From the office of U.S. Senator Barbara Mikulski:
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.), Chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, today announced that she has called on Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Acting Commissioner Daniel Werfel to provide an in-person briefing to discuss IRS investigations into alleged payroll service provider (PSP) tax theft and fraud in Maryland.
“Business owners in Maryland who may have been harmed by Accu-Pay need a government on their side. They need timely resolutions to their cases, including the waiver of fees and penalties where appropriate. These businesses should not be subject to any more red-tape or inaction by the IRS. They are relying on the agency to take serious action to minimize the damage caused by fraudulent activity,” Senator Mikulski said. “Unfortunately, I continue to hear from constituents that they are being slow-walked and slow-talked by IRS. As Chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, I want to know if this delay is due to a lack of resources or a lack of management.”
Several Maryland small businesses that have used services of a PSP believe their provider failed to pay, or made only partial payments, of federal and state withholding and unemployment taxes. These small businesses have been hurt by late fees and penalties resulting from misdirected and delayed state and federal taxes. According to the Taxpayer Advocate Service’s 2012 Annual Report to Congress, at least 24 PSPs nationwide stole approximately $300 million in employment taxes that were not paid to the IRS between 2007 and 2012.
Earlier this year, the Senate Appropriations Committee passed key provisions of Senator Mikulski’s Small Business Tax Fraud Prevention Act, which would protect small business owners victimized by payroll service provider (PSP) tax theft and fraud. The legislation would provide needed protections to small businesses from PSP tax fraud by requiring the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to send dual notification to a business when its’ address has been changed by a third party payer. In addition, it would provide assistance to defrauded businesses that need relief from tax liability by requiring the IRS to give greater consideration to ETA Offers of Compromise.
Senator Mikulski’s legislation was introduced in conjunction with a Financial Services Appropriations Subcommittee hearing earlier this year with IRS leaders where she demanded they get to the bottom of alleged PSP fraud in Maryland. She also called on the agency to expedite any Request for Abatement of Interest for affected Maryland businesses. Video of Senator Mikulski’s discussion with then-Acting Commissioner Stephen Miller is available here.
In April, Senator Mikulski held a roundtable discussion with Maryland small businesses affected by alleged PSP tax theft and fraud. In a letter to the IRS earlier in the month, the Senator expressed her frustration with reports that the agency has been aware of payroll service provider irregularities and has not taken significant steps to protect small businesses. Her letter is available here.
Senator Mikulski’s letter to IRS Acting Commissioner Werfel follows:
November 5, 2013
Mr. Daniel I. Werfel
Acting Commissioner
Internal Revenue Service
1111 Constitution Avenue, Nw
Washington, DC 20224-0002
Dear Mr. Werfel:I write out of continued concern for the Maryland businesses who trusted Accu-Pay for their payroll services, and who are relying on the IRS to work with them to resolve their predicament.
I began working with the IRS on this issue. Business owners in Maryland who may have been harmed by Accu-Pay need a government on their side. They need timely resolutions to their cases, including the waiver of fees and penalties where appropriate. These businesses should not be subject to any more red-tape or inaction by the IRS. They are relying on the agency to take serious action to minimize the damage caused by fraudulent activity. Unfortunately, I continue to hear from constituents that they are being slow-walked and slow-talked by IRS.
As Chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, I want to know if this delay is due to a lack of resources or a lack of management. I request an in-person briefing from you on the following:
–How many fraud cases has the IRS encountered from AccuPay ?
–How are these cases clustered? Are they all from Maryland?
–If not, what other states have been affected?
–How many cases have been resolved?
–What was the outcome of these cases?
–How many cases are still pending? For how long?
–What is the cause of the delay?
In addition, I want to know if IRS is looking for systematic solutions to this problem to prevent it from happening again.
Thank you for your work on this important issue. I look forward to meeting with you for the briefing.
