally, here’s a quote from Nina Olson, National Taxpayer Advocate:

The IRS does little to ensure that its employees clearly understand both the concept and application of taxpayer rights as they relate to their enforcement activities. It increasingly relies upon rote formulas that do little to expand the employees’ ability to apply both the spirit and meaning of the law. The IRS must revise the content, placement and techniques for training employees about the Taxpayer Advocate Service, and integrate consideration of taxpayer rights into each case study or scenario to emphasize its importance.

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