With the lengthened filing season in full swing, National Conference of CPA Practitioners tax chair Stephen Mankowski recently met virtually with government officials on a number of tax season-related topics, including early season filing statistics, the appeals process, improvements to the taxpayer experience, Nationwide Tax Forums, and the filing date extension.
Current filing statistics include the following, according to Mankowski:
- Over 85 million returns have been received through March 26, 2021, with 75.97 million returns processed.
- More than 15 million business returns have been processed.
- The IRS expects to receive a total of 160 million returns.
- Free File participation is up 8.2 percent.
- At its highest point (following enactment of the American Rescue Plan), the IRS received 1,500 calls per second.
Filing date extension. The extension of the filing deadline to May 17, 2021, automatically extends the time to make 2020 contributions to IRAs and Roth IRAs, health savings accounts, Archer medical savings accounts and Coverdell education savings accounts. But it does not extend the April 15, 2021, deadline for estimated tax payments, Mankowski noted.
“This means that those with estimated tax really need to complete their return by April 15,” said Mankowski. “It’s not only the rich that have to do estimates. Over the last five years there have been a lot more self-employed persons. They’re required to file quarterly estimates, and are not in any sense wealthy. They’re just doing what they have to do to get by.”
The American Institute of CPAs, joined by a number of stakeholders, is calling for the deadline postponement to include quarterly estimated taxes. Sixty members of Congress have also joined the call in a bipartisan letter to IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig.
The letter, led by Rep. Lloyd Smucker, R-Pennsylvania, highlights many of the circumstances that have created insurmountable challenges for small-business owners and self-employed workers, and urged Commissioner Rettig to provide relief to these taxpayers by extending the tax filing deadline for first quarter estimated payments.
Appeals update. IRS Appeals is still primarily paper-based, but with most of the staff working from home, the agency is adopting more electronic procedures, according to Mankowski.
“There have been no in-person conferences permitted, and they are continuing to communicate through Zoom, WebEx and secure email,” he said. “Appeals acknowledged that there has been a drop in the number of cases. They are working existing cases, but there have been fewer collection notices, and not a lot of audits, so there hasn’t been a lot flowing into Appeals. We’ll see what happens over the next few months. Face to face is kept as an option, but with COVID-19 still an issue, they will not put their employees at risk.”
IRS Taxpayer Experience Strategy. “The Taxpayer Experience Office is working to pull things together with subject matter experts for the taxpayer experience strategies,” Mankowski remarked. “Looking at portfolio management structure, the IRS will be taking on multiyear projects, such as customer callback features. IRS employees will be structuring meetings in areas without an IRS presence to meet with taxpayers. They will also be looking at expanding Volunteer Income Tax Assistance in high schools.”
Nationwide Tax Forums update.The IRS is planning to begin virtual forums on July 20, 2021, with two seminars per day and a virtual Exhibit Hall.
“As much as they wanted to go back to in-person forums, it got to the point where they just didn’t know if they would be able to hold live meetings,” said Mannkowski. “Since commitments would have to be made to the hotels and personnel involved, they made the difficult decision that they would go virtual again this year, but they had good feedback from last year’s virtual forums.”
