Tag: Doug Shulman

After Coasting Through Tax Season, Some IRS Revenue Officers May Have to Start Doing Actual Work

While we’re typically not ones to speculate on the difficulty of any particular job (e.g. CEO of a Big 4 firm) the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (“TIGTA”) probably has the easiest job on Earth.

As far as we can tell, the TIGTA is responsible for criticizing the IRS on, well, pretty much everything that the Service does wrong and then the IRS agrees that they suck and promises to do better.


And if you’re going by the TIGTA website we’re more or less correct:

“TIGTA promotes the economy, efficiency, and effectiveness in the administration of the internal revenue laws. It is also committed to the prevention and detection of fraud, waste, and abuse within the IRS and related entities.”

We’re assuming that Doug Shulman probably agree with our assessment but that guy doesn’t even like pizza, so who cares what he thinks?

Anyhoo, the latest Monday Morning QBing from the TIGTA is that some of the Service’s senior revenue officers are basically sitting around with nothing to do. Web CPA reports:

Senior revenue officers at the Internal Revenue Service who are supposed to handle more complicated tax cases oftentimes don’t receive any work assignments, according to a new government report…

The relative lack of work for the senior revenue officers to do occurred because there is no systemic means for IRS managers to identify the most complex cases, and the criteria for identifying complex cases are subjective and inconsistently interpreted.

So you’re a senior revenue officer with 5-6 years (?) on the job. You’ve got this gig pretty much figured out. Not only do you know the ropes, you make the fucking ropes. Your manager has suits from DC so far up their ass about collecting every dime available that they can’t see straight, so they just want you busy do anything.

You, being a reasonably lazy (and realistic) person, aren’t going to kill yourself. If you’ve got the choice of picking up a 1040 that’s hundreds of pages long versus a 1040EZ that has fewer pages that a Tony Alamo pamphlet, you’re going to pick up the 1040EZ.

Well now J. Russell George is slapping those managers around with a report deeming this unacceptable which may mean that your slacking days are over:

“I am troubled that IRS managers are not providing employees with work assignments that they are ready and able to do at a time when it is incumbent on the IRS to be as efficient and effective as possible,” said TIGTA Inspector General J. Russell George in a statement.

JRG is recommending that the IRS improve it’s methods of identifying more complex cases (that the IRS naturally agreed with). We think a tax return thickness analysis is a decent place to start.

IRS Revenue Officers Don’t Have Enough to Do [Web CPA]

IRS Commish: We’ll Send You a Letter if You’re Uninsured, Not Heavily Armed Agents

This is disappointing on a multitude of levels. On the one hand, the notion of thousands of IRS agents running around the country, kicking doors is kind of exciting.

On the other, if crazed tax-haters can’t threaten the lives of IRS Agents who can they threaten? The census only occurs once every ten years and threatening to gun down OSHA employees just doesn’t seem to be as effective.


Doug Shulman spoke at the National Press Club yesterday and assured everyone (despite what Dave Camp or Ron Paul says) that agents will not be storming your house packing heat if you don’t purchase insurance. The IRS will be counting on insurance companies to help them run identify those who are skipping on the required coverage.

He said insurers eventually will be required to file a document similar to Form 1099 used by financial institutions to report investment income. The agency will send letters to the uninsured notifying them fines could be deducted from their tax refunds for refusing to comply with the new law, Shulman said.

“These are not the kinds of things we send agents out about,” Shulman said. “These are things where you get a letter from us.”

We imagine the letter won’t be particularly friendly but it’s a far cry from jack-booted thugs pointing firearms at your head.

Shulman Says IRS Has Few ‘Punitive’ Ways to Enforce Health Law [Bloomberg BusinessWeek]

More Tax Clients for Ludacris (or His CPA)

As you’re no doubt aware, the IRS has taken exception with the notion that many of our favorite celebrities and athletes can do no wrong. As detestable as this thought might be, Doug Shulman and his merry band of tax collectors are not impressed with these pillars of the community turning a blind eye to their patriotic obligations.


