A bipartisan group of lawmakers wants to see taxpayers receive late-filing and payment relief from the IRS as a result of the pandemic, following the lead of several tax organizations.
In a December 4 letter to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig, a group led by House Ways and Means Committee members Judy Chu, D-Calif., and Brad R. Wenstrup, R-Ohio, said the IRS should make it easier for taxpayers to request penalty relief.
“Through absolutely no fault of their own, millions of Americans are struggling right now with illness, death, unemployment, or a failing business thanks to COVID-19. The last thing they need to be worried about is the IRS,” Chu said in a statement.
The letter provides a list of actions demanded by the 52 lawmakers on the letter, such as the creation of a special first-time abatement option for taxpayers affected by the pandemic. Lawmakers also want to give IRS customer service representatives more leeway to grant reasonable cause and COVID-19 abatement requests, as well as the creation of a special phone line for taxpayers making coronavirus-related penalty relief requests.
Lawmakers highlighted the continued mail backlog haunting the IRS and urged the agency to stop issuing notices of intent to levy until it is resolved.
“Taxpayers expect reasonable and fair treatment from their government, and the current unwillingness to provide an expedited process for taxpayers and their advisors to request pandemic-specific relief fails to meet these minimum standards,” the letter said.
The requests made by the lawmakers were identical to those made by a coalition of professional tax organizations in a December 7 letter to Mnuchin and Rettig. The coalition, led by the American Institute of CPAs, said it had seen firsthand the necessity of offering targeted penalty relief.
The letter relayed facts of clients receiving penalty notices despite their efforts to timely file being affected by death. “There seems to be a disconnect at the IRS as to what taxpayers are facing,” said AICPA Tax Executive Committee member Jan Lewis of Haddox Reid Eubank Betts PLLC.