Tax Abatements: Better IRS Data Could Benefit Small Businesses and IRS.

摘要

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) abates hundreds of thousands of small business tax assessments annually because either the business or IRS made an error in calculating the taxes.1 As we stated in our March 2001 report, making and then abating tax assessments imposes costs on taxpayers and IRS.2 Preventing the errors that lead to the assessments would stop the need for such abatements and reduce costs in time and money for taxpayers and IRS. Because of your interest in reducing these costs to taxpayers and IRS, you asked us to determine (1) what IRS' views are on the benefits and costs of collecting data on the errors related to small business tax assessments that have to be abated; (2) what data IRS has on the volume, nature (what tax issue was in error, who made the error, how did the error occur, and why did the error occur) and burden of various tax abatements for small businesses; and (3) what improvements, if any, IRS can make to its data on tax abatements for small businesses and what the related costs are in making them.