Some of the latest examples of celebrity tax avoidance:

• Corey Feldman – Technically it’s Corey Feldman Inc. that owes the IRS $31k but same diff.

• Faith Evans – Widow of Notorious B.I.G. Grammy winner. Soon-to-be reality TV star. The combination of these things somehow doesn’t allow her to scrape together $360k.

• Mel Blount – Okay, we have to admit that we don’t know who the hell this guy is but the sports historians and the entire city of Pittsburgh are probably familiar. For everyone else – he’s a former Steelers’ cornerback that was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1989. He owes taxes for every year from 1994 to 2006 (with the exception of ’07) for grand total of $652k. Seriously, this is f—ing ridiculous. Even Nicolas Cage manages to file a tax return once a decade. There’s not one CPA in all of the ‘Burgh that can help this guy?

As the title indicates, our advice to these people is to get in touch with Luda “I pay more in taxes than most people would ever imagine” cris ASAP. Whether he’s mastered TurboTax or managed to find a solid CPA, it doesn’t matter because, as you might recall, “you will never hear about Ludacris owing the damn IRS no damn money.”

Source: Tax Watchdog

Doug Shulman Takes It as a Compliment That the IRS Is the ‘Go-to’ Government Agency

If you’re a member of the AICPA the biggest benefit you enjoy is not the prestige, not the certificate that you have mounted on your wall but the Journal of Accountancy that shows up in your mail every month. It’s really solid that your firm shells out good money on an annual basis so you can add new Excel tips to your spreadsheet wizard repertoire.

JofA manages to talk to a number of high profile as well, which you would expect from a behemoth professional journal. Case in point, when we received the latest month’s issue we couldn’t help but get a little giddy seeing Doug “Help me, help you” Shulman. We flipped to the Q&A immediately after seeing his handsome mug on the cover only to find the Commish’s picture at right. It makes us think that he’s channeling Monty Burns, which some of you probably find appropriate.


The Q&A is pretty much what you would expect, touching on the new preparer regulations, “We ran a very open, transparent, public dialogue about this,” to threatening offshore tax scofflaws, “The U.S. government is getting very serious about rooting out offshore tax evasion,” and warning whistleblowers not to expect that money any time soon, “[T]his could take multiple years to get the awards out. But I’m a big fan of the program.”

A couple of more interesting statements, include how excited Dougie is that all the assignments that other government agencies don’t want, get dumped on the service, “it’s…a big compliment that we’re seen as a ‘go-to’ agency in government.”

That being said, this particular interview was certainly conducted prior to the passage of the healthcare reform bill and no mention of the IRS’ role in enforcement (or lack thereof) was brought up. Maybe if the JofA had seen the Bill O’Reilly/Anthony Weiner throwndown it would have been a stop the presses moment.

The only other thing worth noting is that pizza parlors around the country might want to tighten up the ship in the coming months, “We will build features into our technology system so if we see, say, a pizza parlor that says they had $90,000 of sales last year and it shows that they had $85,000 of credit card sales and we know that pizzerias have a lot of cash sales, that will be a red flag. We’ll use it to better target our audits, to see where there’s potential noncompliance, and then we’ll use it to better focus our resources.”

Maybe the Commish is just giving an example of what a red flag is but using this particular example rather than say, a celebrity, seem peculiar. Just leave Di Fara alone, okay?

Tax From the Top: Q&A With IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman [Journal of Accountancy]

Accounting News Roundup: Marion Barry’s Latest Trouble; IRS Phishers Go After the Gullible; Doug Shulman Is Sick of Being Asked if He Prepares His Own Taxes | 03.26.10

• IRS officials file lien against Marion Barry [WaPo]
If you’re not familiar with Marion Barry, let’s just say that the guy has been in fair amount of trouble over the years. Check that, dude has been in a lot of trouble. Yet, somehow this man still somehow manages to get elected to public office in Washington, DC. The latest trouble involves a tax lien that has not been paid for taxes owed from 2005 to 2008, according to the Washington Post. It’s only $15,000 but considering what he could potentially spend it on (e.g. crack, girlfriend) the IRS kinda wants it.

