The Taxpayer Advocate Service (TAS) — that independent organization within the IRS whose mission it is to assist taxpayers — announced that it no longer has the manpower to assist taxpayers where the only complaint is IRS delay. Taxpayers must go elsewhere for real tax relief.
TAS groups its cases into two broad categories: (1) Economic Burden and (2) Systemic Burden. They will continue to handle all Economic Burden cases, but the following “systemic burden” issues will be remanded to the IRS:
- Processing of Original Returns
- Unpostable/Rejected Returns
- Processing of Amended Returns
- Injured Spouse Claims
According to the TAS, delays associated with these 4 issues are typically due to the IRS being overloaded with work. And the way they see it, it makes no sense to push the problem off on them, who are also overloaded with work. So, the TAS will temporarily not be helping taxpayers with these specific issues. Of course, a systemic issue could be causing (or about to cause) an economic burden, and in that case, the TAS will hear it. Full details here.