IRS makes major changes on Liens and Offer in Compromise program
eTaxes.com
First, for several years, I have argued that the IRS and states are
helping to cause identity theft by listing complete Social Security
Numbers on Federal and state income tax liens. In fact, I was working
with a reporter on an article on this subject. While attening an IRS
Tax Practitioner Seminar in South San Francisco on January 20th, the
local Taxpayer Advocate informed us that effective January 8th, 2006,
the IRS was "no longer placing complete Social Security Numbers on
Federal tax liens out of concern for identity theft". Of course, this
will not affect the states so we'll have to work on this on a state by
state basis. The bankruptcy courts recognized the same problem and
stopped putting complete SSN's on bankruptcy filings a while ago. Of
course, this won't help the tens of millions of Americans whose numbers
are already listed on liens that are filed with County Recorders. And,
with more and more counties putting their records online, the
likelihood of identity theft from anyone with a computer with online
access goes up each and every day from people next door as well as
individuals in Russia, India, China, South Korea, etc., etc.
Second, the IRS has announced another major reduction in the number of
Revenue Officer Offer Specialists. A few years ago, 1,100 Revenue
Officers were handling OIC's nationwide. With this latest reduction,
that number will plummet from 280 to 153!!! Additionally, the IRS is
shutting down all but 3 Offer groups across the country. ALL field
Offers will be worked in either the San Diego area, an office in the
Gulf States region (Texas) and an office in the South Atlantic region
(Florida). That means even the most complex case will not be worked by
anyone in your local office. There is absolutely no doubt whatsoever
that Commissioner Everson, who despises Offers and clearly wants to
shut down the program entirely, is well on his way to doing that very
thing.
Steve Kassel, EA
eTaxes.com
skasselea at eTaxes dot com
rmayo...@gmail.com
As always you are on top of this stuff. I heard essentially the same
the same thing last week from an Offer in Compromise Specialist. He
told me that the focus was to put more Revenue Officers in the Field
working collection cases, more specifically BMF cases. This reduction
in the number of Offer in Compromise Specialists means that the more
complex cases will be worked out of COIC. This may not necessarily be
bad. In my experience some Offer in Compromise Specialists still have
a Revenue Officer mentality and work real hard to find ways to reject
offers. On the other hand there are those that work real hard to have
a high settlement rate. There is no way the COIC people to investigate
an offer as thoroughly as an Offer Specialist located in proximity to
the taxpayer. It may be that cases worked in the COIC will be easier
to manipulate by guys like us. Anyway I am writing the Louisiana
delegation to Congress and the Senate Finance Committe a letter about
Everson's apparent effort to close down the Offer in Compromise
Program.
Cody Mayo
Shreveport, LA
http://offersecretsrevealed.com