Internal Revenue Service Advisory Council (IRSAC) Releases Findings

IR-2008-130, Nov. 19, 2008

Washington — The Internal Revenue Service Advisory Council (IRSAC) today released its recommendations on a wide range of tax administration issues at the 2008 public meeting in Washington, DC.

IRSAC was established in 1953 as the Commissioner’s Advisory Group (CAG), a national policy and issue advisory committee. Renamed in 1998 to reflect the agency-wide scope of its focus as an advisory body, the primary purpose of IRSAC is to provide an organized public forum for representatives of the public and senior IRS executives to discuss relevant tax administration issues.

Based on its findings and discussions, IRSAC made more than 70 recommendations on a broad array of issues and concerns Service-wide, including:

• Compliance Risk Management,
• Transparency,
• Income Tax Gap Analyses,
• Communications and Technological Enhancements,
• Preparer Requirements, and

• Improving Employment Tax Reporting and Worker Classification Compliance.

Through IRSAC, systemic problems relating to existing tax policy or emerging tax administration issues are addressed in a public forum. IRSAC draws its members from the tax professional community and from academia. The council receives full-time support from the IRS office of National Public Liaison.

The recommendations are available on IRS.gov.
(See the links in the Resource Box below.)

[TaxMama® notes: The IRSAC report includes progress made towards closing the Tax Gap, now that we’re in the second year of this mission. It includes recommendations about further steps that IRS can take. There are also specific notes about small business audit and enforcement recommendations. It’s worth your time to read these reports.]