Executive Director of Latino Tax Professionals Association, Carlos C. Lopez, EA Meets with IRS Principal Deputy Commissioner Danny Werfel
Dallas, TX (PRWEB) August 21, 2013 -- The Latino Tax Professionals Association team attended the IRS National Tax Forum in Dallas, Texas. They had the privilege of meeting with IRS Principal Deputy Commissioner Danny Werfel Tuesday, July 30, 2013.
The Latino Tax Professionals Association team had an hour to meet with the new IRS Principal Deputy Commissioner. Executive Director of Latino Tax Professionals Association, Carlos C. Lopez, EA is grateful, “With the huge task IRS Principal Deputy Commissioner Danny Werfel has to deal with, we were pleased he was able to spend a short amount of time with us and give us his undivided attention.”
The IRS commissioner started the meeting with a brief overview of the challenges he will face, “the IRS has problems, but it isn't broken. There are of course adversities and obstacles as with any large corporation.”
Being methodical and persevering the IRS Commissioner is going to move forward with dealing with the tempest surrounding the IRS.
He explained where the IRS has problems, e.g. what are the corrective measures to be taken in the exempt organization team and the variety of important initiatives to carry forward. Identity theft, modernizing fraud filters, the electronic portal launch, implementing the Affordable Care Act, the massive amount of the work the IRS faces with the ACA and its administration, and the offshore tax evasion issues.
The IRS is constantly working to improve itself, there is no stagnation, no inertia and the questions are how do you react to adversity and how do you stay focused on solutions.
The new IRS commissioner has a background in public sector management and part of his job is to deal with politics, revealing management deficiencies, the IRS budget, and of course dealing with investing or divesting the IRS. How do deal with government waste and how to cut the waste without taking away from the IRS mission of effective tax administration.
The IRS has cut their travel budget by 70% to 80%. Congress is proposing to cut the overall IRS budget from $11.2 billion to $8.9 billion. There must be transparency in the IRS and how the budget is managed.
The IRS commissioner emphasized that respect breed’s compliance, he is going to review funding scenarios with his team and take a look at keeping Tax Assistance Centers open and assistance to the public with tax preparation.
He believes the next IRS Commissioner should be senate confirmed and look to setting obtainable long term goals for the IRS.
The IRS is a city, metaphorically speaking, with about 85,000 full time employees and about 10,000 seasonal employees and the IRS commissioner is the mayor of this city. The challenges facing the IRS commissioner include all the same challenges and problems any large city faces.
As with any large organization the IRS commissioner must deal with consistency, standardization, training, updating workers and of course accountability. The IRS commissioner believes the foundation is intact; however, deterioration has been going on for some time. Currently the IRS is at a hiring freeze and sometimes smaller is better.
Latino Tax Professionals Association looks forward to seeing the changes this interim commissioner brings to the IRS and how it will affect the IRS mission of effective tax administration.
Carlos C. Lopez, EA, Latino Tax Professionals Association, http://www.latinotaxpro.org, +1 (831) 770-8421, [email protected]
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