TAS Act

This bill makes various changes to improve taxpayer services and tax administration by the Internal Revenue Service. It covers areas including customer service, assistance for Americans abroad, Tax Court procedures, the Taxpayer Advocate, tax return preparers, appeals, whistleblowers, hostages, small businesses, and miscellaneous provisions.

Title I, Tax Administration and Customer Service: Requires the IRS to accept electronic filing of tax returns, create a public dashboard showing call wait times and backlogs, expand online account access, expand callback technology, automate refund offset bypass for certain individuals, eliminate installment agreement fees for low-income taxpayers, inform taxpayers facing hardship about collection alternatives, send quarterly notices to delinquent taxpayers, unlock funding for low-income taxpayer clinics, streamline Chief Counsel reviews of offers-in-compromise, modify penalty procedures, return excess amounts collected on accepted offers, extend the period for returning wrongfully levied amounts, and report to Congress on implementation.

Title II, American Citizens Abroad: Requires a Treasury study on combining tax and foreign bank account reporting, a GAO study on simplifying tax compliance for Americans abroad, increases the threshold for excluding personal currency exchange transactions from $200 to $1,000, increases the threshold for simplified foreign tax credit rules from $300 to $1,000, and extends the time for persons outside the U.S. to request abatement of a math error from 60 to 120 days.

Title III, Judicial Review: Authorizes the Tax Court to issue subpoenas before hearings to facilitate settlements, clarifies the Tax Court's authority to grant relief from a judgment, authorizes special trial judges to hear more cases and address contempt, applies federal judicial disqualification rules to Tax Court judges, requires notice and review for multi-year bans on claiming credits, authorizes de novo review of innocent spouse relief, clarifies certain court filing deadlines, clarifies Tax Court jurisdiction in collection due process appeals, authorizes the Tax Court to issue refunds in those cases, authorizes the Tax Court to hear refund suits, authorizes deficiency procedures for certain penalties, allows refund claims where full tax was not paid if an agreement is in effect, and adjusts the small case threshold from $50,000 to $100,000.

Title IV, Office of the Taxpayer Advocate: Authorizes the National Taxpayer Advocate (NTA) to directly hire attorneys, authorizes the NTA to make personnel decisions for all Office of the Taxpayer Advocate employees, grants the Office access to IRS information, legal advice, and meetings, repeals the suspension of the limitations period for taxpayers seeking Taxpayer Advocate assistance, and allows the Office to incur obligations during a lapse in appropriations to assist taxpayers experiencing hardship.

Title V, Tax Return Preparers: Expands the definition of 'return' for preparer penalties, increases penalties for failure to provide a valid preparer identification number, increases penalties for improper tax preparation or misappropriation of refunds, and authorizes the IRS to deny, revoke, or suspend preparer tax identification numbers.

Title VI, Appeals: Authorizes the Chief of Appeals to hire attorneys, authorizes direct hiring of certain individuals for the Office of Appeals, requires the IRS to respond to refund claims and authorizes appeals of refund claim denials, authorizes appeals of returned offers-in-compromise, and clarifies the right to an independent administrative appeal before the IRS can assess certain penalties.

Title VII, Whistleblowers: Establishes de novo review of whistleblower award determinations by the Tax Court, exempts whistleblower awards from sequestration, provides whistleblower anonymity before the Tax Court, modifies the IRS whistleblower report to include top tax avoidance schemes, provides for interest on delayed whistleblower awards, and corrects the deduction for attorney's fees.

Title VIII, Hostages: Postpones tax deadlines for hostages and individuals wrongfully detained abroad, and provides for refund and abatement of penalties and fines paid by such individuals.

Title IX, Small Businesses: Authorizes voluntary withholding agreements for payments to independent contractors, establishes a failure-to-pay penalty safe harbor for individuals, extends the mailbox rule to electronic submissions, and requires specificity in certain notices.

Title X, Miscellaneous: Authorizes redisclosure of certain tax information related to education loans to the Congressional Budget Office, authorizes requiring large partnerships to file electronically, and provides that the limitations period is not extended for victims of preparer misconduct.