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TE/GE Provides List of Priorities for Fiscal 2022

OCT. 7, 2021

Publication 5313

DATED OCT. 7, 2021
DOCUMENT ATTRIBUTES
  • Authors
    Lough, Sunita B.
    Killen, Edward T.
  • Institutional Authors
    IRS Services and Enforcement, Tax-Exempt and Government Entities Division
  • Subject Area/Tax Topics
  • Jurisdictions
  • Tax Analysts Document Number
    2021-38555
  • Tax Analysts Electronic Citation
    2021 TNTF 194-13
    2021 EOR 11-35
  • Magazine Citation
    The Exempt Organization Tax Review, Nov. 2021, p. 363
    88 Exempt Org. Tax Rev. 363 (2021)
Citations: Publication 5313

A Message from Our TE/GE Commissioners

Hello everyone,

We see fiscal year 2022 as a time of growth and change even as we adapt to our new home and work environments under the pandemic. Thank you for your resilience and flexibility during the last 18 months. Each of us has, or knows someone who has, lost friends and family members. We continue to hold our nation in our thoughts and prayers.

Our mission is to provide the assistance taxpayers need to properly file and pay their taxes while also enforcing the tax laws to maintain fairness for all. We understand that voluntary tax compliance relies on taxpayers' confidence and trust in our work. In fiscal year 2022, we expect to invest in new resources to expand outreach to the exempt sector as well as increase our enforcement staff, underscoring the dual obligation to serve taxpayers as well as enforce the tax laws.

After almost a decade of decline in the size of TE/GE's workforce, fiscal year 2022 will be a year of significant growth, with most new hires assigned to enforcement duties. Recruiting, hiring, training and on-boarding these new employees will be an ambitious exercise requiring "all hands-on-deck." We will need each of you to help us in this effort through training, mentoring, on-the-job instructing, knowledge sharing, welcoming and encouraging our new colleagues.

We will continue our efforts to make TE/GE user-friendly for the tax-exempt community. In fiscal year 2021, the IRS named the Chief Taxpayer Experience Officer and began the Taxpayer Experience Office (TXO) to show Americans that we are working to meet them where they are with a focus on multilingual assistance, increased digital services, proactive outreach and advanced data analytics.

TE/GE will work with the TXO by continuing its ambitious outreach activities, creating educational videos, increasing service to historically under-reached and underserved communities, and launching new electronic forms and services.

As we work to educate our stakeholders, we must also continue to enforce the tax laws, especially to ensure that those who take advantage of the exempt sector to enrich themselves are held accountable. We will continue to improve our data capabilities, working with various functions within the IRS to select returns with substantial non-compliance. We will work those cases using all available tools, such as criminal fraud referrals, where appropriate, imposing civil fraud penalties and collaborating with other divisions to ensure a holistic treatment. We have a huge task ahead of us in fiscal year 2022 but we are confident that together we can get this done.

Thank you for reading,

Sunita

Edward


TE/GE's Priorities for FY 2022

Strengthen Compliance Activities

  • Collaborate across IRS on existing and emerging issues such as syndicated conservation easements, abusive charitable remainder trusts, ESOPs, COVID-related employer credits and continued review of potentially abusive promoter schemes with an impact to TE/GE

  • Support examinations of high-income taxpayers with TE/GE issues, especially for private foundations and retirement plans, and the creation of a joint audit process in cooperation with LB&I and SB/SE

  • Partner with IRS Criminal Investigation and Research Applied Analytics & Statistics to identify cases with potentially significant non-compliance

Improve Operational Efficiencies

  • Review systems and processes to improve internal controls, performance measures and continue to streamline enforcement related procedures in collaboration with the Lean Six Sigma Office

  • Support Enterprise Case Management efforts by analyzing processes across TE/GE

  • Explore, create and refine opportunities and avenues to leverage diverse perspectives and insights to inform and enhance processes, enforcement activities and the taxpayer experience

Maintain a Taxpayer-Focused Organization

  • Collaborate with the Taxpayer Experience Office to expand outreach to the TE/GE community and in every interaction, create positive experiences for our employees and taxpayers while helping taxpayers understand and meet their tax responsibilities

  • Promote the e-filing of Forms 1024 and 8038-CP as well as other exempt organization and employee plan returns

  • Develop online resources and promote online access to publicly disclosable filings

Ensure Awareness and Collective Understanding

  • Proactively communicate with the communities we serve to encourage compliance with tax laws through expanded outreach, such as the TE/GE Small Entity Compliance Initiative

  • Strengthen our stakeholder partnerships to identify, develop and deliver effective messages

  • Increase the use of cross-functional teams to address business change initiatives

Leverage Technology and Data Analytics

  • Detect emerging issues using data analytics

  • Launch taxpayer digital communications capabilities and use robotic process automation to make processes more efficient and effective for our employees as well as taxpayers

  • Improve access to, and use of, digitalized data in identifying issues with a high risk for non-compliance

  • Leverage publicly available data, to streamline and automate our process for identifying the universe of hospitals subject to Affordable Care Act review

Develop Our Workforce

  • Develop a recruitment and hiring strategy to identify, hire and retain TE/GE employees

  • Assess our employees' training needs to expand their skills to create a more flexible and well-trained workforce

  • Enhance employee and manager development through training, developmental assignments, coaching and mentoring

Serving Taxpayers

Across America, tax-exempt organizations and government entities support economic infrastructure and enrich American lives. TE/GE serves taxpayers by helping these diverse organizations and entities — retirement plan sponsors, charities, Indian tribes, and federal, state, and local governments — understand and comply with the applicable tax laws and reporting obligations.

To encourage compliance, while protecting the integrity of the tax system by fairly enforcing the tax laws, we:

  • Examine organizations and entities using referrals and d analytics to focus on high-risk compliance issues

  • Issue determination letters to qualifying organizations and retirement plans

  • Offer programs to voluntarily correct mistakes and maintain technical consistency

  • Educate through compliance contacts, outreach and stakeholder partnerships

DOCUMENT ATTRIBUTES
  • Authors
    Lough, Sunita B.
    Killen, Edward T.
  • Institutional Authors
    IRS Services and Enforcement, Tax-Exempt and Government Entities Division
  • Subject Area/Tax Topics
  • Jurisdictions
  • Tax Analysts Document Number
    2021-38555
  • Tax Analysts Electronic Citation
    2021 TNTF 194-13
    2021 EOR 11-35
  • Magazine Citation
    The Exempt Organization Tax Review, Nov. 2021, p. 363
    88 Exempt Org. Tax Rev. 363 (2021)
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