AICPA President Releases Statement on Upcoming Ways & Means Hearing with Charles Rettig

Following an announcement by the House Ways & Means Oversight Subcommittee of a hearing on this filing season with Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner Charles Rettig, American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) president and CEO, Barry Melancon, CPA, CGMA, released this statement:

“I want to personally thank Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Pascrell for bringing IRS Commissioner Rettig to the Subcommittee on March 17 to testify on what the IRS can do now to help taxpayers and practitioners as they struggle with an extraordinarily difficult filing season. Holding this hearing now, rather than waiting until April, is critical because it allows the subcommittee the ability to assess firsthand the IRS’ response and plans for the remainder of this tax filing period.”

“While we appreciate the IRS’s announced plans to end the backlog by the end of the year – before the next filing season – the AICPA believes the IRS can and should do more to blunt the impact of the backlog on this filing season. Opportunities for immediate action include:

1. Aligning account holds with the time it takes to process and resolve issues

2. Honoring requests for reasonable cause penalty abatement in a manner similar to first time abate

3. Delaying until 2023 the implementation of new Schedules K-2 and K-3

4. Offering broad underpayment and late payment penalty relief

5. Temporarily discontinuing additional automated notices

“These pragmatic measures, which the IRS could unilaterally take right now, should reduce the need for taxpayer contact with the IRS and, therefore, allow the agency more time to concentrate on reducing the existing backlogs. We look forward to hearing from the Commissioner on how he will use the tools already at his disposal to help taxpayers now.”