reposted from Virginia La Torre Jeker ‘s site
Americans Abroad-IRS to be Audited!https://t.co/9wjgfjJR0d
The IRS will soon be audited. Shoe's on the other foot! pic.twitter.com/1FkV3uLBoP
— V. La Torre Jeker JD (@VLJeker) July 17, 2016
Americans Abroad, IRS to be Audited
July 17, 2016Maybe it’s time for the shoe to be on the other foot.
A new tax watchdog group, the Tax Revolution Institute (TRI) believes that the problems with the US tax system “demand nothing short of revolutionary change.” TRI has commenced a major effort to independently audit the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), with the help of all interested taxpayers.
TRI is a nonpartisan Washington, D.C.-based group, with its nonprofit status currently pending. TRI plans to conduct an “audit” of the IRS, in part, by collecting personal experiences from taxpayers detailing their encounters with the IRS. TRI is “committed to promoting transparency, accountability and integrity at all levels of the US tax system, while researching and developing simple and innovative tax reform solutions to advance freedom and prosperity for all Americans.” As part of its efforts, TRI will also examine the IRS’ employees, work culture, finances, policies and enforcement as well as taxpayer advice given by the IRS. “[T]hrough FOIA requests, briefings, testimonies, advocacy, research studies, white papers, and educational programs, TRI will expose corruption, fraud, and incompetence within the US tax system.” TRI plans to “provide educational tools and resources for tax accountability to policy makers, grassroots organizations, and the American public”.
You can make your voice be heard. Visit TRI’s website. Americans abroad who are experiencing hosts of problems caused by FATCA and citizenship-based taxation can use TRI as a platform for getting their views known and hopefully, acted on!
Audit IRS
Many Americans believe the IRS should be subject to an independent audit. We agree.
We are conducting the first ever independent audit of the IRS, and we need your help.
The Audit will examine all areas of :
The IRS’ treatment of individual taxpayers
The IRS’ treatment of small businesses
The IRS’ expectations of its employees
The IRS’ work culture
The IRS’ handling of its finances
Advice given to taxpayers by the IRS
IRS policy and enforcement
… and more
Click here to read Audit IRS Key Issues List
Every year, the IRS touches the lives of 246.23 million Americans who file tax returns, and has a much greater effect on the lives of the million or so Americans who are subjected to audits.
At any time, the IRS can demand up to six years of accurate financial information. Failure to provide this information can result in large fines and penalties, even in the absence of due legal process.
Unfortunately, the IRS does not meet the standards of transparency that it enforces on others. Lacking public oversight or accountability, the agency has frequently denied requests for information, ignored subpoenas and destroyed records. It has also been found to provide misleading and inaccurate information in response to legal requests.
Anything you share with us will be kept in the strictest confidence. We never publish personally identifying information. We also offer assistance to individuals who have been victimized by un-professionalism or corruption within the IRS. Just check the “I need help” box when completing the form.
Thank you for help.
To learn more about the people conducting this audit visit:
Interesting. I look forward to the results. I wonder how long this will take?
I’d like to tell them about the IRS agent who when our accountant complained about how long it was taking for us to transition out of OVDI into Streamlined said, “I wish I could bill by the hour like you guys”. If that guy was in the private sector, he would have been fired for ineptitude a long time ago. He probably cost us an extra $5K in accounting and courier fees with all the stuff he lost or forgot about along the way.
Wow. Anybody know what Nina Olsen says about this? Will she endorse them?
“We also offer assistance to individuals who have been victimized by un-professionalism or corruption within the IRS. Just check the “I need help” box when completing the form.”
Aha! That one is tailor-made for @ Norman Diamond. I hope he writes ’em an earful.
Let the IRS divert time and resource from Homelanders (that really do owe tax) to Ex-pats who even under current law owe little or nothing.
Then there’s problem No 2. How do they collect without a fight on their hands? Try to turn FFIs into tax collectors as well or else they going to improve the 30%?
Take money or free money from people’s bank accounts?
The only reason FATCA hasn’t blown up in the IRS’s face is the general lack of awareness of the law by the general public. If they start forcing banks to takes action, that will ratchet up the debate for sure.
‘“We also offer assistance to individuals who have been victimized by un-professionalism or corruption within the IRS. Just check the “I need help” box when completing the form.”’
Yes my eyes popped open when I saw that. Unfortunately my documents now fill about 6 suitcases. I’m trying to think of how to communicate with them.
Unfortunately, unless I missed it, there isn’t an elephant in the room: the US’s diaspora. Anyone want to guess whether this will be just one more organization to ignore those who need the most help? Every US state has a Low Income Tax Clinic to help residents — and if we were US residents we might not even need their help.
I had the same thoughts, Norman Diamond. On the other hand, your story alone would be enough to make them come to the conclusion that the diaspora is particularly victimized by vague, contradictory US tax laws and the subjectivity verging on insanity that passes for enforcement. I hope you’ll share your case with them in detail.
“the diaspora is particularly victimized by vague, contradictory US tax laws and the subjectivity verging on insanity that passes for enforcement”
In my case I finally figured out that the IRS’s ostensible enforcement of an Internal Revenue Bulletin that prohibits telling the truth on tax returns is not the real reason why they penalized me. It’s the reason why they got settlements penalizing me for two years, but it wasn’t their original reason.
Their original reason was so that no one would help me after IRS data entry clerk Monica Hernandez and cohorts embezzled the US withholding shown on my Forms 1099, altered IRS records of my returns to show declarations of large foreign tax credits which have no basis (where my actual declarations were $0.00) and erased my declarations of large amounts of US withholding shown on my Forms 1099, and played “whack-a-mole” games with allegations they used for framing me after that, in order to protect the ring leaders and other cohorts who haven’t been caught yet.
So far it has not helped me to figure out their original reason, but I’ve finally figured it out. This is why, in years when I didn’t have Forms 1099, the IRS didn’t penalize me and did refund my US withholding, despite my identical kinds of illegally honest declarations.
Now this kind of operation could be, and probably has been, perpetrated against US residents as well as diaspora.
TRI, and some others, talk about IRS malfeasance during audits and legally mandated procedures. They seem not to understand what happens when the IRS refuses to audit, completely omits legally mandated procedures, and skips directly to penalties. They seem not to understand why victims don’t know why and don’t even know what’s going on. And sure, yes I did illegally write truthful declarations on US tax returns when I didn’t know it was illegal to do so, so I look like the bad guy.
So there’s nothing special about being diaspora in my case.