Internal Revenue Service
As a bureau of the Department of the Treasury and as one of the world's most efficient tax administrators, the IRS role is to help the large majority of compliant taxpayers with the tax law, while ensuring that the minority who are unwilling to comply pay their fair share. (Source: www.irs.gov)
This forum will allow you to share and ask job-related questions about this bureau. This is NOT the place to ask tax questions.
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Originally Posted by: LieutenantBlantyre  Originally Posted by: Massgone2015 Originally Posted by: LieutenantBlantyre And the Acting OMB Director shot their mouth off saying that refunds will flow even though Chief Counsel said hours earlier that they don't know. I can't recall OMB being in the chain of command for us. Unless we are forgoing ERS, TPP, & RIO I am not quite sure how that OMB person thinks this will happen. Time to go work on another client pitch and ask at church if I can put myself on levee. According to the NY Times. "The Trump administration will direct the Internal Revenue Service to issue tax refunds during the ongoing federal government shutdown, reversing previous policy, officials said Monday. “Tax refunds will go out,” Russell T. Vought, acting director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, told reporters in an afternoon briefing." So no Revenue Protection Strategy then, apparently. This will lead to no good. Does this count under "illegal orders"? No need to worry about that as I am constantly told that "Exam will take care of it" or "AUR will take care of it".
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Our unemployment office had many federal workers in line today.
I will have to take a stop gap job to pay for the gas to get to a job that won't be handing out the paycheck with no guarantee back pay will be paid.
Earliest my unemployment may be approved is 2-3 weeks.
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If you have not done so already, be sure to take a minute and call or email your senators and representatives in congress. Hopefully they will stop acting like petulant children and do their jobs if they hear from enough of us. You can find out who your congress critters are at this website. https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members
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Originally Posted by: nonewsnotgood Originally Posted by: spence I think if AM CSRs are called back to work without pay before the shutdown is resolved, you'd be allowed to finish any training on the new tax law because preparing for the new tax law is one of the things that's actually funded and the NTEU email about the IRS's proposed new shutdown plan also had mentioned completing training for the new tax law. Wouldn't the 'training' have been the 4 days some of us spent in Skype training for the CFSRT? I think we all had that. The tax law training was for 2017 and prior. A waste of time for me since I had done that my first 3 years. Maybe the new tax law training will cover exemptions and anything else that has changed for this year and go over the new returns and schedules. That would be the only training I would think would be conducted during shutdown as last year they had to stop the training that was being done. The only tax law training I've had is the original 3 ITLA pages of filing due date, amend a return and file electronically. We were supposed to start 231 training today.
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Originally Posted by: Massgone2015 Originally Posted by: LieutenantBlantyre And the Acting OMB Director shot their mouth off saying that refunds will flow even though Chief Counsel said hours earlier that they don't know. I can't recall OMB being in the chain of command for us. Unless we are forgoing ERS, TPP, & RIO I am not quite sure how that OMB person thinks this will happen. Time to go work on another client pitch and ask at church if I can put myself on levee. According to the NY Times. "The Trump administration will direct the Internal Revenue Service to issue tax refunds during the ongoing federal government shutdown, reversing previous policy, officials said Monday. “Tax refunds will go out,” Russell T. Vought, acting director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, told reporters in an afternoon briefing." The white house can direct all they want. If it is illegal to issue refunds in a shutdown then the IRS will not comply.
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Originally Posted by: Jimmy81 Originally Posted by: Massgone2015 Originally Posted by: LieutenantBlantyre And the Acting OMB Director shot their mouth off saying that refunds will flow even though Chief Counsel said hours earlier that they don't know. I can't recall OMB being in the chain of command for us. Unless we are forgoing ERS, TPP, & RIO I am not quite sure how that OMB person thinks this will happen. Time to go work on another client pitch and ask at church if I can put myself on levee. According to the NY Times. "The Trump administration will direct the Internal Revenue Service to issue tax refunds during the ongoing federal government shutdown, reversing previous policy, officials said Monday. “Tax refunds will go out,” Russell T. Vought, acting director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, told reporters in an afternoon briefing." The white house can direct all they want. If it is illegal to issue refunds in a shutdown then the IRS will not comply. There may be some cart before the horse here. The official start date for filing hasn't even been announced.
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Originally Posted by: Massgone2015 Originally Posted by: LieutenantBlantyre Originally Posted by: Massgone2015 Originally Posted by: LieutenantBlantyre And the Acting OMB Director shot their mouth off saying that refunds will flow even though Chief Counsel said hours earlier that they don't know. I can't recall OMB being in the chain of command for us. Unless we are forgoing ERS, TPP, & RIO I am not quite sure how that OMB person thinks this will happen. Time to go work on another client pitch and ask at church if I can put myself on levee. According to the NY Times. "The Trump administration will direct the Internal Revenue Service to issue tax refunds during the ongoing federal government shutdown, reversing previous policy, officials said Monday. “Tax refunds will go out,” Russell T. Vought, acting director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, told reporters in an afternoon briefing." So no Revenue Protection Strategy then, apparently. This will lead to no good. Does this count under "illegal orders"? No need to worry about that as I am constantly told that "Exam will take care of it" or "AUR will take care of it". Right...and pigs can fly unaided by jetpacks too? Originally Posted by: kitkatma Originally Posted by: Jimmy81 Originally Posted by: Massgone2015 Originally Posted by: LieutenantBlantyre And the Acting OMB Director shot their mouth off saying that refunds will flow even though Chief Counsel said hours earlier that they don't know. I can't recall OMB being in the chain of command for us. Unless we are forgoing ERS, TPP, & RIO I am not quite sure how that OMB person thinks this will happen. Time to go work on another client pitch and ask at church if I can put myself on levee. According to the NY Times. "The Trump administration will direct the Internal Revenue Service to issue tax refunds during the ongoing federal government shutdown, reversing previous policy, officials said Monday. “Tax refunds will go out,” Russell T. Vought, acting director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, told reporters in an afternoon briefing." The white house can direct all they want. If it is illegal to issue refunds in a shutdown then the IRS will not comply. There may be some cart before the horse here. The official start date for filing hasn't even been announced. That announcement is gonna be funny when it actually comes out. EROs like TaxAct are stacking returns until we say go.
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Apparently, there could be negative consequences if IRS issues refunds during a shutdown. From the Washington Post article: "Treasury has looked at this time and again and decided these payments aren’t going to be made,” Berger said. “Suddenly there is a potlitical concern. There’s no legal justification. It’s a political decision.” Berger said the decision could be found to violate the Anti-Deficiency Act, which could carry fines or even criminal penalties. Edited by user Monday, January 7, 2019 3:36:14 PM(UTC)
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Originally Posted by: Hired 2015 Our unemployment office had many federal workers in line today.
I will have to take a stop gap job to pay for the gas to get to a job that won't be handing out the paycheck with no guarantee back pay will be paid.
Earliest my unemployment may be approved is 2-3 weeks. As long as you were on board as a seasonal the day we were furloughed you will get paid. After all the publicity about what is going on with us not getting paid, do you really think they will not eventually pay us? And yeah, maybe you should get a job to pay for that gas before your unemployment kicks in. Just don't earn enough to wash out your unemployment benefits. I know your state has a low payout amount for unemployment. You might just be better off taking a job You are always saying the perms in your office have misled the seasonal's. Why would you listen to the crap they dished out to you now about the possibility of seasonal's not getting paid?
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C&L just posted that season opens 1/28 and that we will be issuing refunds.
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There were federal employees from other agencies in the unemployment office today. I'm not going solely by what our call site perms were saying.
How does it look when you say your confident that we will be paid back pay and sketchy about refunds?
There were also many workers from federal contractors in line that likely won't be getting back pay.
I'm not rich and need my paycheck. My savings went to replace a car because we don't have telework and to bury my father.
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The official Facebook page posted an update about 15 minutes ago confirming that filing season starts 1/28 and that refunds will be issued. So now I'm waiting on an update email from NTEU and dreading getting a phone call sometime this week. I'm fully prepared to show up and sit at my desk doing nothing until I'm paid.
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I am really curious to see if they are able to start any new hires to process paper returns or if they have to do this with only existing staffing, which would flop badly unless they say that only e-file refunds would go out.
Revenue protection can be considered protecting government property, so I think electronic filters would still apply. A return won't go through if it has errors and drops into ERS without someone fixing it so that also is not a concern. ERS needs to do its thing for a 150 even to post.
So I think most refunds go out but those caught with filters or flagged delayed even longer than usual. Problem is going to be refunds being delayed from the holds if Exam and IVO staff don't come back to review the returns and taxpayer responses. They are not just going to start giving out refunds without filters. They may raise thresholds for selection if they don't anticipate staff returning.
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Originally Posted by: Michelle10 Apparently, there could be negative consequences if IRS issues refunds during a shutdown. From the Washington Post article:
"Treasury has looked at this time and again and decided these payments aren’t going to be made,” Berger said. “Suddenly there is a potlitical concern. There’s no legal justification. It’s a political decision.”
Berger said the decision could be found to violate the Anti-Deficiency Act, which could carry fines or even criminal penalties. If we open on 1/28 (Day 28), 21 days would put us at 2/18 (day 49). If we don't have appropriations by then we'll have hit a new record. There probably would've been a march on DC by that point by disgruntled civil servants, too. Since none of us have our handy cycle calendars, this item from NOAA will do in a pinch: https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/grad/neubrew/Calendar.jspI am really not happy about the union trying to get pay through the backdoor via lawsuit in the US Court of Federal Claims by filing a class action to create a financial claim on the Judgment Fund which has a permanent appropriation. It may be barely legal but certainly unseemly. Making appropriations via lawsuits just creates a conflict for me understanding matters. That's not how our country is supposed to operate.
