I want to emphasize several of the key recommendations of the Commission regarding taxpayers' rights. The Taxpayer Advocate needs more independence and clout. I strongly believe that the Taxpayer Advocate should not be a career IRS employee. He should not have to worry about how other IRS managers view his input into their areas of responsibility. A more independent Advocate would come to the job without the restrictive mission-oriented mentality that besets many career agency executives.
Taxpayers can still suffer severe financial losses even when they clearly win a tax dispute.
Although the Taxpayers' Bill of Rights packages enacted into law in 1988 and 1996 offer important new safeguards for taxpayers, the job of protecting innocent taxpayers from ruin is far from complete. In the 1986 Tax Reform Act, Congress substantially liberalized the definition of negligent actions by individual taxpayers. Beginning in the 1980s, tax preparers were also subjected to increasing penalties for not exercising due diligence. Yet incredibly, Congress refuses to require the IRS to exercise reasonable caution in using its vast array of enforcement powers. I was very pleased to see the Commission recommend that taxpayers who have been financially harmed or devastated by IRS carelessness should have the right to sue and recover damages when the IRS is negligent.