IRS Taxpayer Bill of Rights

1 min readBy: Amber Athey

In June 2014, the Internal Revenue Service released a “Taxpayer Bill of Rights” at the recommendation of the Taxpayer Advocate Service. The publication attempts to clearly outline the fundamental rights a taxpayer has when filing their returns and dealing with the IRS in general.

In an attempt to further distribute this information, the IRS created a YouTube video on the topic, which was posted on September 3rd.

The video itself features IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, who briefly runs through the ten rights featured in the Taxpayer Bill of Rights:

  1. The Right to Be Informed
  2. The Right to Quality Service
  3. The Right to Pay No More than the Correct Amount of TaxA tax is a mandatory payment or charge collected by local, state, and national governments from individuals or businesses to cover the costs of general government services, goods, and activities.
  4. The Right to Challenge the IRS’s position and Be Heard
  5. The Right to Appeal an IRS Decision in an Independent Forum
  6. The Right to Finality
  7. The Right to Privacy
  8. The Right to Confidentiality
  9. The Right to Retain Representation
  10. The Right to a Fair and Just Tax System

Informing taxpayers of their rights is a movement in the right direction in regards to making the tax system more transparent and just.

In future analysis, I will look at the effectiveness of these policies and how the IRS enforces them.

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