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The National Taxpayer Advocate Purple Book presents a concise summary of 69 legislative recommendations that the National Taxpayer Advocate believes will strengthen taxpayer rights and improve tax administration.
“I begin this report by discussing the elephant in the room – IRS funding – because many of the improvements I highlight have been made possible by multiyear funding provided by Congress and require this funding to continue. The headline from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was that the IRS received about $79 billion in additional funding over a ten-year period. Much of that funding has generated controversy – namely, the funding allocated for enforcement. But some of the funding has received strong bipartisan support – namely, the funding allocated for taxpayer services and technology modernization. I want to highlight this distinction so that if Congress decides to cut IRA funding, it does not inadvertently throw the baby out with the bathwater.”
Each year’s Annual Report to Congress identifies the ten most serious problems facing taxpayers and offers recommendations to fix them. These issues can affect taxpayers’ basic rights and the ways they pay taxes or receive refunds, even if they are not involved in a dispute with the IRS. As your Voice at the IRS, the National Taxpayer Advocate uses the Annual Report to elevate these problems and recommend solutions to Congress and the highest levels of the IRS.
This section discusses the ten most frequently litigated federal tax issues from the preceding year. To provide a broader view of issues brought to the court by taxpayers, it contains an analysis of cases petitioned in the Tax Court as well as decided cases.
In this section, TAS reports on its 2024 advocacy updates and highlights from its Case Advocacy and Systemic Advocacy functions.
For the National Taxpayer Advocate, thorough research and analysis of current tax issues and trends is a vital part of the Annual Report. TAS research projects yield accurate, insightful data that inform her advocacy for taxpayers and strengthen her authority and arguments before the IRS and Congress.
The Taxpayer Advocate Service (TAS) is an independent organization within the IRS. Led by the National Taxpayer Advocate, TAS is your Voice at the IRS.
The National Taxpayer Advocate’s Annual Report to Congress identifies taxpayers’ problems and provides suggestions to further protect taxpayer rights and ease taxpayer burden.
The National Taxpayer Advocate delivers this report directly to the tax-writing committees in Congress (the House Committee on Ways and Means and the Senate Committee on Finance), with no prior review by the IRS Commissioner, the Secretary of the Treasury, or the Office of Management and Budget.
The Executive Summary provides an overview of the National Taxpayer Advocate 2024 Annual Report to Congress, 2025 Purple Book, and the 2024 Research Reports.
