IRS Hiring Hundreds of New Agents Can Spell “Tax Audit” For More US Tax Payers

With the announcement released just recently that the IRS is hiring hundreds of new agents dedicated to doing tax audits, this means that it will be crucial for US taxpayers to stand up and take notice. In addition, with these new hires, the reports indicate that the agents are going to be more focused, on self-employed small-business owners, and those who are behind on filing their taxes too. For that reason, taking the time now to work with a tax advisor, or tax attorney service provider, could help the person to avoid issues when these workers start to do their jobs. With that said, for those that may find themselves facing this particular situation, this article will provide some suggestions they can put into practice immediately, so continue reading to learn more.

In past years, the IRS had become relaxed in regard to enforcing taxpayers who were delinquent on paying back the taxes they owed. Moreover, due to not having enough employees to cover the arrears log of audits, it was extremely difficult for them to enforce more audits, and focus their attention on the lost revenue from these backlogs of audits. Nevertheless, the Commissioner stated that with these new 700 hired employees, it was going to allow them to try, and recoup all those past years of revenue, which is owed to the government entity.

In addition, these brand-new hires are being made possible due to funds inside of the IRS becoming available for use, by the latest retirements taking hold. Keeping that in mind, many people think the extra $290 million, which Congress gave the IRS helped too with these recent auditor employees. In contrast, that is not the case, as those funds given were actually earmarked to be used for customer services, improvements to our cyber security, and the agencies long fight against identity theft.

With that said, the Congress said that they found these extra funds during their own internal review of their accounts, and discovered that there was enough within their current fiscal year, to provide for these new 600-700 enforcement positions. Moreover, they are not going to roll out the first set of job openings, at least for a few more weeks. However, when they do, they are placing them into the departments that oversee the self-employed taxpayers, and small-business owners. In addition, the IRS plans to place hundreds of more employees into other higher-level enforcement positions, later this year too.

Therefore, for those business owners who have just barely been getting by on covering their tax bills, they might be one of the first among the list to face audits, when these jobs get filled. Moreover, small-business owners might not be aware that some of the tax breaks they have been taking on their returns filed, might already be putting them at risk for a red flag to the IRS to look into those credits deeper. Keep in mind, that in the past, the IRS simply did not have the man power to enforce some of the discrepancies that business owners were taking on their filings.

In addition, for those that are self-employed, and who perhaps tried to save some cash, by filing out their own tax returns, they too should take notice on these new IRS agents. Keep in mind that the whole idea behind hiring these agents, is to allow the IRS to get more work completed faster for the general public. Therefore, if the business owner has fallen behind on taking care of their quarterly payments, and the enforcement agent comes across this information within their database as missing, these new hires are actually there to bring more enforcement to collecting those payments.

For that reason, taking the time to sit down with a tax attorney service provider could prove to be beneficial in certain circumstances. In addition, these professionals are very familiar with the most-recent tax laws, and ways to protect their clients from perhaps facing jail time for the amount owed to the government. However, if the small-business owner waits until they are contacted by these newly hired IRS enforcement agents, it might hinder how much the tax attorney could help their clients then. Therefore, spending a bit of time with the advisor now, to help the business owner take a closer look at their financial records, may even help them to reduce their overall tax bill long term.

Having said that, while many of the newly hired IRS agents will be placed into the self-employment, and small business departments, that is not to say that individual taxpayers are exempt from these audits either. In fact, the enforcement agents are going to be handling those taxpayers, who are already delinquent in their tax obligations with great force. Therefore, if up until now, the person has simply not been contacted by the IRS due to the lack of employees within those areas, they too should take notice of this article topic today. Be that as it may, taking the time to visit a tax professional advisor to look over the past five years’ worth of a person’s tax returns they have already filed with the IRS could also prove to be essential, if for no other reason than peace of mind.

When the IRS puts these newly hired enforcement agents to work within the next upcoming weeks, it could spell trouble for both small-business owners, and individual taxpayers alike. Moreover, this is especially going to be true, if these same self-employed businesses have fallen behind with their tax obligations, and have not been paying them on time for a few years or more. However, there are qualified tax attorneys that could readily guide their clients into getting caught up with their tax bills, before being audited by the IRS. Therefore, for those business owners, or individuals who find themselves in this particular situation, taking the time now to speak with a professional tax attorney could help bring the individual current with their tax obligations effortlessly.