Tax Justice Warriors

A preview of the ABA Tax Section 2019 Fall Tax Meeting.  I will be on a panel Friday morning for the Individual & Family Taxation Committee.  It is one of three panels on Collection Due Process for the Collection Due Process Summit Initiative (we have a panel each day - Thursday, Friday, and Saturday).  I talk about the Individual & Family Taxation, Diversity and Pro Bono & Tax Clinics committee panels.  If you are in San Francisco, please come introduce yourself.

This episode begins with Nina Olson, who retired on July 31, 2019, from as the National Taxpayer Advocate.  She founded the Center for Taxpayer Rights and through that Center is establishing a Low Income Taxpayer Clinic Support Center.  She provided details about how the Center will assist those clinics with funding and in other ways.  Those interested in being considered to serve on the Advisory Board would need to briefly describe your program, your own experience, and what you think you could bring to the LITC Advisory Board.  Also, she described subscriptions Tax Analysts are providing for LITCs.  They would need to give the name of the LITC and the email address for the appropriate contact person to receive the subscription.  The first email goes to neo and the second goes to info, both at taxpayer-rights.org.

Next, I described items I am working on.  I have been writing articles (Procedurally Taxing and the ABA Tax Times).  I have also lined up speaking engagements throughout Kansas.  I am part of the Collection Due Process Summit Initiative.  We have 3 panels for the ABA Fall Tax Meeting in San Francisco in October and are planning the Low Income Taxpayer Representation Workshop in Washington, D.C. in December.

Kansas Legal Services has a Trivia Night fundraiser and I was on the committee that planned the Kansas City Metropolitan Bar Association's Lawyer Well-Being Summit.  If you are interested in donating or participating, please contact me by email schmidtw at klsinc.org.

At the 2019 Kansas Tax Practitioner Symposium (sponsored by the Kansas Chapter of the National Association of Tax Professionals), several departments from the IRS gave updates on their programs.  This episode focuses on the Taxpayer Advocate Service and Field Collection.  Pt. 3 (of 3).

At the 2019 Kansas Tax Practitioner Symposium (sponsored by the Kansas Chapter of the National Association of Tax Professionals), several departments from the IRS gave updates on their programs.  This episode focuses on Stakeholder Liaison, Identity Theft, and Field Examination.  Pt. 2 (of 3).

At the 2019 Kansas Tax Practitioner Symposium (sponsored by the Kansas Chapter of the National Association of Tax Professionals), several departments from the IRS gave updates on their programs.  This episode focuses on Criminal Investigation and Appeals (both Examination and Collection Appeals).  Pt. 1 (of 3).

Shanna McCormack was the 2019 summer extern for the Kansas City office of Kansas Legal Services.  On her last day, she interviewed me before returning for her last year as a law student at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon.  She wanted to ask followup questions from the zero episode for the podcast, plus some fun questions about my favorite fun items.  It turned out long enough not to use as a bonus episode.

I was invited to take part in a Tax Practitioner Panel for revenue officer trainees at the IRS Kansas City Campus.  Learn about the discussion of expectations we have of the IRS revenue officers and expectations they have of practitioners and the taxpayers they represent.

A brief interview with Shanna McCormack.  She is a law student at Lewis & Clark Law School with an interest in environmental law.  She was an extern at Kansas Legal Services for the summer so she got to learn about tax and other topics.  She is curious about podcasting so I interviewed her and she plans to interview me for an upcoming bonus episode.

When a taxpayer gets the results on a tax return and there will be a large penalty, is it better to file or not, especially if the taxpayer is not going to pay off the debt?  How do the penalties work - there are failure to file and failure to pay penalties.  Which is worse?  A discussion of what to do when counseling a client in this situation.  Plus, some recent tax news - a little of it related to politics.

Those who do not want to pay their taxes may get swayed by tax protester arguments.  Tax protesters arguments range from the IRS not being an agency of the United States to several Constitutional arguments.  The IRS and Tax Court treat these as frivolous arguments.  If you test their patience, there are penalties the IRS and Tax Court can add to tax protester liabilities.  This episode looks at tax protester arguments and how they can hurt a tax case overall.