Figuring Out The IRS

What or who is the IRS and what does it stand for? The IRS stands for the Internal Revenue Service and is the official revenue service for the United States government.

In the United States, there is the Department of Treasury that acts under the direction of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue. They are responsible for many different financial things that go on in America.

This agency was formed on July 9, 1953 and changed its name from the Bureau of Internal Revenue. Its headquarters are located in Washington, D.C. and has just over one hundred thousand employees.

The agency executive is the commissioner of Internal Revenue whose name is Douglas H. Shulman. Even though it is located in Washington, most the computer programming that they have to do goes on in Maryland and a couple of other centers in various locations in the country.

At these other centers, the actual tax processing takes place. This is where tax returns by mail are sent every year.

One of their duties is to interpret the Internal Revenue Code and to enforce it. The code is the tax law for the country.

It includes laws for income, payroll, gift, estate, and statutory excise taxes. This code was passed in 1874, but has since undergone several changes and amendments.

As time goes on and Americans become more advanced in technology and come up with new ideas, the code needs to “updated” in order to reflect the changes going in the country. It has been changed in 1878, 1919, 1926, 1939, 1954, and most recently in 1986.

The government is always changing how things are done and people continue to advance so this means that this code has not undergone its last Viagra Professional amendment. That is why it is important to hire an attorney who knows these laws inside and out if you get into big trouble.

The other big duty the IRS has is to collect taxes from everyone in the nation. This takes a lot of employees to process all the mailed in returns, so the last few years they have made filing online available.

This saves money to mail it in and takes a lot less time to process. There are several businesses out there that charge a small fee to file your state and federal taxes.

During the FY (Fiscal Year) of 2006, the IRS collected more than $2.2 trillion of refunds with about forty-four percent of it in individual income tax. The top five percent of these people paid about sixty percent of this total amount.

Since the year 2007, the agency owes about three hundred and fifty-four billion dollars more than it collects. These bills started collecting because the IRS outsourced the collection of taxes to private debt collection agencies.

Some of these companies were being paid between twenty-nine and thirty-nine percent of the amount collected. This was worrisome to opponents because they said it was encouraging the collectors use different pressure tactics so they could collect the maximum amount.

After a couple of years of doing this, they changed it so that they no longer outsourced to private collection agencies. People were no longer worried about all of the personal information that was being handed over to the private companies.

The IRS has published many different tax forms so that individuals can choose which form best fits their needs. People like to complain that the government likes to use (or waste) as much paper as they can.

Over the many years that the IRS has been functioning, there have been reports of abusive behavior which is kind of inevitable. The Taxpayer Bill of Rights came into effect on July 22, 1998 which shifts the burden of proof from the individual to the IRS in some situations.

The IRS has the authority to enforce liens and seize certain assets without going to court. The United States government tries to do the best they know how to keep everyone honest who works Levitra Professional for the agency and has many different actions that they take to try to ensure the agency’s integrity.

Author Bio: Jack R. Landry has worked since 1988 as a tax attorney. He has written hundreds of articles about finding a Tax debt relief.

Contact Info:
Jack R. Landry
JackRLandry@gmail.com
http://www.TaxCrisisInstitute.com

Category: Finance/Taxes
Keywords: Tax debt relief

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