IRS Focuses on Nonfilers

The IRS has announced a variety of measures designed to bring taxpayers required to file returns but who failed to do so into compliance (Fact Sheet 2020-02). The Service’s efforts promote voluntary compliance by leveraging its processes and systems, including:

• Increased identification and case creation for individual and business non-filers, which will be assigned to IRS employees for appropriate resolution.
• Automated Substitute for Return program (ASFR), which affects individual taxpayers who have not filed tax returns. The IRS knows through information returns that these taxpayers have significant income tax liability. The IRS will send notices to these taxpayers alerting them to the potential liability.
• Automated 6020(b) process, which promotes employment tax filing compliance.
• Delinquent Return Refund Hold program (DRRH), under which an individual taxpayer’s income tax refund is held by the government if their account has at least one unfiled tax return within the five years surrounding that return.

Note: Even if you aren’t required to file a return, you should do so if you’re owed a tax refund. As a reminder, the deadline for claiming a refund on a 2016 tax return is April 15, 2020.