IRS examiners will resume touring taxpayers’ business locations during the coronavirus pandemic, but only when absolutely necessary, according to an IRS official.
Any business tour will be predicated on an agreement between the investigating revenue agent and the relevant taxpayer or representative, according to De Lon Harris, IRS Small Business/Self-Employed Division deputy commissioner for examinations.
“We want everybody to feel comfortable, including our employee,” Harris said on a July 17 webinar hosted by the University of San Diego School of Law and RJS Law Tax Controversy Institute. He provided details on how IRS employees’ return to work and the end of the People First Initiative will affect taxpayers under examination.
Harris said examiners will also consider alternatives such as video chat apps on smartphones.
If a necessary tour might hold up an examination so that it can’t be closed, the IRS will, as it has over the last few months, suspend the audit, Harris said.
Examiners who agree to face-to-face meetings have been asked to create social distancing plans for that contact, Harris said. “That will need to be approved not only by their front-line manager, but also by the territory manager or the midlevel manager,” he said.
All face-to-face meetings will include the requirement that taxpayers, representatives, and IRS employees wear face masks, Harris said. Asked about temperature guns, he said there hasn’t been a conclusion about whether those will be available, but that they have been discussed.
While the IRS considers the availability of field thermometers, it is also considering adding plexiglass shields to office auditor work areas for in-person meetings, Harris said.
Office examinations, which are normally conducted in an IRS office, will continue, but will be held virtually, and the IRS isn’t opening any new ones, Harris said. First, it will be fielding the accumulated mail from correspondence examinations, he said.
Correspondence examinations are gearing back up but won’t start again until sometime in August, Harris said. “That will give us enough time to work through the backlog,” he said.
“The IRS had approximately 12 and a half million pieces of mail stacked up in semitrailers in the campus locations during the time we were closed,” Harris said. That backlog must be dealt with before starting new correspondence examinations, he said.