Q: Can you explain precisely what the taxpayer advocate does?
A: We’re here to essentially protect taxpayers’ rights in their dealings with the IRS.
Fundamentally, we get involved when taxpayers experience a significant hardship as a direct result of something the IRS is doing to them, such as levying a person’s wages, and they can’t meet necessary living expenses.
Another major area that taxpayers may qualify for our program is if they’ve tried to resolve an issue with the IRS through normal channels but couldn’t.
When we get involved with a case, we guarantee the taxpayer we will assign a person to them and that person will essentially be their voice with the IRS in any communication for the entirety of that issue and any related issue they may have with the IRS.
Q: Do most people even know the taxpayer advocate exists? How do they find out about you?
A: We hope those who need us know about us. But we have an extensive outreach program, talking to all types of groups from the tax-prep community to the tax-representation community, low income, English as a second language.
Just by the nature of what we do, most cases we get involved with tend to be low-income, though we can represent just about any taxpaying entity out there, including corporations.
About 43 percent of the cases we get come from IRS employees. They can’t figure out how to resolve some of the issues either and refer the taxpayer to us.
Q: How long has the advocate service been around and how large is it compared with the IRS?
A: The taxpayer advocate service in its current form came about after the tax reform act of 1998.
Prior to that, the IRS had had sort of an ombudsman position among its staff since the late 1970s. There’s at least one taxpayer advocate office in every state and some of the bigger ones have more.
We have 35 case advocates now in Colorado and about 2,000 nationally. The rest of the IRS has about 108,000 employees trained to protect the government’s interests.
Last year, nationally, we worked with about 245,000 different taxpayer accounts. In Colorado, we handled about 2,500. We provided full relief to the taxpayers in just under 70 percent of those occasions nationally.
Q: So you’d be the guy we’d hear from if there was an audit to be done?
A: No, I’d probably be the guy you would hear from after the audit was done and you owed tax but didn’t pay it.
Q: Is there anything taxpayers could do that would prevent them from having to visit with you?
A: Respond quickly to the IRS.
When you get a notice, open it and respond immediately. Don’t set it aside, which many people do. They ignore it believing they will pay when they get the money, rather than respond with “I’m sorry, I can’t pay it.”
I think it’s because they’re afraid of the IRS.
Q: Shouldn’t they be?
A: Of course not. When someone is contacted outside of the ordinary “Here’s your refund” contact, there’s a fear factor that will cause them to put that action off or that payment off.
Q: How long does it take for a case to be resolved?
A: We average about 70 days to resolve an issue.
Q: Is there a typical misconception taxpayers have when they contact the advocate? What is it you won’t do that you often hear taxpayers asking you to do?
A: The biggest misconception is we can somehow shortcut the law. An example would be that someone was unhappy with the outcome of an audit. We’re going to ensure the audit was done correctly and that they received all the notices when they should have and know their appeal rights. They may still disagree with us and not feel the audit was correct and owe that tax.
Q: What’s your background and how did you come to be in the IRS?
A: I came from Ogden, Utah, originally, but started with the IRS in Denver. I was wounded in Vietnam and that’s how I was introduced to Denver. Came through the Medivac program to Fitzsimon’s Army hospital.
I completed my master’s degree at Brigham Young University in public administration, then came back to Denver in 1982 as a revenue officer, which is a collection field officer.
Edited for length and clarity by David Migoya.
