Jim Shelby is executive vice president of The Trust Co., a state-chartered bank in Knoxville that manages trusts. He wrote his opinion of IRS for the op-ed page of this morning's Knoxville News-Sentinel. Here are some excerpts; the full story is at
(He seems to have the same problem with Ogden on interest and FTP penalties being assessed on trust returns, as I reported last week.)
>>>Several years ago, the Internal Revenue Service came under congressional investigation for practices considered outside its areas of responsibility or, in some instances, abuses of its power in collecting taxes.
In fact, a "rogue" agent was investigating our esteemed senator from Tennessee and, as he testified before a Congressional Committee, he did not ever know he was being investigated. I had prepared his returns for many years, and I never knew about the investigation. . . .
Coming out of these hearings, there were some clear guidelines given to the IRS to become a "gentler and kinder" agency to taxpayers. And to its credit, it did become easier to deal with. . . .
Then came a massive reorganization. Things weren't too bad for a while but they put in the Odgen, Utah Service Center, which is where many of the returns we file in this area are sent. Apparently, the center was staffed with personnel who had not had a lot of IRS training. Notices started loading the mails. The earliest and most notable problems involved the center sending out late filing notices because the center based its notices on the dates they received returns rather than postmarked dates.
From that problem, things just seemed to deteriorate. I have had a few situations when we get a notice that says we changed your Schedule H, which is the tax for domestic employees. No explanation is furnished and repeated requests for explanation are not responded to. . . .
The 1099 and K-1 matching program is a real moneymaker for practitioners as it generates a lot of fees for responding to IRS notices, which have no real merit. I am fortunate to have as clients a number of people who have numerous capital gain and loss transactions. These don't fit on the IRS forms, so we have to attach schedules. Sometimes, we might have 10, 20, 30 pages of schedules and just put the totals on the IRS forms. We just love to get the IRS notice that says we didn't report all of these transactions because their personnel did not refer to the attachment. <<<
(He seems to have the same problem with Ogden on interest and FTP penalties being assessed on trust returns, as I reported last week.)
>>>Several years ago, the Internal Revenue Service came under congressional investigation for practices considered outside its areas of responsibility or, in some instances, abuses of its power in collecting taxes.
In fact, a "rogue" agent was investigating our esteemed senator from Tennessee and, as he testified before a Congressional Committee, he did not ever know he was being investigated. I had prepared his returns for many years, and I never knew about the investigation. . . .
Coming out of these hearings, there were some clear guidelines given to the IRS to become a "gentler and kinder" agency to taxpayers. And to its credit, it did become easier to deal with. . . .
Then came a massive reorganization. Things weren't too bad for a while but they put in the Odgen, Utah Service Center, which is where many of the returns we file in this area are sent. Apparently, the center was staffed with personnel who had not had a lot of IRS training. Notices started loading the mails. The earliest and most notable problems involved the center sending out late filing notices because the center based its notices on the dates they received returns rather than postmarked dates.
From that problem, things just seemed to deteriorate. I have had a few situations when we get a notice that says we changed your Schedule H, which is the tax for domestic employees. No explanation is furnished and repeated requests for explanation are not responded to. . . .
The 1099 and K-1 matching program is a real moneymaker for practitioners as it generates a lot of fees for responding to IRS notices, which have no real merit. I am fortunate to have as clients a number of people who have numerous capital gain and loss transactions. These don't fit on the IRS forms, so we have to attach schedules. Sometimes, we might have 10, 20, 30 pages of schedules and just put the totals on the IRS forms. We just love to get the IRS notice that says we didn't report all of these transactions because their personnel did not refer to the attachment. <<<
Comment