WASHINGTON — 

U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), a member of the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee, applauded the committee’s adoption of the Taxpayer Protection Act, which included numerous taxpayer protection provisions he authored with Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). Several provisions of the Taxpayer Bill of Rights Enhancement Act, a separate bill Thune and Grassley introduced in June 2015, have already been enacted into law and several more were adopted during the committee markup.

“We sponsored our legislation not only because of the abuses of taxpayer rights we’ve seen at the IRS in recent years, but also because it has been nearly 20 years since Congress enacted comprehensive taxpayer rights legislation,” said Thune. “American taxpayers deserve a tax collection agency that is accountable to them and that respects their due process rights.”

Thune provisions included in the committee-approved bill:

• Extends from nine months to two years the period for returning monetary proceeds from the sale of property that has been wrongfully levied by the IRS.
• Allows amounts, including interest, wrongfully levied by the IRS from retirement accounts to be re-contributed back to those accounts without penalty.
• Requires tax-exempt organizations to file Form 990 electronically and mandates that the IRS make such information available in a timely manner. 
• Imposes new statutory requirements on the IRS with respect to email retention consistent with the existing directive from the Office of Management and Budget and the National Archives.
• Requires the IRS to notify a taxpayer whose confidential information has been improperly disclosed or inspected when a disciplinary action against an IRS employee is undertaken, regardless of whether or not the employee is criminally charged.
• Requires the General Accountability Office to conduct a study examining if taxpayers in those states without a permanent IRS appeals presence, including South Dakota, are disadvantaged relative to taxpayers in other states.

Click here for more information on the Taxpayer Protection Act and here to read a recent op-ed authored by Thune entitled, “There’s Not Much to Celebrate During Tax Season.”