Tax Justice Warriors

From William Schmidt-

I am going from being a Clinic Director for Low Income Taxpayer Clinics to working for the Kansas City branch of the IRS Office of Chief Counsel (Small Business/Self-Employed) as a Tax Attorney.  Today’s episode is a short one as I make my farewells.

In September, I finished working for the Low Income Taxpayer Clinic and legal aid worlds, where I worked for 6.5 years. I worked for over 5 years for Kansas Legal Services and almost 1.5 years for Legal Aid of Western Missouri. I am going to miss working with others that advocate for those who truly need it.

Both Kansas Legal Services and Legal Aid of Western Missouri are wonderful organizations that provide legal help to people in need. Through those organizations, I was able to provide tax, bankruptcy, consumer protection and other kinds of assistance through the years to low income taxpayers and other people in need.

The Low Income Taxpayer Clinic community is a group that I will miss greatly. Gatherings from the local to the national level brought friendly, helpful people willing to talk tax and assist newcomers. I made several friends through the LITC, the ABA and in the IRS that were trying to connect taxpayers with the right assistance.

I hope all of those organizations continue strong and you lend them support (if you're able) to bring help for those who need it.

I believe my 6.5 years within the Low Income Taxpayer Clinic world, writing regularly for Procedurally Taxing, podcasting for 180 episodes, presenting at conferences, teaching as an adjunct professor and more have led me to taking on this new experience. I look forward to working with others I know within the IRS and learning about IRS systems - I think this will be an interesting adventure!

The future of this podcast is a bit up in the air.  I have asked a couple people to take over, but in the meantime it will be going on hiatus.

Best wishes to you and thank you for listening!

If you have been following news from the Inflation Reduction Act, you probably heard news that the IRS received nearly $80 billion in funding over the next decade.  There have been reactions of all kinds.  In this episode, I look at how the funding is divided among the departments at the IRS.  Some of the goals are examinations of high-income individuals, building back the staff from retirement and other departures, and modernizing the IRS computer systems.  From there, I debunk some of the rumors regarding the IRS such as how they are building an army or arming their employees.  The bottom line is that the IRS will follow the law and the rumors are false.

The Fear Over IRS Funding (procedurallytaxing.com)

Republican IRS fearmongering in Florida is getting scary (nbcnews.com)

Opinion | Inside the IRS ‘Pipeline’ used to process tax returns - Washington Post

On this episode, an update on what is going on in Kansas City relating to tax issues.  Also, a talk about the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 and its funding of the IRS. 

At the time of recording, the Act had passed the Senate.  At the time of posting, it has also passed the House and is expected to go to President Biden to sign into law in the next week.

A short episode about balancing my workload between supervision and managing the tax clinic.  In order to balance the workload, it is necessary to reduce the number of cases and I talk about what I am doing to get there.

On May 12 through 14, 2022, the American Bar Association Section of Taxation held the 2022 May Tax Meeting.  It was a hybrid meeting, the first in-person meeting for the Section since 2020.  Portions of the meeting were also broadcast virtually.

There was a large group gathered and it seemed that people were happy to be meeting in person again.  William Schmidt attended the meeting and went to several of the committee presentations.  This episode provides a recap of the events, including the panels that caused audience reactions, some Tax Court judges who attended, and a tip about getting food at a reception.

William was also on a Tax Court Practice and Procedure panel on Collection Due Process cases in the U.S. Tax Court and he provides an update on how that went.

This episode has a whole variety of topics:

• The offer in compromise forms are now updated – what about the grace period to transition to sending the new forms to the IRS? How many years of tax returns need to be submitted for the taxpayer to be compliant?
• The local standards for 2022 have been released. These are to be used for offers in compromise and to submit for a client to be in currently not collectible status.  What else?  See below.
• Talking about low-income taxpayers dealing with stock reporting and tax audits.
• How to mark a duplicate tax return sent to the IRS?
• Talking about expenses and income reporting on an innocent spouse request submission.
• A reminder that the Low Income Taxpayer Clinic grant application or Non-Competing Continuation deadlines are coming up!
• Last, this will be Andrew Belter’s final episode as he makes a career change!

Tune in to find out what William Schmidt and Andrew Belter have to say about those topics.

The Boechler case before the Supreme Court was previously discussed in episode 173.  In the case, the question before the Supreme Court was whether the Tax Court correctly treated the deadline in this collection due process case as jurisdictional.  Spoiler – the Supreme Court did decide in the taxpayer’s favor that the deadline was not jurisdictional and that equitable tolling could apply.  The case has been remanded for a decision on whether equitable tolling does apply to the facts in the case.

William Schmidt and Andrew Belter discuss the Boechler decision regarding potential change for future collection due process cases.  This could be a big change, but the facts need to be right.

Also, William is going to the ABA May Tax Meeting in Washington, D.C. that takes place May 12-14.  On the 13^th, he will be in the Court Procedure & Practice panel, “Update on Collection Due Process Cases in U.S. Tax Court and Related Issues” from 4:15 to 5:45 Eastern.  The panel will discuss Boechler and other collection due process issues affecting the Tax Court.  If you are there in person, say hi.  If not, the meeting is also in a hybrid format so should be available virtually for some time after.

Welcome to a further discussion from William Schmidt (Legal Aid of Western Missouri) and Andrew Belter (Wisconsin JudiCare) on issues when calling the Practitioner Priority Service.  This time, there are issues when representing a client who is listed as the secondary person on the tax return.  Some of are clients are widows or divorced.  Recently, the IRS has been given difficulty or wanted a power of attorney form for the decedent's estate signed by the widowed spouse in order to do anything on the account.  That makes it difficult to ask for transcripts or get the account into currently not collectible status.  Next, there are difficulties when transcripts are unavailable from the IRS but the representative does have access to the account.  How to proceed?  Also, when the clinic is contacted about criminal tax issues, what next?  Since the LITC program does not focus on criminal tax, it is good to have a network for referring those cases.  These topics and more are discussed in this episode.  Thanks for tuning in!

Andrew Belter and William Schmidt talked through the different instances when to sign for clients on submissions to the IRS or the Tax Court.  Some forms allow for either a taxpayer or their attorney to sign.  However, clients don’t always get the forms to us or keep in contact close to the deadlines.  What are some of the ethical considerations with those issues?

Next, they compare notes on the LITC grant report.  By now, clinics should have submitted their reports so our hosts talk about their efforts to put their reports together.  Spreadsheets or other ways of tracking data like case software are quite useful!

Andrew Belter and William Schmidt discuss some recent topics of concern for Low Income Taxpayer Clinics.  For one, Andrew brings up the difficulties with regard to reaching the IRS on the phones to get help for clients.  Both Andrew and William talk about their recent attempts to find assistance for clients by calling the IRS.  Then, William brings up the LITC grant report.  That leads to a discussion of the difficulties in tracking data for the grant report and some tips in order to gather that data in an easier manner.