Skip to footer

Talking with the IRS may be more difficult in 2016

As the IRS moves more of its interactions with taxpayers online and to third-party intermediaries, experts predict that in-person communication with the tax agency could become more difficult. 

|
J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo/File
The Capitol Dome in Washington is illuminated (Jan. 8, 2015). Many feel that the current political system is broken, but it is not beyond repair.

On the Hill: An Address and a Retreat. The President will deliver his final State of the Union Address tomorrow evening, with a look a back on accomplishments and a look to the future and its challenges. House and Senate Republicans will look to the future too, at their retreat this week. They’ll head to Baltimore and consider an agenda under a new Republican president, including comprehensive tax reform, international tax reform, tax administration, and an alternative to the Affordable Care Act. TPC’s Howard Gleckman considers what Congress and President Obama could accomplish together in the meantime. The short answer: Not much.

The IRS says ACA tax filing in 2015 went smoothly, for the most part. IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, in his letter to Congress, said that despite service issues and some tax return discrepancies, the 2015 tax filing season as it relates to the Affordable Care Act was generally successful. The IRS reports that 30 percent of households claiming tax subsidies under the ACA, or about 1.4 million, did not properly account for their credits.

What might not be smooth in 2016: Personal interactions with the IRS. In her annual report released last week,  National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson warns that “Reading between the lines of the IRS future state vision, the IRS appears to replace traditional IRS employee-to-taxpayer interaction with online and third-party interactions… the vision essentially eliminates IRS-taxpayer personal interaction except in the context of enforcement actions.” By the way, if you get a phone call from a third-party claiming to be working on behalf of the IRS—be extra vigilant.

Why shouldn’t the IRS ban all rule-breaking taxpayers from taking future tax breaks? TPC’s Howard Gleckman considers the expanded two-year ban on some taxpayers improperly taking the Earned Income Tax Credit, the Child Tax Credit, and the American Opportunity Tax Credit. These low-income families are barred from claiming future credits if they incorrectly claim the subsidies due to “reckless or intentional disregard” of the rules. Thing is, trade associations, multinationals, and hedge funds sometimes recklessly or intentionally disregard rules—but face no prospective punishment.

Some children face “kiddie tax” provisions. TPC’s Jim Nunns explains in the latest TPC Tax Fact. The US usually taxes dependents in the same way it taxes nondependent taxpayers, except for special standard deduction amounts. While 9 million children filed dependent returns, only about 360,000 paid the kiddie tax. Only 3,000 children reported incomes of $200,000 or more, but they accounted for half of all kiddie tax payments.

In California, Governor Jerry Brown needs to extend a tax on some health plans. If the state does not change its tax structure for managed care plans, it could lose federal support of Medi-Cal, its version of Medicaid. In his new budget, Governor Brown proposes a health plan tax that would generate about $1.35 billion. Health plans would pay at varying rates based on enrollment.

This article first appeared at TaxVox.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Talking with the IRS may be more difficult in 2016
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Tax-VOX/2016/0111/Talking-with-the-IRS-may-be-more-difficult-in-2016
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe