In this Issue:
IRS To Revamp Website; Relaunch Expected in August
The IRS has announced it will be revamp its website, www.irs.gov, to make it more customer-centered and provide more findable, usable and understandable online content and services. The relaunch, expected sometime this summer, will provide a new look, navigation enhancements and a better customer experience for mobile users, according to the IRS.
Among the webpages that will be modified is the webpage, "For Tax Pros." The initial modification, a screenshot of which is available here, was developed based on research conducted by the IRS at the 2016 IRS Tax Forums. NSA has pointed out that attendees at the Forums are not necessarily representative of the tax professional community as a whole and that the website needs of practitioners may vary depending on their practice and their credentials. A screen shot of a prototype "For Tax Pros" webpage is below.
We need your help in ensuring that the IRS website serves the needs of the tax professional community.
The IRS will be conducting a telephone surveys of interested practitioners in the near future. If you would like us to submit your name to the IRS to be considered for this survey, please email us at members@nsacct.org
The IRS will also be conducting prototype presentations of the new site and upcoming online tools for practitioners at this summer's IRS Tax Forums. In addition, Forum attendees will have the opportunity to participate in user interviews and to provide specific feedback on how well the new website prototype meets their needs. If you will be at one of the Forums and have an interest, be sure to look for the IRS booth in the Forum Exhibit Hall.
IRS Online Services
The IRS continues to work on improving its online services for taxpayers and tax professionals and will continue to roll out new capabilities in the near future.
IRS officials told NSA that the initial release plan focused on four capabilities: Balance Due, Make a Payment, See Payments, and Tax Records. The most recent upgrade, See Payments, was made available in March. The payments that can be seen are limited to those made within the last 18 months, but is expected to be expanded in the future. A screen shot of a prototype page is below.
The next upgrade, Tax Records, will be made in May. This upgrade will also provide a direct link to the Get Transcript online tool.
IRS officials cautioned that future enhancements and upgrades to online services are "resource dependent," meaning that they can only provide what IRS funding will allow.
Tax Fraud: IRS Stops 95 Percent of Bogus Refunds
The Internal Revenue Service spotted $961 million in fraudulent refund claims on tax returns through early March, according to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration in a report released April 7. The report provides interim results of the 2017 tax filing season and is available here.
"This period is critical for the IRS, because during this time, most individuals file their income tax returns and contact the IRS if they have questions about specific laws or filing procedures," TIGTA said.
The IRS confirmed identity theft cases involving 14,068 fraudulent tax returns as of March 2. Overall, the agency has received fewer returns at this point in the 2017 filing season than it did in 2016 because of fewer processing days, TIGTA said.
IRS Customer Service: 75% telephone response rate in this filing season
IRS telephone assistors were able to answer more than 75% of telephone calls during the recently-concluded filing season, according to an IRS official.
Readers will recall that the IRS received an additional appropriation of $290 million for during the fiscal year that ended on October 31, 2016. Because the IRS and other government agencies are operating under a continuing budget resolution during the current fiscal year, this additional appropriation also continued to be available, resulting in better customer service.
Tax Reform: Making Progress Slowly
Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said in a CNBC interview April 12 that the administration is still working on a tax plan that will be promoted on Capitol Hill, but it is unclear whether the Administration proposal will resemble in any respects the blueprint announced by House Republicans last year.
In any event, the timing of an Administration proposal depends very much on who is doing the talking: President Trump has said he does not want to set a deadline and is therefore not committing to an August deadline to pass a tax reform bill even as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, said in recent interviews that the Administration is shooting for the enactment of a tax reform plan by August.
Meanwhile, the House Ways and Means Committee is preparing to begin a series of tax reform hearings even though the linchpin of their tax reform blueprint, the so-called border tax would tax imports at 20 percent and exempt exports, continues to be under attack from business groups and retailers and is widely considered dead on arrival in the Senate.
Companies Confused About Accounting For Cloud Services
The Financial Accounting Standards Board is considering whether to provide explicit guidance on how public and private companies should account for upfront implementation costs they incur when setting up cloud computing service contracts.
Confusion and broad differences in practice currently exist because there are no specific accounting rules about how to book those costs, according to recent discussions at FASB and its private company advisory body, the Private Company Council.
Implementation fees arise from the additional steps a company must take to build connectors so its system can interact with a cloud arrangement. The costs are separate—and most often substantially higher—than the monthly hosting fee paid to the cloud company. Some companies have booked millions of dollars of implementation fees as expenses in their income statements. Others book them as a prepaid asset and amortize the payment over the implementation period—typically nine months for a three-year contract.
Both financial statement preparers and users are seeking clarity about the accounting rules. Some of the challenges stem from differences in how preparers view the topic. Some of FASB's private company advisers told the board that in-house—meaning on premise—software licenses are virtually the same as cloud computing arrangements that are off-premise—meaning in the cloud. They therefore question why the accounting would be different. Others argue, however, that the differences stem from who has control. With an on-premise software license, the company has control of the license. If it is with a cloud computing vendor, and the cloud vendor goes out of business, the company no longer has the license.
The issue might be resolved if there were guidelines around how to parse the fees, the discussions implied. FASB could clarify what part of the implementation fee could be booked as a prepaid asset, what part should be expensed as incurred and what part should be booked as an intangible asset.
