In my 2015 Annual Report to Congress, I identified the IRS’s Future State plan as the Number 1 Most Serious Problem for taxpayers. In doing so, I articulated several concerns, including the lack of transparency and coordination with stakeholders such as Congress, taxpayers, and tax practitioners. Commendably, in response to my Report, the IRS created a webpage dedicated to the Future State, on which it has placed a large volume of material. The IRS has also announced that it will make a presentation on the Future State at Tax Forums this summer, and the Commissioner has addressed the IRS Future State plans in several appearances before congressional committees and in speeches.

Also in my Report, I announced that over the next year I would be holding Public Forums on Taxpayer Needs and Preferences throughout the country, some co-hosted by some Members of Congress, particularly those serving on committees actively engaged in IRS oversight. It has been my great privilege to host eight of these Public Forums to date, and we have several more planned through the end of the calendar year. I and my small team have been welcomed into communities large and small; our Congressional co-hosts were actively engaged in the planning and promotion of the Forums as well as attending and participating in them. I am deeply grateful to Congressmen Roskam, Serrano, and Meadows, and Senators Casey, Grassley, and Cardin for their generous support and personal commitment to this important endeavor.

We held two Public Forums at IRS headquarters in Washington, DC, at which we heard from representatives from four Federal Advisory Committees to the IRS and four major national organizations of tax practitioners, among other witnesses. I was particularly pleased to have two separate panels with witnesses that reported on various research studies about individuals’ use of the internet and online services, as well as the digital divide in this country. I continue to be concerned that the IRS’s design for the Future State ignores or dismisses the significant body of data that shows large portions of the taxpaying public either unable or unwilling to engage with government online services for anything other than the most routine tasks, if those.

At each of the other Public Forums, we heard from a panel of witnesses representative of the community we were visiting. Each panel included a representative from a Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) site and a Low Income Taxpayer Clinic (LITC). We also included at least one attorney, Certified Public Accountant, or Enrolled Agent who is active in representing small businesses and individuals in the community. Finally, several of the Public Forums included witnesses focusing on particular topics: English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) and immigrant taxpayers; the elderly and retirement; farming; international and United States citizens abroad; disabled taxpayers; identity theft victims; and victims of payroll service provider fraud.

Although the National Taxpayer Advocate has been charged by Congress to be the voice of the taxpayer inside the IRS, what we heard at the Public Forums were the voices of real taxpayers and their real representatives. They are compelling, articulate, and clear about what they need in order to comply with the tax laws.

I’ve organized these comments around several of the concerns about the IRS Future State plans that either I identified in the 2015 Annual Report or consistently arose in the Public Forums. They are:

• IRS engagement with taxpayers and practitioners and how to increase trust in the tax agency (page 4)
• Building a Future State before the IRS current state of taxpayer service is fixed (page 8)
• The taxpayer experience as told by taxpayers (page 16)
• The continuing trend away from person-to-person and face-to-face taxpayer service and compliance activities, including audit, collection, and appeals, as well as a declining geographic IRS presence and increased centralization (page 19)
• The benefits and limitations of online accounts (page 24)
• Doing digital right (page 32)
• The lack of clarity around what will be offered as self-service online options, and the legal and due process implications of “self-corrections” (page 37)
• The implications of online accounts for taxpayers with limited online access or digital expertise, and the impact of security concerns on taxpayer online account usage (page 41)
• The implications of granting access to taxpayers’ online accounts to unregulated return preparers (page 45)
• The increasing workload for VITA sites and the compression of the filing season for professional tax preparers (page 47)
• The IRS Mission — what should the IRS be focusing on in the 21st century (page 49)

Full transcripts of all of the Public Forums are available online at https://www.taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov/news/national-taxpayer-advocate-public-forum-transcripts. They are worth reading in their entirety.