That the tax system is vast and complex is a truism, to the point where a speaker from a local National Taxpayer Advocate's office says that even its efforts to simplify matters for the taxpayer are, themselves, vast and complex.

Speaking at the FAE's IRS Practice and Procedures Conference on Dec. 6, Soh-Yung (Erica) Son, local taxpayer advocate for New Jersey, said that the most recent annual report from her office talks about crafting what's essentially a roadmap for tax administration and procedures so that people can know exactly where problems start, and how their resolution is progressing through the system.

Son said the effort was an attempt "to take the insanely complicated procedures and depict them in an easy to follow path." However, she said, the bureaucracy is so complex that her office's best attempt at making a roadmap so far had to be a simplified representation that does not fully account for the entire system.

"Therefore, [for] every step showed on the roadmap, there are multiple substeps and detours we did not represent," she said. "This roadmap is not simple, even at the very high level we chose, but it makes clear the complexity of tax administration and the burden on tax professionals who have to navigate it."

This doesn't mean that her office doesn't intend to improve it. She said the ultimate goal for her office is to digitize the roadmap to the point where when the office puts in a notice, it should be able to see where the taxpayer is in the process, which she said should give a better idea of how someone got to this point and what's coming ahead for the taxpayer.

"Once we digitize this roadmap, hopefully taxpayers and practitioners will understand what the notices mean and how they got there and the next steps and any additional help they will need," she said.

Son also said that her office will continue to focus on what she considers a lack of clear legal guidance from the IRS. Many times, she said, people who want to comply but have questions are told that their inquiry is out of scope, or that the question was sent at the wrong time or to the wrong person. Consequently, many taxpayers need to turn to expensive third-party services to get their questions answered. She said her office wants the IRS to deem every question to be in scope for at least the next two years, as well as do better on evaluating taxpayer demand before declaring something out of scope. It has also recommended the development of scripts for frequently asked questions. 
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Another area of concern is the high number of false positives in the IRS's fraud detection system, which has led the needless delay of legitimate tax refunds, which she said is a product of the IRS's material challenges, as "just technologically, the IRS is limited so they overcompensate in terms of filters." What's more, however, she said that when the IRS does flag refunds for possible fraud, the taxpayers are often given no notice as to that being the reason for the delay. Instead they receive a generic notice that their refund has simply been held up. With this in mind, she said the National Taxpayer Advocate office is pressing for better quality notices in relation to the fraud filter.

Son added that her office is also pushing to extend availability of in-person conferences in both on-campus and field cases, noting that being able to sit down with an agent simplifies issues immensely for both the taxpayer and the IRS. The recently passed Taxpayers First Act, she said, might promise action on this front, as it has created a new independent Office of Appeals with more power and rights. For example, she said, taxpayers will now be able to receive their administrative record directly instead of having to get it from a Freedom of Information Act request.

"I think it is important for taxpayers and practitioners to have that file because it gives you information on what the appeals officer has been thinking about the case and what evidence they've been looking at so you can prepare for that conference with all the information necessary," she said.

These have generally been priorities outlined by the previous annual report. She said that in the next annual report, the Taxpayer Advocate Office plans to focus on IRS technology modernization, strategies for return preparer regulation, and the automated substitute return program, which is meant to address nonfilers. While previous Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson retired this year after 18 years in the position, Son said that the search for a replacement has already begun, "and I think we we'll hear something soon, so stay tuned."