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Dec. 21, 2004 Industry Issue Resolution Program to Address Signature Requirements Regarding Employment Tax Returns WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service and the Treasury Department today announced the Industry Issue Resolution (IIR) Program will address payroll industry concerns pertaining to signature requirements on employment tax returns. The National Payroll Reporting Consortium presented the IIR submission to the IRS requesting that the agency update existing procedures to recognize electronic filing and other changes. The industry group also requested certain updates to forms, instructions, publications and sections of the Internal Revenue Manual. In 1999, prior to the publication of Notice 2001-17, Hercules engaged in a contingent liability transaction and claimed a $154 million capital loss. Hercules had received an opinion from its outside tax advisor that it was more likely than not to prevail if the issue were challenged on audit. Following an audit of the transaction, the IRS issued a statutory notice of deficiency in which it disallowed the claimed capital loss and determined penalties with respect to the transaction. In December 2003, Hercules filed a petition in the Tax Court challenging the tax deficiencies and related penalties. The signature issue involves Revenue Ruling 82-29, which relieves authorized Reporting Agents from having to manually sign employment tax returns they file on behalf of their clients. These returns include Form 940, Employer’s Annual Federal Unemployment (FUTA) Tax Return; Form 941, Employer’s Quarterly Federal Tax Return; and Form 943, Employer’s Annual Tax Return for Agriculture Employees. Since its inception in 2000, the IIR program has resulted in resolution of many different tax issues cumulatively affecting thousands of taxpayers in many different lines of business. At any time, business associations and taxpayers may submit tax issues that they believe could be resolved though the IIR program. IIR project selections are based on criteria set forth in Revenue Procedure 2003-36. For each issue selected, a multi-functional team gathers and analyzes the relevant facts and recommends guidance. The revenue procedure also contains IIR submission procedures. Thank you for subscribing to the IRS Newswire, an IRS e-mail service. If you know someone who might want to subscribe to this mailing list, please forward this message to them and they can go to the Subscription page on the IRS Web site to subscribe. This message was distributed automatically from the mailing list IRS Newswire. Please Do Not Reply To This Message. To unsubscribe from this list, send a blank email to Unsubscribe To subscribe to or unsubscribe from another list, please go to the e-News Subscriptions page on the IRS Web site. |
