Preface
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The National Taxpayer Advocate Purple Book presents a concise summary of 66 legislative recommendations that the National Taxpayer Advocate believes will strengthen taxpayer rights and improve tax administration.
“After several difficult years for taxpayers, the IRS, and society in general, tax administration in 2023 mostly managed to leave its COVID-19 problems behind. The IRS eliminated most of its processing backlog, generally paid refunds timely, and answered taxpayer telephone calls at pre-pandemic levels. The good news is that, with limited exceptions, we are back to business as usual.
“The bad news is that the baseline level of ‘business as usual’ was not good enough. Our nation’s taxpayers deserve a 21st century tax administration agency that is fair and equitable, provides timely and clear guidance, makes it possible for all taxpayers to electronically file their tax returns, answers its phones and resolves most issues at the first point of contact, and allows taxpayers to conduct business on any follow-up matters through online accounts in the same way they conduct business with their financial institutions.”
Each year’s Annual Report to Congress identifies the ten most serious problems facing taxpayers and offers recommendations to fix them. These issues can affect taxpayers’ basic rights and the ways they pay taxes or receive refunds, even if they’re not involved in a dispute with the IRS. As your Voice at the IRS, the National Taxpayer Advocate uses the Annual Report to elevate these problems and recommend solutions to Congress and the highest levels of the IRS. Additionally, TAS has a Most Serious Problems At a Glance document breaking down the ten most serious problems taxpayers faced this year and related key statistics.
The section discusses the ten federal tax issues most frequently litigated during the preceding year and contains an analysis of cases petitioned in the Tax Court rather than simply decided cases, providing a much broader view of issues taxpayers bring to court.
In this section, TAS reports on some of its 2023 advocacy updates and highlights. We begin with a report from our Case Advocacy function, followed by a report from our Systemic Advocacy function. The Advocate summarizes the National Taxpayer Advocate’s fiscal year (FY) 2023 Taxpayer Advocate Directives and shares the Highlights of TAS Successes During the Fiscal Year.
We include Highlights of TAS Successes and Initiatives During Fiscal Year 2023 to spotlight some of TAS’s accomplishments.
The Taxpayer Advocate Service (TAS) is an independent organization within the IRS. Led by the National Taxpayer Advocate, TAS is your Voice at the IRS.
The National Taxpayer Advocate’s Annual Report to Congress identifies taxpayers’ problems and provides suggestions to further protect taxpayer rights and ease taxpayer burden.
The National Taxpayer Advocate delivers this report directly to the tax-writing committees in Congress (the House Committee on Ways and Means and the Senate Committee on Finance), with no prior review by the IRS Commissioner, the Secretary of the Treasury, or the Office of Management and Budget.
The Executive Summary provides an overview of the National Taxpayer Advocate 2023 Annual Report to Congress, 2024 Purple Book, and the 2023 Research Reports.
For the National Taxpayer Advocate, thorough research and analysis of current tax issues and trends is a vital part of the Annual Report. TAS research projects yield accurate, insightful data that inform her advocacy for taxpayers and strengthen her authority and arguments before the IRS and Congress.
