My last blog on passport issues discussed the IRS’s continued refusal to exclude already open TAS cases from passport certification and my efforts to advocate for these taxpayers in the form of almost 800 Taxpayer Assistance Orders (TAOs) and a Taxpayer Advocate Directive that I plan to further elevate to the Commissioner. Today, I want to provide an update on TAS cases and discuss some examples that show how the IRS’s refusal to provide a stand-alone notice prior to certification harms taxpayers.
Internal Revenue Code (IRC) § 7345 authorizes the IRS to certify a taxpayer’s seriously delinquent tax debt to the Department of State for the purposes of passport denial, limitation, or revocation. A seriously delinquent tax debt is an assessed, individual tax liability exceeding $51,000 (adjusted for inflation) for which either a notice of federal tax lien has been filed or a levy has been made. The law requires only two forms of notice to taxpayers: language in Collection Due Process (CDP) hearing notices and a notice sent “contemporaneously” with the certification the IRS sends to the Department of State.
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