IRS Invites Businesses To Submit Problematic Tax Issues

by Mike Godfrey, Tax-News.com, Washington

07 March 2006

The Internal Revenue Service announced last week that it is seeking to encourage businesses to make submissions under its Industry Issue Resolution (IIR) Program.

The objective of the IIR program is to resolve business tax issues common to significant numbers of taxpayers through new guidance.

In past years, issues have been submitted by associations and others representing both small and large business taxpayers, resulting in tax guidance that has affected thousands of business taxpayers engaged in a variety of industries.

Recent results of the IIR program include:

• Providing a safe harbor accounting method that heavy equipment dealers can use to more simply calculate heavy equipment parts inventories using standard price lists.
• Allowing companies to reduce administrative burden by signing employment tax returns by facsimile.

The IRS has announced that submissions received by March 31, 2006, of business tax issues where the tax treatment is uncertain, frequently disputed or burdensome will be considered for IIR project selection and inclusion in the 2006-2007 Treasury and IRS Guidance Priority List.

The IRS reviews submissions semi-annually, after March 31 and August 31 of each year.

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