The first element, outreach, recognizes that some noncompliance is caused by confusion, complexity, or misunderstanding of the law. Some taxpayers want to comply but for some reason fall short. Our goal is to become involved at the front end of the tax process to help prevent this unintentional noncompliance. We welcome your suggestions as we design these outreach programs. The second element, enforcement, recognizes that some noncompliance is intentional.
Some taxpayers simply refuse to comply.
We need to identify these taxpayers and to recover the taxes they owe. We also need to decrease intentional noncompliance by increasing its cost. The cost for noncompliance will range from the imposition of monetary penalties to criminal prosecution in appropriate cases. We began our Compliance 2000 efforts by soliciting ideas to identify key areas where noncompliance is significant. We are now moving to address these areas of noncompliance using the Compliance 2000 philosophy.