Have you ever received a notice from the IRS? They’re notorious for their complexity and difficulty to understand. It’s easy to see why the average American feels frustrated and panicked when they see an envelope that lists the IRS as the sender. To assuage fears and address the problem, the IRS has recently announced the start of the Simple Notice Initiative.
What’s the Simple Notice Initiative From the IRS?
The IRS sends over 170 million notices annually to taxpayers. These notices address a variety of issues and can be long and complicated. You can imagine how reading a complicated notice might make complying with the IRS’s request challenging.
As part of the Inflation Reduction Act funding, the Simple Notice Initiative aims to reduce confusion for taxpayers by simplifying and shortening the standard notices. By filling season 2025, the IRS hopes to have updated the roughly 200 notices they most commonly send. After this completion, the IRS will examine and simplify other forms, such as those sent to business taxpayers.
What Sorts of Forms Will They Update?
In this first round, there’s a range of forms that the IRS is updating, including:
- notices to propose adjustments to a taxpayer’s income, payments, credits, and deductions,
- notices to correct mistakes on a taxpayer’s tax return, and
- notices to remind a taxpayer of taxes owed.
According to AP News, Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen stated, “Redesigned notices will be shorter, clearer and easier to understand.”
How Will This Impact the Average Taxpayer?
If you thought the IRS was simplifying letters out of the goodness of their heart, think again. The truth is that more straightforward and easy-to-understand notices will help the IRS collect money more easily. The goal is to continue to collect taxes and to do so more efficiently and effectively.
Concerned about your taxes? Be sure to reach out to Highland Tax Group to see how we can help.