Political Quotes

“the Taxpayer Due Process Enhancement Act will strengthen taxpayers' rights when the IRS uses a levy to collect unpaid taxes by making technical fixes to the Tax Court's jurisdiction. In the IRS Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998, language was added to give taxpayers due process and an opportunity for review of IRS collection cases involving levies. However, a recent U.S. Supreme Court case has highlighted the need to revisit this section. In this recent case, a taxpayer paid estimated taxes that were applied to her ex-husband's account instead of her own account. The IRS then proceeded to levy her property for the unpaid taxes. She challenged this action in court, but while the case was pending, the IRS offset her later-year refund against the unpaid taxes until it eventually reached zero. At that point, the IRS sought to dismiss the case and won. The case was then appealed to the United States Supreme Court. The Court held that the current statute limits the Tax Court's jurisdiction to only reviewing whether a levy should proceed. Since there was no longer a levy, she lost her ability to argue about the underlying taxes. Worse, she also lost her later-year refunds because of the statute of limitations being expired. At every step of the process, Mr. Speaker, the system failed this taxpayer. Our bill will fix this problem. First, while disputing a levied case in the Tax Court, our bill tolls the statute of limitations for filing refund claims.”