The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) recommended in a new report, and the IRS agreed, that the service should test the feasibility of holding videoconference visits with tax return preparers it flags as posing a high risk for submitting erroneous refundable credit claims, to replace in-person visits the IRS suspended in 2020.
The GAO report, released Thursday, July 14, indicated that between fiscal 2017 and 2020, the IRS selected between 141 and 227 preparers each year for what the report called “knock-and-talk visits” and between 725 and 968 in-person “due diligence visits,” but none in either category during fiscal 2021 or 2022, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The IRS did increase its due-diligence contacts by letter, however, to more than 350 annually in 2021 and 2022. IRS officials told the GAO they were uncertain when in-person visits might resume.
Videoconferencing could allow the visits to resume at least virtually and perhaps to some extent remedy the administrative problems of in-person visits, the GAO said. Learn more.