Monthly Archives: September 2021

A recent Tax Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) Audit Report 2021-30-052 has found that the IRS still uses tax enforcement results to evaluate employees, even though that’s been illegal for years. 

TIGTA is required to annually determine whether the IRS has complied with the restrictions on the use of enforcement results to evaluate employees found in Section 1204 of the IRS Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998 (RRA 98).

RRA 98 requires the IRS to ensure that managers do not evaluate enforcement employees using any record of tax enforcement results (ROTER) or base employee successes on meeting ROTER goals or quotas.

In its audit report, TIGTA determinized that the IRS is still using ROTERs and identified the following:

• Three violations associated with the use of ROTERs in supervisory employees’ performance evaluations.

• One violation associated with the use of ROTERs in a nonsupervisory employee's performance evaluation.

• One violation in an employee’s midyear narrative that included inappropriate language related to fraud referrals.

TIGTA made eight recommendations to mitigate the issues identified during the audit. Two of these recommendations were:

• IRS should ensure that Section 1204 violations and instances of noncompliance are discussed with the responsible employees and/or managers, and

• IRS should update applicable performance documents to include a warning on using ROTERs when evaluating employees.

IRS management agreed with all TIGTA's recommendations. 

Have an IRS Tax Problem? 

 

   
Contact the Tax Lawyers at 

Marini & Associates, P.A. 

 

 

for a FREE Tax HELP contact us at:

www.TaxAid.com or www.OVDPLaw.com 
or Toll Free at 888-8TaxAid (888) 882-9243

Read more at: Tax Times blog

 Settle Your Back Taxes for a Fraction of What You Owe - Tax Evaluation Waiting! Stop IRS Collections Now.”

 Have an IRS Tax Problem? 

 

   
Contact the Tax Lawyers at 

Marini & Associates, P.A. 

 

 

for a FREE Tax HELP contact us at:

www.TaxAid.com or www.OVDPLaw.com or

Toll Free at 888-8TaxAid (888) 882-9243

Read more at: Tax Times blog

The Internal Revenue Service on Thursday released the results of a review of a now-concluded pilot program that invited compliance personnel into the appeals process, saying it would continue the practice but would not require it.

Individual appeals team case leaders, or ATCLs, will retain the discretion to invite exam officials into the appeals resolution process, the report said. The pilot program, which ended May 1, 2020, faced some criticism from practitioners who feared it was an attempt to inappropriately force mediation on cases that had progressed beyond that stage. 

"Our experience with the ATCL conferencing initiative found that the process generally is helpful in providing our ATCL teams with a comprehensive understanding of the cases before them," the report said. "Moreover, we have determined that an ATCL's discretionary use of compliance attendance at conferences can be a valuable tool in certain instances."

The pilot program, which ended after running for about three years, was designed to help the agency's appeals division identify, narrow and resolve factual or legal differences in some of the more complicated cases it received, the agency has said. ATCLs handle some of the most complex cases that come before the Independent Office of Appeals.

According to the report, a third-party contractor that collected feedback from program participants found that 92% of those surveyed had an overall positive experience with the appeals process, while only 62% said they had a positive experience with appeals conferences that included compliance personnel. 

Need to Appeal a Bad IRS Assessment?

     Contact the Tax Lawyers at

Marini & Associates, P.A. 

for a FREE Tax HELP Contact us at:
www.TaxAid.com or www.OVDPLaw.com
or Toll Free at 888 8TAXAID (888-882-9243)

Read more at: Tax Times blog

A number of transfer and foreign tax figures are adjusted annually for cost-of-living increases. These adjustments reflect, under a new measure of inflation provided by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA; P.L. 115-97, 12/22/2017), the average chained Consumer Price Index (CPI) for all-urban customers (C-CPI-U) for the 12-month period ending the previous August 31. The August 2021 CPI summary has been released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

Using the chained CPI for August 2021, and the preceding 11 months, the calculated 2022 indexed amounts for transfer tax and foreign items are:

1. Unified estate and gift tax exclusion amount. For gifts made and estates of decedents dying in 2022, the exclusion amount will be $12,060,000 ($11,700,000 for gifts made and estates of decedents dying in 2021).    
2. Generation-skipping transfer (GST) tax exemption. The exemption from GST tax will be $12,060,000 for transfers in 2022 ($11,700,000 for transfers in 2021).    
3. Gift tax annual exclusion. For gifts made in 2022, the gift tax annual exclusion will be $16,000 ($15,000 in 2021).
4. Special use valuation reduction limit. For estates of decedents dying in 2022, the limit on the decrease in value that can result from the use of special valuation will be $1,230,000 ($1,190,000 for 2021).    
5. Determining 2% portion for interest on deferred estate tax. In determining the part of the estate tax that is deferred on a farm or closely-held business that is subject to interest at a rate of 2% a year, for decedents dying in 2022, the tentative tax will be computed on $1,640,000 ($1,590,000 for 2021) plus the applicable exclusion amount.    
6. Annual exclusion for gifts to noncitizen spouses. For gifts made in 2022, the annual exclusion for gifts to noncitizen spouses will be $164,000 ($159,000 for 2021).    
7. Reporting foreign gifts. If the value of the aggregate "foreign gifts" received by a U.S. person (other than an exempt Code Sec. 501(c) organization) exceeds a threshold amount, the U.S. person must report each "foreign gift" to IRS. (Code Sec. 6039F(a)) Different reporting thresholds apply for gifts received from (a) nonresident alien individuals or foreign estates, and (b) foreign partnerships or foreign corporations. For gifts from a nonresident alien individual or foreign estate, reporting is required only if the aggregate amount of gifts from that person exceeds $100,000 during the tax year. For gifts from foreign corporations and foreign partnerships, the reporting threshold amount will be $17,339 in 2022 ($16,815 for 2021).    
8. Expatriation. For 2022, an individual with "average annual net income tax" of more than $178,000 ($172,000 for 2021) for the five tax years ending before the date of the loss of U.S. citizenship will be a covered expatriate. (Code Sec. 877(a)(2)(A)) Under a mark-to-market deemed sale rule, all property of a covered expatriate is treated as sold on the day before the expatriation date for its fair market value. However, for 2022, the amount that would otherwise be includible in the gross income of any individual under these mark-to-market rules will be reduced by $767,000 ($744,000 for 2021). (Code Sec. 877A(a)(3))
9. Foreign earned income and housing cost exclusion. The foreign earned income exclusion amount will be $112,000 in 2022 ($108,700 in 2021). The foreign housing cost exclusion will be $15,680 in 2022 (up from $15,218 in 2021).

Have IRS Tax Problems?

     Contact the Tax Lawyers at

Marini & Associates, P.A. 

for a FREE Tax HELP Contact us at:
www.TaxAid.com or www.OVDPLaw.com
or Toll Free at 888 8TAXAID (888-882-92

Read more at: Tax Times blog