Mysteries of Automation and Trust

To sin by silence, when we should protest, makes cowards out of men.

Tax returns should not be made public information

Clint Locke (Alabama), Taxpayer Collection Rights as a Defense to Private Debt Collection, 12 Ohio St. Bus. L.J. 87 (2017):

The collection of taxes is an essential component of tax administration. Government operations are dependent upon annual taxpayer deposits and federal employees are given numerous tools to ensure outstanding debts are paid. However, because of recent scandals plaguing the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Congress has imposed budgetary sanctions on the nation’s tax collector, leaving the IRS with few resources to collect outstanding tax debts.

 This week, Hayes Holderness (Richmond) reviews W. Edward Afield (Georgia State), Social Justice and the Low-Income Taxpayer, 64 Vill. L. Rev. __ (2019).

Many, if not most, tax professors and practitioners have been asked whether what we do is only about helping high-income individuals or businesses get out of paying taxes. Instead of offering the customary eye-roll, Ted Afield provides a thoughtful and compelling answer in Social Justice and the Low-Income Taxpayer. Afield’s article provides a detailed exploration of the role of low-income taxpayer clinics (LITCs) in providing clients with tax justice, and thus by extension, social justice. He then advocates for LITCs to be empowered to do more to improve social justice. This important piece should serve as a pillar for any efforts to support and expand LITCs across the country.

Nina Olson (National Taxpayer Advocate), The IRS Should Redesign Its Notices Using Psychological, Cognitive, and Behavioral Science Insights to Protect Taxpayer Rights, Enhance Taxpayer Understanding, and Reduce Taxpayer Burden:

With the filing season in full operation, many taxpayers are receiving correspondence from the IRS that convey significant taxpayer rights and require taxpayers to take prompt action. As part of my recently released Annual Report to Congress, I included a Literature Review that investigated how notices can be improved using insights from the available psychological, cognitive, and behavioral science research. A major issue with current IRS notices is that many taxpayers have difficulty understanding them. They may be unsure about what the notice requires them to do, the steps they may need to take, or the rights they have to challenge the IRS’s determination in a notice. This, in part, is because the design of IRS notices does not take into account the findings of available literature and research regarding effective notice design. Nor are IRS notices designed from a taxpayer rights perspective, which can prevent taxpayers from learning about or exercising their rights—for example, by relegating the segment on their rights to the last page of the notice, which they are least likely to read. In fact, notices are often designed with the goal of increasing revenue rather than adequately informing taxpayers of their rights. In the three Most Serious Problems on notices included in my 2018 Annual Report to Congress (here, here, and here), I provide both critiques of current IRS notices and suggestions for improvement. One of those suggestions is for the IRS to improve taxpayer understanding and decrease taxpayer burden by redesigning its notices using psychological, cognitive, and behavioral science insights. These suggestions are summarized below. ...

 ATO urged to let expectant dad access his super to buy vehicle for ...

TARC's Annual Conference disciplinary mix has become a hallmark of the TARC programme, and this year features keynote presentations from:

•   Professor Rick Krever (University of Western Australia)
  
•   Professor Christian Traxler (Hertie School of Governance)
  
•   Professor Sven Steinmo (University of Colorado Boulder)
  
•   Professor Valerie Braithwaite (Australian National University)
  Our conferences provide a venue for stimulating debate from different perspectives about the ways in which our tax systems are administered now, and could be in the future.
  The Conference is supported by funding from the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). 

Exeter TARC Annual Conference

Senate Finance Committee Begins Investigation of Abusive Conservation Easement Appraisals

The Senate Finance Committee Chair and Ranking Member announced here that they have startedan investigation into the potential abuse of syndicated conservation easement transactions, which may have allowed some taxpayers to profit from gaming the tax code and deprived the federal government of billions of dollars in revenue. For several years now, the IRS has been investigating these transactions. They appear to involve promoters selling interests in tracts of land to taxpayers looking for large tax deductions. In such an arrangement, the taxpayers then get inflated appraisals of those tracts of land and grant conservation easements on that land. The resulting inflated charitable deductions are then split among the taxpayers.
The type of investigation appears somewhat like the investigations by the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Governmental Affairs, see here.  Criminal investigations sometimes are in process when such investigations occur or, as I think occurred in the KPMG situation, arose from the commotion of the investigation

   Christos Kotsogiannis‏ @KotsogiannisC Apr 11 

The @TARC2013 conference is underway. 70 participants from 23 countries and with a packed and diverse conference programme. More details on tarc@exeter.ac.uk

11th Circuit Affirms Convictions of Promoters of Insurance Premium Scam Bullshit Tax Shelter

Robert H. Jackson's Famous Speech on the Role of the Prosecutor 

I am on the "Jackson List," an email list by Professor John Q. Barrett, here, who studies and writes about Robert H. Jackson, former Assistant Attorney General (Tax and Antitrust), then Attorney General, then Supreme Court Justice, from which he took a break to be the Chief United States Prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials of Nazi war criminals following World War II.  (Jackson's Wikipedia page is here.

Today, Professor Barrett sent the list Jackson's famous speech of April 1, 1940 titled "The Federal Prosecutor."  Well worth a read, so I pass it on.

 

9th Circuit Affirms Convictions for Tax Perjury

 "Good faith reliance on a qualified accountant has long been a defense to willfulness in cases of tax fraud and evasion." United States v. Bishop, 291 F.3d 1100, 1106 (9th Cir. 2002). We have made clear, however, that if "the trial court adequately instructs on specific intent, the failure to give an additional instruction on good faith reliance upon expert advice is not reversible error." United States v. Dorotich, 900 F.2d 192, 194 (9th Cir. 1990) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). The district court adequately instructed the jury on specific intent, telling it that the government was required to prove both specific intent and that Hardy did not have a good faith belief that he was complying with the law. The district court therefore did not abuse its discretion by declining to give Hardy's requested instruction about reliance on the advice of an accountant. 


Tiny Teddies, cheese in a can: The secret life of tax agents

Tax agent claims family pet as guard dog, gets booted by TPB

Wollongong tax agents DW & AR McNeice and David Warren McNeice have had their tax agent registrations cancelled by the TPB.

Tax agents terminated after claiming family pets as guard dogs