The IRS should help taxpayers understand the law

A national taxpayer advocate recently testified before the Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee on proposals to reform IRS operations in the House Republican tax reform blueprint. One suggestion: to focus not only on the percentage of calls that the IRS answers but also on “the range of services we want the tax administrator to provide.” The advocate said the IRS “today answers only ‘basic’ tax-law questions during the filing season and doesn’t answer tax-law questions during the other 8½ months of the year.”