 Internal Deputy Service IRS tax news, understanding taxpayer rights, the right to be informed. But first, an attempt at a joke, I apologize in advance. During an IRS audit, the IRS agent said that I was anti-social. I told him I'm not anti-social. I don't have anything against IRS agents social. As long as he leaves me alone. IRS tax tip 2022-34 March 3rd 2022. Taxpayers have the right to know what they need to do to comply with the tax laws. Not just during filing season, but all year. When something happens to taxpayers' accounts, that taxpayer has the right to be informed about that activity. In fact, this right is one of the 10 outlined in the Taxpayer Bill of Rights. There's a link to the Taxpayer Bill of Rights here. The right to be informed means taxpayers have the right to know what they need to do to comply with tax laws. So this seems obvious, but it's important, of course, because you can imagine situations where you're basically getting in trouble for not complying with a law that you don't know what the law was, and you've got to be able to know what the law was in order to have any kind of chance of being able to comply with it. Have clear explanations of the laws and IRS procedures in all forms, instructions, publications, notices, correspondence. So we've got all the forms, you've got the instructions to the forms. We should be able to know exactly what we're supposed to do in order to be in compliance with the law. Be informed of IRS decisions about their tax accounts. So when the IRS makes a decision about the account, again, you can imagine a situation where they make a decision, they take action, they start charging penalties and interest, for example, that accumulates for five years, and then you finally find out about it. It's like, wait a second, now the penalties and interest have accumulated to massive amounts or something like that. Can't really do that. They got, you know, we need to be informed in order for this whole thing to be fair. Receive clear explanations of the outcomes of IRS decisions. So when an IRS, when the IRS makes a decision, then they need to be able to explain it. They need to be able to explain it within the context of the law so that we should have an objective way of looking at whether or not the IRS is doing the right thing or not, because we're going to be comparing it to the law. Again, you can argue whether or not the law is correct or not. That's a different type of argument, which has different types of remedies. If you think the tax code needs to be changed, for example, but once the law is in place and the IRS, the tool that is implementing the law, then they should be making their implementation, co-op lining or in conjunction with the actual law. So to make sure taxpayers are informed, the IRS will include within certain notices any amount of the tax interest and certain penalties the taxpayer owes. Explain why the taxpayers owes any taxes. So if they're going to send you a letter and say, hey, we think your tax returns messed up and you owe more taxes and we're going to charge you penalties and interest, they should tell you why, right? And again, it seems kind of obvious, but we've all probably been in a situation where you're dealing, especially with a bureaucratic kind of system where they actually, you know, the more bureaucratic something gets, sometimes they actually seem to take pleasure in not telling you why something happened. Well, it's penalties and interest. Why? Because I said so. Well, that's, you know, we need to, you know, that's not very satisfying of an answer, right? They might be right to do the action, but we need to know why the action is going to be done in accordance with the law would make things run a lot more smoothly. Explain why the taxpayer owes any taxes. Explain the specific reasons why it denied a refund claim. Post information on irs.gov to help taxpayers understand their irs notice or letter, send a letter when the agency assesses a tax that letter must include information about how the taxpayer can appeal the decision. So note, even when they send a letter out, they should be saying, hey, look, this is my opinion and the opinion is based on the tax code because we're supposed to have a tax reporting system where we voluntarily report our taxes in accordance with the tax law. And and and if they disagree with what we're reporting, then we should we have the recourse to be able to say, no, we think we're correct. Again, the objective measure, however, of course, is the tax law. So if they're saying my position, your position that you're taking is incorrect, you can imagine a situation where the IRS, the bureaucratic authority could just tell you that, you know, your position is incorrect in not in alignment with the tax law. And you could say, well, you're totally wrong. It is in alignment with the tax law. And they just ignore you, right? A lot of bureaucratic kind of systems do that. It's very frustrating. So you should have a system to be able to have recourse in the event that you say, hey, wait a second, no, you're not in alignment with the tax law here. And and you can appeal basically the decision and and take it take it further. Again, there's a difference with agreeing with the tax law in terms of the law itself and in seeing whether or not the bureaucratic agency, which has the ability to implement the law is is doing so in accordance with the law. So an explanation of the entire process from audit through collection details on how the taxpayer advocate service can help. There's a link to the taxpayer advocate service, send an annual statement to taxpayers who enter into a payment plan. The statement will include how much the taxpayer owes at the beginning of the year, pay during the year still owes at the end of the year, make forms and publications available on irs.gov. Use social media to provide helpful tax information to a wide audience of taxpayers. So there's links to some of that information here. There'll be a link to this in the description.