"Effective immediately, unannounced visits will end except in a
few unique circumstances and will be replaced with mailed
letters to schedule meetings," the IRS said in a statement.
IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel announced the change as part of a
larger effort to reform IRS operations after the passage last
year of U.S. spending legislation called the Inflation Reduction
Act and the creation of a new IRS strategic operating plan in
April.
"Changing this long-standing procedure will increase confidence
in our tax administration work," Werfel said, calling the change
a "common-sense step."
The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) supported the
policy change and said the step will help protect IRS officers
whose job had become risky due to what it described as "false,
inflammatory rhetoric about the agency and its workforce."
Werfel also noted the security concerns around these unannounced
visits and said they created "extra anxiety" for taxpayers.
"We have the tools we need to successfully collect revenue
without adding stress with unannounced visits," Werfel said,
noting that funding under the Inflation Reduction Act will add
more staffing for compliance work.
In place of the unannounced visits, revenue officers will
instead make contact with taxpayers through an appointment
letter, and schedule a follow-up meeting, according to the new
policy.
The IRS noted there will still be extremely limited situations
where unannounced visits will occur like in service of summonses
and subpoenas; and also sensitive enforcement activities
involving seizure of assets.
Such situations number less than a few hundred each year – a
small fraction compared to the tens of thousands of unannounced
visits that typically occurred annually under the old policy,
the IRS said.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Mark
Potter)
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