The Taxpayer Advocate Service (TAS) is pleased to announce that Erin M. Collins has joined the Taxpayer Advocate today as the new National Taxpayer Advocate.
Erin has more than 35 years of experience in tax law. She began her career as an attorney in the IRS Office of Chief Counsel, where she worked for nearly 15 years in the Los Angeles District Counsel office. She then spent 20 years at KPMG, where she was managing director of the firm’s tax controversy practice for the Western region.
Erin understands the critical work that TAS performs daily and that this is an ever-changing, turbulent, and unsettling time to assume leadership of the TAS organization. She recognizes the COVID-19 pandemic has turned lives and communities upside down and is having a devastating impact on the U.S. economy and the ability of U.S. taxpayers to comply with their tax obligations.
More recently, Erin represented several taxpayers on a pro bono basis in resolving disputes with the IRS. Throughout her career, she has been fortunate to work with many professional and hardworking IRS and TAS employees across the country. As a tax practitioner, she had enormous respect for TAS’s role as the “voice of the taxpayer.”
She believes TAS’s role is more important today than ever and therefore, assumed her role ahead of schedule. She stated, “I want to assure you it will always be my first and foremost priority to protect the health and safety of taxpayers and employees as we continue to address the challenges presented by this National Emergency.
Erin plans to start out by gaining a better understanding of TAS’s current and emerging challenges, especially challenges presented by the National Emergency and how it is impacting and will continue to affect TAS’s and IRS’s work for the foreseeable future.
Erin recently said, “U.S. taxpayers are very fortunate to have a team of advocates always there to serve them and protect their rights. I am deeply grateful to have been selected for this position to lead the Taxpayer Advocate Service, a great advocacy organization with a mission to serve taxpayers and protect taxpayer rights. And, I am excited about working with TAS’s great leadership team, as well Congressional offices, the tax practitioner community, the Low Income Taxpayer Clinics and the Taxpayer Advocacy Panel.”
