 Internal Revenue Service IRS tax news. Electronic Tax Administration Advisory Committee issues annual report to Congress. But first, an attempt at a joke. I apologize in advance. Many kids these days are as confused as the ancient Egyptian Pharaoh, Tutankhamun's kids were. Why? Because their daddy is also a mummy. Watching Biden deal with the economy is like watching a pig use karate to fight off a tiger. Biden throwing out another poorly executed pork chop. The economy just eats it up continues overheating and asks for another. The lethargic economy tiger saying thank you sir for the pork chop, but I don't think I've learned my lesson. May I have another? I don't think we want to be around to see what happens when we run out of meat to feed this large presently lethargic and entitled tiger we've made the economy into. But unfortunately, I think we will be and it may not be pretty. IR2022-133 June 29, 2022 Washington, the Electronic Tax Administration Advisory Committee, otherwise known as the ETAAC, which you might thought stands for something like Extraterrestrial Alcoholic Anonymous Committee, like Alcoholic Anonymous for Aliens or something like that. But no, the ETAAC stands for the Electronic Tax Administration Committee today released its annual report to Congress featuring recommendations focused on budget support for the Internal Revenue Service and enhancements to e-filing. Quote, the entire IRS leadership team appreciates the work that ETAAC's volunteer members have put into their annual report. And we look forward to receiving the recommendations in, quote, said IRS Commissioner Chuck Reddick. So the 2022 report groups a total of five recommendations into two sections, recommendations for Congress. Congress, of course, making laws about what the law is going to be and funding basically for the IRS and recommendations for the IRS, which is obviously the agency that once they have that information, the funding and the laws then should be executing what needs to be done from the IRS side of things. So the recommendations to Congress, so they're basically interpreting that they're talking to Congress about what are the needs of the IRS here. So provide the IRS with flexible, sustainable, predictable, multi-year funding. Provide both budgetary and legislative support that allows the IRS to leverage its successes to deliver the level of services the taxpayers expect and deserve. So that sounds pretty nice towards the IRS. To me, the recommendations to Congress basically give us the money that we want, that we need on a flexible basis so that we could do what we want to do. So I would think that the quote up here from Chuck Reddick is quite positive, giving those recommendations because it sounds pretty favorable to the IRS and their funding needs. The recommendations to the IRS include implement enhancements to modernize e-file that remove impediments to e-filing with appropriate security features, taxpayer consent, and acknowledgments. So that I kind of agree with that, that would make things a smoother process, but it's right along the line with what I believe the IRS has been pushing for henceforth as well. So it seems kind of out of the IRS playbook to me from what I've been reading. So promote the use of identity protection, PIN, through a national year long campaign, leveraging stakeholders, including the tax and financial services industry to highlight the benefits of the program. So I believe the PIN protection program used to be something that would use once the actual identity theft happened, once someone, for example, filed a fraudulent return on a taxpayer's behalf or stole the information from the taxpayer, their social security number, for example, and whatnot, and then filed a fraudulent tax return. That, of course, has been going up that kind of identity theft due to the fact that especially lower income tax returns have become more valuable to fraudsters because now you've got these credits that have been going out and the refundable credits have increased a lot. Obviously the social security number is kind of an antiquated system because the social security number is one number that we've had for our entire life, and we've had to be giving them to every financial institution for our entire life, every employer, and possibly for a contractor we've been giving them out in the contractor situation. So you would think that it would be quite likely in the digital age these days that the social security number for many, many, many, many, if not most people are compromised at some point in time, which makes the identity theft easier. So this is something I've seen that they've increased this, but I haven't seen them really push it to try to make it more people doing it all the time other than by voluntary choice because it would be more confusing to do that. But the social security number doesn't seem like a valid way to protect the identity these days given the digital technology these days. So this PIN number would basically change every year so that it would be harder for someone to try to file a fraudulent return, but obviously that would be more burdensome on the taxpayer side too to deal with that ever-changing PIN number. So work collaboratively with the state and software providers to develop a long-term roadmap for payroll and information return modernization. So if they can make the payroll an easier process that that could be a good thing too. The problem that I have with them making it easier online or making it more automated and whatnot is that oftentimes the people that actually process the payroll to some point they no longer understand what's happening. Even at this point all the deductions that are happening with payroll, you got social security, Medicare, you've got the federal unemployment tax, then the state taxes, you've got these caps that come into place and so on. So oftentimes you know people are processing payroll without having any idea of really what's happening being completely dependent on the software which I don't think is really a good thing but if they can make it easier that's good. The other thing I don't really like so much about whenever they make something easier is the fact that once you can do it digitally and you've made it easier then they just want more information. So now they say well now you can file the tax returns fairly easy why don't you tell us you know every hour that your employee worked on and what they did right they just want they want to crack down with more information instead of but you know that's the way it is. So the full 2022 report there's a link to that here is available on irs.gov irs website. So at today's annual meeting Reddick and IRS leaders thanked five members of the committee ending their terms this year so I'm not going to go over the names because I'll probably butcher them but you can read the names here if you if you so choose. The ET-AAC is a public forum whose members work closely with the security summit the good old security summit they're kind of like the Justice League of today's world then they save the world from the evil doers so the security the good old security summit a joint effort of the IRS state tax administrators and the nation's tax industry established in 2015 to fight tax related identity theft and cyber crime there you go that's where Superman went after comic books died he's is now on the security summit hanging out there. So the ET double AC members represent various segments of the tax community including individual and business taxpayers tax professionals and preparers tax software developers payroll service providers and the financial industry and state and local governments so there's links to that report here if you want to take a look at it there'll be a link to this in the description.