United States Government Accountability Office GAO November 2004 Report to the Secretary of the Treasury _part10 pptx

Appendix I Material Weaknesses, Reportable Conditions, and Compliance Issues Page 150 GAO-05-103 IRS’s Fiscal Years 2004 and 2003 Financial Statements In each year since our audit of IRS’s fiscal year 1999 financial statements, we found that IRS did not always release the applicable federal tax lien within 30 days of the tax liability being either paid off or abated, 24 as required by the Internal Revenue Code. 25 We found that this condition continued to exist in fiscal year 2004. Specifically, in our testing of 59 statistically selected tax cases with liens in which the taxpayers’ total outstanding tax liabilities were either paid off or abated during fiscal year 2004, we found 13 instances in which IRS did not release the applicable federal tax lien within the statutorily mandated 30 days. The time between satisfaction of the liability and release of the lien ranged from 34 days to more than 2,100 days. Based on our work, we estimate that for 22 percent of unpaid tax assessment cases in which IRS had filed a tax lien that were resolved in fiscal year 2004, IRS did not release the lien within 30 days. 26 The failure to promptly release tax liens could cause undue hardship and burden to taxpayers who are attempting to sell property or apply for commercial credit. In at least 4 of the 13 cases in which liens were not released timely, the release was delayed either because IRS failed to post payments made by the taxpayer to the taxpayer’s account or because IRS did not follow up to ensure that problems in posting payments to IRS’s systems were resolved timely. IRS stated that delays in 3 other cases occurred because information was not being passed properly between the taxpayer account in IRS’s master file and IRS’s lien system. When cases fail to post from one system to another, an exception report is generated to identify the problem and initiate corrective action. Our review of IRS’s lien release process found, however, that several key exception reports were either not being resolved or not being resolved timely. If exception reports are not resolved promptly, the lien release process is delayed. For example, 1 of our sample cases in which the lien had not been released timely remained unresolved on an exception report for more than 3 months, when the lien was finally released as a result of our identifying it in our audit. We will be issuing a separate report on issues we identified regarding IRS’s ability to timely resolve exception reports related to lien processing. 24 Under certain conditions, IRS is authorized to abate (reduce) an assessment. For example, section 6404 of the Internal Revenue Code authorizes IRS to abate erroneous assessments, which can be caused by either IRS or taxpayer error. 25 GAO-04-126. 26 We are 95 percent confident that the error rate does not exceed 33 percent. This is trial version www.adultpdf.com United States Government Accountability Office Washington, D.C. 20548-0001 Official Business Penalty for Private Use $300 Address Service Requested Presorted Standard Postage & Fees Paid GAO Permit No. GI00 This is trial version www.adultpdf.com . credit. In at least 4 of the 13 cases in which liens were not released timely, the release was delayed either because IRS failed to post payments made by the taxpayer to the taxpayer’s account. fiscal year 2004, we found 13 instances in which IRS did not release the applicable federal tax lien within the statutorily mandated 30 days. The time between satisfaction of the liability. continued to exist in fiscal year 2004. Specifically, in our testing of 59 statistically selected tax cases with liens in which the taxpayers’ total outstanding tax liabilities were either paid off