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Originally Posted by: spence I am really curious to see if they are able to start any new hires to process paper returns or if they have to do this with only existing staffing, which would flop badly unless they say that only e-file refunds would go out.
Revenue protection can be considered protecting government property, so I think electronic filters would still apply. A return won't go through if it has errors and drops into ERS without someone fixing it so that also is not a concern. ERS needs to do its thing for a 150 even to post.
So I think most refunds go out but those caught with filters or flagged delayed even longer than usual. Problem is going to be refunds being delayed from the holds if Exam and IVO staff don't come back to review the returns and taxpayer responses. They are not just going to start giving out refunds without filters. They may raise thresholds for selection if they don't anticipate staff returning. If there isn't any appropriation, we can't complete training new hires. I'll be extremely curious what we'll do with our phone-only new hires at my remote. They're not certified to hit the floor in any application at all. I'm not expecting a phone call until after the President's speech tomorrow night plus the floor show in the House over a funding bill for us.
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I'm confused. The Treasury is not funded right? Where is this refund money coming from? How do you get a refund but I can't get paid? I can't be the only one confused.
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Now that refunds appear to be going out timely, there is much less pressure for congress and Mr Trump to do a deal. Of course any ERS or TPP returns would be held. So it seems this furlough could be longer than anyone wanted. I am tapping my TSP to carry me over until sanity returns to DC. (that could be quite a while). Meanwhile, in NY state at least, if you are on unemployment and are called back to work - even without pay - you are no longer eligible. And lastly, nothing to do with this, what are the odds me and Longstrangetrip would log on at exactly the same time? Edited by user Monday, January 7, 2019 7:13:43 PM(UTC)
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Originally Posted by: Longstrangetrip I'm confused. The Treasury is not funded right? Where is this refund money coming from? How do you get a refund but I can't get paid? I can't be the only one confused. Trump said Mexico will pay for it.
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Originally Posted by: Longstrangetrip I'm confused. The Treasury is not funded right? Where is this refund money coming from? How do you get a refund but I can't get paid? I can't be the only one confused. There is a separate, permanent appropriation line that refunds come out of. We still don’t have operating appropriations to pay ourselves. We therefore get the ludicrous situation that some lawyer concocted some bizarre legal strategy to make it okay for us to give refunds but not use the User Fees dollars brought in to at least partially pay the staff. Remember all those installment agreement user fees? We’ve been using them to pay for the ACA program office instead of paying for ACS & AM in part. Originally Posted by: long strange trip Now that refunds appear to be going out timely, there is much less pressure for congress and Mr Trump to do a deal. Of course any ERS or TPP returns would be held. So it seems this furlough could be longer than anyone wanted. I am tapping my TSP to carry me over until sanity returns to DC. (that could be quite a while). Meanwhile, in NY state at least, if you are on unemployment and are called back to work - even without pay - you are no longer eligible. And lastly, nothing to do with this, what are the odds me and Longstrangetrip would log on at exactly the same time? Again, things are getting ludicrous. The pressure must not be relieved. We need finality in this mess.
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Originally Posted by: LieutenantBlantyre Originally Posted by: Michelle10 Apparently, there could be negative consequences if IRS issues refunds during a shutdown. From the Washington Post article:
"Treasury has looked at this time and again and decided these payments aren’t going to be made,” Berger said. “Suddenly there is a potlitical concern. There’s no legal justification. It’s a political decision.”
Berger said the decision could be found to violate the Anti-Deficiency Act, which could carry fines or even criminal penalties. If we open on 1/28 (Day 28), 21 days would put us at 2/18 (day 49). If we don't have appropriations by then we'll have hit a new record. There probably would've been a march on DC by that point by disgruntled civil servants, too. Since none of us have our handy cycle calendars, this item from NOAA will do in a pinch: https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/grad/neubrew/Calendar.jspI am really not happy about the union trying to get pay through the backdoor via lawsuit in the US Court of Federal Claims by filing a class action to create a financial claim on the Judgment Fund which has a permanent appropriation. It may be barely legal but certainly unseemly. Making appropriations via lawsuits just creates a conflict for me understanding matters. That's not how our country is supposed to operate. It sounds like the union is saying to the court that it's not legal to have people working and not getting paid. I want to get paid if we are called into work. I don't care how it is appropriated. The president wants us to go back to work because he is concerned about the people getting mad about their refunds. There is no concern about us getting paid, it's just about us going back to work. This shutdown can go on for a long time. Once we are back at work being productive, the incentive to worry about us getting paid is greatly reduced. We are being told that "we will adjust". What a slap in the face! This filing season was going to be rough anyway because of the delay in training on the new tax law and new forms. We still have to deal with refund holds, returns going thru tpp and exams, missing refunds, etc. Even though I can hold out financially for a while, I don't like not getting paid when working or on furlough. Edited by user Monday, January 7, 2019 7:43:20 PM(UTC)
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