IRS Announces Six Large Business And International Compliance Campaigns

The IRS Large Business and International division (LB&I) has announced the approval of six additional compliance campaigns. LB&I announced on January 31, 2017, the rollout of its first 13 campaigns, followed by an additional 11 on November 3, 2017, and five more on March 13 of this year.

LB&I is reviewing legislation enacted on December 22, 2017, to determine which existing campaigns, if any, could be impacted as a result of a change in the controlling statutory framework. Information regarding any identified impact will be communicated after that analysis has been completed.

LB&I continues to move toward issue-based examinations and a compliance campaign process in which the organization decides which compliance issues that present risk require a response in the form of one or multiple treatment streams to achieve compliance objectives. This approach makes use of IRS knowledge and deploys the right resources to address those issues.

The campaigns are the culmination of an extensive effort to redefine large business compliance work and build a supportive infrastructure inside LB&I. Campaign development requires strategic planning and deployment of resources, training and tools, metrics and feedback. LB&I is investing the time and resources necessary to build well-run and well-planned compliance campaigns.

These six additional campaigns were identified through LB&I data analysis and suggestions from IRS employees. LB&I’s goal is to improve return selection, identify issues representing a risk of non-compliance, and make the greatest use of limited resources.

The six campaigns selected for this rollout are:

Interest Capitalization for Self-Constructed Assets

  • Practice Area: Enterprise Activities Practice Area
  • Lead Executive: Scott Ballint, Director, Corporate Issues and Credits, Enterprise Activities Practice Area

When a taxpayer engages in certain production activities they are required to capitalize interest expense under Internal Revenue Code (IRC) Section 263A. Interest capitalization applies to interest a taxpayer pays or incurs during the production period when producing property that meets the definition of designated property. Designated property under IRC Section 263A(f) is defined as (a) any real property, or (b) tangible personal property that has: (i) a long useful life (depreciable class life of 20 years or more), or (ii) an estimated production period exceeding two years, or (iii) an estimated production period exceeding one year and an estimated cost exceeding $1,000,000.

The goal of this campaign is to ensure taxpayer compliance by verifying that interest is properly capitalized for designated property and the computation to capitalize that interest is accurate. The treatment stream for this campaign is issue-based examinations, education soft letters, and educating taxpayers and practitioners to encourage voluntary compliance

F3520/3520-A Non-Compliance and Campus Assessed Penalties

  • Practice Area: Withholding & International Individual Compliance
  • Lead Executive: John Cardone, Director, WIIC

This campaign will take a multifaceted approach to improving compliance with respect to the timely and accurate filing of information returns reporting ownership of and transactions with foreign trusts. The Service will address noncompliance through a variety of treatment streams including, but not limited to, examinations and penalties assessed by the campus when the forms are received late or are incomplete.

Forms 1042/1042-S Compliance

  • Practice Area: Withholding & International Individual Compliance
  • Lead Executive: John Cardone

Taxpayers who make payments of certain U.S.-source income to foreign persons must comply with the related withholding, deposit, and reporting requirements. This campaign addresses Withholding Agents who make such payments but do not meet all their compliance duties. The Internal Revenue Service will address noncompliance and errors through a variety of treatment streams, including examination.

Nonresident Alien Tax Treaty Exemptions

  • Practice Area: Withholding & International Individual Compliance
  • Lead Executive: John Cardone

This campaign is intended to increase compliance in nonresident alien (NRA) individual tax treaty exemption claims related to both effectively connected income and Fixed, Determinable, Annual Periodical income. Some NRA taxpayers may either misunderstand or misinterpret applicable treaty articles, provide incorrect or incomplete forms to the withholding agents or rely on incorrect information returns provided by U.S. payors to improperly claim treaty benefits and exempt U.S. source income from taxation. This campaign will address noncompliance through a variety of treatment streams including outreach/education and traditional examinations.

Nonresident Alien Schedule A and Other Deductions

  • Practice Area: Withholding & International Individual Compliance
  • Lead Executive: John Cardone

This campaign is intended to increase compliance in the proper deduction of eligible expenses by nonresident alien (NRA) individuals on Form 1040NR Schedule A. NRA taxpayers may either misunderstand or misinterpret the rules for allowable deductions under the previous and new Internal Revenue Code provisions, do not meet all the qualifications for claiming the deduction and/or do not maintain proper records to substantiate the expenses claimed. The campaign will address noncompliance through a variety of treatment streams including outreach/education and traditional examinations.

NRA Tax Credits

  • Practice Area: Withholding & International Individual Compliance
  • Lead Executive: John Cardone

This campaign is intended to increase compliance in nonresident alien individual (NRA) tax credits. NRAs who either have no qualifying earned income, do not provide substantiation/proper documentation, or do not have qualifying dependents may erroneously claim certain dependent related tax credits.

In addition, some NRA taxpayers may also claim education credits (which are only available to U.S. persons) by improperly filing Form 1040 tax returns. This campaign will address noncompliance through a variety of treatment streams including outreach/education and traditional examinations.

 

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