Taxpayer Advocate Service Issues Tax System Roadmap (7/10/19)

The Taxpayer Advocate Service (TAS) has issued a "Roadmap" -- also called a "subway map" -- for the taxpayer's journey through the tax system.

The TAS page for the roadmap is here.  On that page, the roadmap itself in pdf format may be viewed and downloaded and a short video introduction may be viewed.  I include below a jpg format version of the roadmap, principally for overview.  The pdf version is better for study.

The roadmap explains:

The map below illustrates, at a very high level, the stages of a taxpayer’s journey, from getting answers to tax law questions, all the way through audits, appeals, collection, and litigation. It shows the complexity of tax administration, with its connections and overlaps and repetitions between stages. As you can see from its numerous twists and turns, the road to  compliance isn’t always easy to navigate. But we hope this map helps taxpayers find their way. A project of the Taxpayer Advocate Service.

The graphic is very good.

The caveat is that, I think, most nonpractitioners may not spend a whole lot of time working their way through this roadmap of our complex tax system.  (In my own brief visual overview of the roadmap, I am reminded of a maze or a bowl of spaghetti or some such commotion.)  I suppose that those nonpractitioners (including taxpayers qua taxpayers) who get caught up in IRS tax enforcement might want to take the time to work through the maze.

I think the roadmap will be helpful for practitioners who want to check their knowledge about the processes or to study the process.  Like many such summary overviews, the graphic lacks nuance, but still that should not take away from its educational use for practitioners and even taxpayers with the stamina to work through it.

One question that must be asked is whether all the complexity hinted at via the roadmap is necessary.  That is a good question.  I don't have an easy answer, except that those of us who have practiced in the system understand the reason for the complexity (each component of the roadmap).  Whether the complexity is necessary is a different question.