WASHINGTON — The IRS wants to rewrite its complicated letters to taxpayers and speak to people in plain English.
The federal tax collector is rewriting and sending out commonly received notices ahead of the 2024 tax filing season as part of its new Simple Notice Initiative.
“Renewed notices will be shorter, clearer and easier to understand,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on a call with reporters on Tuesday to preview the initiative. “Taxpayers will see the difference when they open the mail and when they log into their online accounts. “
The 2024 tax season starts on January 29.
Each year, the IRS sends more than 170 million notices to taxpayers regarding credits, withholdings and taxes owed. The notices are often unnecessarily long and full of legal jargon, forcing many confused taxpayers to call the agency and block the phone lines.
Simpler, plain-language notices will help people understand their tax obligations and improve tax enforcement, said IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel, who said the initiative is being paid for with funding from Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act.
“This is another reason why funding the inflation reduction bill is so important,” he said.
The agency received an influx of $80 billion in cash for the IRS over a decade under the IRA signed into law in August 2022, although some of that money has been scaled back and is under constant threat of cuts.
The effort to reduce paperwork and make the IRS easier to work with is part of the agency’s paperless processing initiative announced last August, which is an effort to reduce the exorbitant amount of paperwork plaguing the agency , to decrease.
Thanks to this initiative, most people will be able to file everything except their tax returns digitally by 2024. And as the IRS tests its new electronic free tax filing system starting in 2024, the agency will be able to process everything, including tax returns. digital by 2025.
“We need to put more of these letters into plain language — something an average person can understand,” Werfel said, which will more effectively help the agency meet its collection goals.
“The clearer our communications are, such as when a balance is due, the more quickly and effectively these balance fees will be understood and paid by taxpayers,” Werfel said.