It’s not like the Service hasn’t been trying to get the back taxes owed. They’ve been garnishing his wages $1,350 every two weeks and his attorney is quoted as saying that this “isn’t a new thing.” We agree. We’re been used to the idea of Marion Barry being an elected criminal for quite some time now.


• IRS Phishing Scams on the Rise [Tax Girl]
A random email from the IRS requesting things like your SSN#, your shoe size, bank account number and should be taken as seriously as an IKEA give away on Facebook. If the Service wants to get your attention, they do it by snail mail people. Lesson over.

• Tax writers can’t figure out the tax code, either [The Daily Caller]
When the IRS Commish was asked again about using a tax preparer, the Daily Caller quotes his curt response as, “I don’t have time for this … If you want an interview, you can call my office,” and sped away. He’s crackin’. Maybe he should just try doing his own taxes. Joe Biden used to!

The IRS Isn’t Resting on the Sabbath

If you refuse to use the White House’s tax savings tool purely out of spite then you’ll be happy to know that 180 IRS locations across this great land will be open this Saturday to help you out with things like the Homebuyer tax credit, the American Opportunity Credit, the Making Work Pay credit, and the Expanded Earned Income Credit.

Now we realize that the mere thought of setting foot inside an IRS location will cause many you to break out in boils, the other option is to go to a VITA location and get assistance from one of the many college students out there that are giving amateur advice so that they have one more activity on their resumé. They’re available throughout tax season. They are volunteers, after all.


The Service is trying to make this sound way more fun than it actually is by calling them “open houses”:

“We are holding these special open houses to give taxpayers who are struggling in these difficult economic times more opportunity to work directly with IRS employees to resolve their tax issues,” said IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman. “We will host more than 180 open houses this Saturday.”

Whether Dougie will be on hand at one of the many locations to shed out his wisdom (or maybe get some advice) hasn’t been made clear.

More than 180 Local IRS Offices Open this Saturday to Help Taxpayers [IRS.gov]

Let’s Try Out the White House’s Tax Savings Tool

After yesterday’s words of wisdom from Joe Biden on your taxes, we stumbled across the “tax savings tool” that’s so easy a caveman Joe Biden can do it.

We actually do believe the VPOTUS when he says it’s easy because he made the announcement yesterday with two men who aren’t exactly known to be tax mavens: IRS Commish Doug “I find the tax code complex” Shulman and Tim “I think I’ll try using TaxCut this year” Geithner.

Try your hand this thing and make up your own mind, after the jump.

Our feeling that it’s like tax planning a step or two above what Fisher-Price might put out. Which, for the majority of the American People, might still be tricky.

White House Unveils Online Tax Savings Tool [Web CPA]

Accounting News Roundup: SEC Delay on IFRS Irks Some; Client Opinions of Big 4 Audits Not So Hot in UK; IRS Asks for $21M to Answer More Phones | 02.25.10

• U.S. delay on global accounting leaves world waiting [Reuters]
The head of financial reporting at the ICAEW is not impressed with the SEC’s plan to string everyone along on IFRS. Although we’re sure Dr. Nigel Sleigh-Johnson is bright guy, we’re not sure what the good doctor was expecting from, you know, the SEC.

Dr. Johnson complains that ‘the world [has] been awaiting clear signals from the Securities and Exchange Commission as to how and when it is going to start the process of completing the convergence to International Financial Reporting Standards,’ which is probably true. Think about it. If 110 countries have jumped on the IFRS ship, they sure as hell would want the US of A on that ship too because that way, if this turns out to be the worst idea in the history of double-entry accounting, then at least the U.S. went along with it too.


• Big Four audits are off the pace [Accountancy Age]
As a group, the Big 4 didn’t fare to well in the inaugural “Accountancy Age Finance 360 survey of client opinions” which asked participants to give their “views on the service they received from their last audit provider”.

