Fiscal Year 2024 Statutory Review of Compliance With Legal Guidelines When Issuing Levies

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Date Issued

Friday, September 20, 2024

Submitting OIG

Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration

Other Participating OIGs

Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration

Agencies Reviewed/Investigated

Internal Revenue Service

Report Number

2024-300-056

Report Type

Audit

Agency Wide

Yes

Number of Recommendations

Questioned Costs

Funds for Better Use

Open Recommendations

This report has 7 open recommendations.

Recommendation Number	Significant Recommendation	Recommended Questioned Costs	Recommended Funds for Better Use
1	No	$0	$0
The Director, Collection Policy, SB/SE Division, should revise the Internal Revenue Manual (IRM) to require revenue officers to check their mail and faxes for any CDP levy hearing requests prior to issuing levies.
2	No	$0	$0
The Director, Field Collection, SB/SE Division, should ensure that the following instances identified in this report are discussed with responsible employees and their managers so that they understand the difference and can protect taxpayer’s rights: instances associated with CDP hearings being input as equivalent hearings; instances associated with cases being transferred to a new revenue officer before the prior revenue officer had processed a timely CDP levy hearing request; instances associated with new employees and CDP hearings; instances associated with revenue officers improperly processing ICS systemic levies as other, incorrect types of levies; and instances associated with taxpayers not receiving or not timely receiving their CDP rights due to various revenue officer errors.
4	No	$0	$0
The Director, Collection Policy, SB/SE Division, should provide training to remind revenue officers that for manually created balance due modules within the ICS, they must manually verify the CDP levy notice was timely issued and that the modules are not part of an open CDP hearing prior to levy. In addition, revise the IRM to require that revenue officers document the ICS history with confirmation that required notices were provided prior to issuing a levy on a manually created balance due module.
5	No	$0	$0
The Director, Collection Inventory and Delivery and Selection, SB/SE Division, should submit programming maintenance fix requests to ensure that: (1) the ICS does not allow modules to be included on a levy unless a CDP levy notice has been issued, even if both the notice generation tool and the levy generation tool are open at the same time and (2) the ICS systemic levy check does not allow levies to be sent until 31 days after the CDP levy notice date rather than 30 days.
6	No	$0	$0
The Director, Field Collection, SB/SE Division, should ensure that the taxpayers who were not given the opportunity for a CDP hearing are given their CDP rights, if appropriate; and obtain authorization to retain any improper levy proceeds or refund the proceeds to the taxpayer.
7	No	$0	$0
The Director, Field Collection, SB/SE Division, should ensure that the instances identified in this report that are associated with unauthorized representatives receiving CDP levy notices due to various revenue officer errors are discussed with the responsible employees and their managers so that they can protect taxpayer’s rights and prevent unauthorized disclosures. These employee’s managers should consider the failure to observe written regulations, orders, rules, or procedures that result in the violation of improper disclosure of tax return information when evaluating employees’ performance or for misconduct if such action on the part of the employee is intentional.
9	No	$0	$0
The Director, Field Collection, SB/SE Division, should ensure that for the instances identified in this report that are associated with representatives not receiving CDP levy notices when they were authorized, a Letter 5427 is sent to the taxpayer notifying them that their representative is not receiving notices, if appropriate.