In March of 2020, the IRS shut down substantially all of its enforcement. This included the Automated Collections Service and thee many field agent Revenue Officers. The lien unit shut off. The Automated Under-reporter Unit shut down. The Automated Substitute for Return unit shut down. Naturally, health and safety concerns had to come first and couldn’t be met by an organization that relied so heavily on buildings full of people working closely together.

The IRS enforcement arm stayed eerily quiet through much of 2020 and 2021. In summer 2022, the Revenue Officers came back online. So, the big cases got attention (along with some startlingly small cases). It seemed like every other Revenue Officer we met was new and it showed.

In August, 2022 the Inflation Reduction Act passed. The IRA sent $80,000,000,000.00 (that’s fun to write out) to the IRS over 10 years for staff, structure and systems. It also will drive expanded enforcement on sophisticated tax cheats.

The impact of the IRA feels imminent. IRS added 5,000 more customer service personnel in December. Predictably, phone wait times have dropped dramatically. Surprisingly, the IRS has caught up on back filings, announcing this month that they’re caught up on tax returns filed and mail sent before 1/1/23.

Before now, it would have been unfair and inefficient to send demand notices, levies and liens. If you got one and called in, you’d have to wait two hours or call back the next day.

Now, if they can answer the phones effectively, and they can process paper effectively, the next thing to do is to send demand notices, liens and levies. And, you know that after the last three years of extreme financial disparities, there are plenty of people who have tax debts from losses or gains.

There is going to be a lot of enforcement for the IRS to do.