Out of twelve firms, PricewaterhouseCoopers ranked the highest at #5, KPMG #9, Deloitte #10, and Ernst & Young brought up the rear at #12. The Age reports that “[E&Y] Staff were described as ‘pretty dire’, short on technical knowledge, confidence and even decent written English. Negative comments outnumbered the positive two to one.” Comments on KPMG and Deloitte were a little better:

While KPMG won plaudits for technical skills, it was let down by perception of its added value, with one FD claiming “very little feedback on potential improvements” their money.

Deloitte also struggled to prove it added value, while clients felt the firm’s audits were “mechanical” and an exercise in “box-ticking”.

One FD felt Deloitte was “more concerned with gathering enough evidence to stand up in court with a defence if there were ever a negligence case”.

All the firms not happy with their ranking essentially said that they were “committed to the highest standards of work” or something like that. You know the drill.

The tops firms in the survey were all included two Global 6 candidates: Mazars at #1 and Grant Thornton at #3 with Horwath Clark Whitehill taking the silver.

• IRS Commissioner Requests Additional $21m So IRS Will Not Answer Taxpayer Phone Calls 25% of the Time [TaxProf Blog]
Doug Shulman asked the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government for $21 million to improve the customer service. Apparently this would result in a 4% jump in calls answered. That sounds like magical government math if we have ever heard it.

Latest IRS Snafu: Inmates Collect $100k in Refunds

This is getting ridiculous, you guys. As if suicidal pilots and bulldozing protestors weren’t enough of an annoyance, now the Service has been victimized by inmates in a South Florida jail.

According to the AP, about 50 inmates are allegedly responsible for requesting $1 million in fraudulent refunds from the IRS and collecting around $100,000 for their diligent efforts. The report states that the inmates used “a standard IRS form” (we’re guessing Form 843?) most for $5,000 and that some checks were sent directly to the jail. Oh and the best part is that the scheme was foiled by “a how-to note…found in an inmate’s cell,” rather than a crack squad of investigators.


To say that the IRS needed some good press would be a gross understatement, but for crissakes, they need some good press. Sure getting Nicolas Cage to bone up $14 mil is okay and everyone is stoked for Ron Howard to make the Service hilarious but they could use a big break right now. We called the Florida branch to get their ideas but the spokesman told us that the Herald pretty much had it right and that’s all that he was saying.

At this point, nothing short of Doug Shulman capturing Osama Bin Laden (with an IRS-issued Remington no less) while singing God Bless America and apologizing for all the unanswered customer service phone calls will get the American public to looking fondly upon the IRS. If you’ve got better ideas, let us know but that would be our suggestion for an improved image campaign.

Inmates at S. Fla. jail accused of scamming IRS [AP via Miami Herald]

The IRS Goes Gun Shopping

‘Cause they’re in the market. For those of you that still doubt how serious of a force the Internal Revenue Service is, you’d better start paying attention because the the Service is in the market for guns. You would think, that with a certain hawkish administration recently in charge, every government agency would have arms dealers Smith & Wesson on speed dial but maybe change really did occur in DC.

Never mind that for now. The IRS is taking bids right now and they know what they want:

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) intends to purchase sixty Remington Model 870 Police RAMAC #24587 12 gauge pump-action shotguns for the Criminal Investigation Division. The Remington parkerized shotguns, with fourteen inch barrel, modified choke, Wilson Combat Ghost Ring rear sight and XS4 Contour Bead front sight, Knoxx Reduced Recoil Adjustable Stock, and Speedfeed ribbed black forend, are designated as the only shotguns authorized for IRS duty based on compatibility with IRS existing shotgun inventory, certified armorer and combat training and protocol, maintenance, and parts.

The only conclusion we can come to is that somebody (Joe Francis?, Nic Cage?) is about to get their doors kicked down with extreme fucking prejudice. OR the initial visits of the thousands the IRS is making haven’t gone so well and arming their agents to the teeth should help them get their point across. OR maybe Doug Shulman just loves the cold steel of a 12 gauge against his naked skin. Whatever is going on, it’s no joke.