Sincerely,
Barbara A. Mikulski
United States Senator
Hey Babs –
Where is your outrage over the IRS targeting conservative groups and holding up processing their 501c3 applications prior to the Obama re-election?
If the IRS was targeting illegal immigrant groups like La Raza, Casa De Maryland or some lesbian group you would be screaming from the hilltops.
You are nothing more than a liberal Obama mouthpiece and a lock-step democrat.
I am counting the days until your departure from Maryland. It is a shame that we will have to continue to pay you after your departure for all the damage you have caused the State of Maryland and the Nation with your fellow demturds.
The same place as most people who realize that they where not targeting groups based on ideology and simply trying to enforce the rules on social welfare groups which none of these groups are!
@???
Hey moron do us all a favor and close your face hole. Clearly, you have no idea what you are talking about. Do you even know the kinds of questions these groups were asked?
Allow me to enlighten you:
#1. Do you directly or indirectly communicate with members of legislative bodies? If so, provide copies of the written communications and contents of other form of communications. Please include the percentage of time and resources you have spent of will spend conducting these activities in relation to 100% of all your activities.
*(sounds like a violation of first amendment rights to me)
#2. Are you a member organization? If so, provide the following for your membership:
a) How many members do you have currently?
b) What does the memberships consist of? Are they mostly individuals? What is the percentage of the organizational members as they are part of the whole membership?
c) Provide member application/registration form.
d) Provide membership agreement and rules that governs members.
e) provide a membership fee schedule.
f) What are membership requirements?
g) What services and benefits go you provide for members only?
h) What are the roles and duties of your members?
i) Provide copies of your website that your members can only access.
*(are you kidding me, this is clearly a fishing expedition by the IRS to identify every member by and subject them to further IRS harassment and to blind these groups in paperwork to stonewall the application process)
#3. Submit the following information relating to your past and present directors, officers, and key employees:
a) Provide a resume for each.
b) Indicate the number of hours per month each individual has provided or is providing services to you.
c) Provide a description of all the services each individual provides or has provided to you.
d) Indicate the total compensation provided to each individual.
e) Describe how each compensation package was determined.
f) Indicate of any of your current and former officers, director, and key employees are related to each other (include family and business relationships) and describe the nature of the relationship.
*(Past employees – another witch hunt by the IRS)
4. List each past or present board member, officer, key employee and members of their families who:
a) Has served on the board of another organization
b) Was, is or plans to be a candidate for public office. Indicate the nature of each candidacy.
c) Has previously conducted similar activities for another entity.
d) Has previously submitted an application for tax exempt status.
*(“plans to be” – are you kidding me? – Why would past activities even matter here?)
5. Has your organization engaged in any activities with the news media? If so, please describe those activities in further detail and, if available, provide articles printed and transcripts of the items aired because of that activity. news media activity may include the following:
a) Press release
b) Interviews with news media
c) Letters to the editor
d) Op-ed pieces
*(I guess the IRS never heard of FREEDOM OF THE PRESS)
6. If we approve your application for exemption, we will be required by law to make the application and the information that you submit in response to this letter available for public inspection. Please ensure that your response doesn’t include unnecessary personal identifying information, such as bank account numbers or SSI numbers, that could result in identity theft or other adverse consequences if publicly disclosed. If you have any questions about the public inspection of your application or other documents, please call the person whose name and telephone number are shown above.
*(So let me get this straight, the IRS forces me to disclose all of me, my families and my associates information and threatens to disclose it to the public when I am approved. Without the information I cannot get approved but when I disclose it to them, they will make it public – not the group information, MY INFORMATION…………. priceless)
#7. Provide the following information for the income you received and raised for the years from inception to the present. Also, provide the same information for the income you expect to receive and raise for 2012, 2013, and 2014.
*(Also could you please predict the Superbowl winners for the next three years as well)
Barbie, you still in office? Sh….oot. Thought you’d wanna come live with us “common” folk.
How about Senator Mikulski demands an in person briefing on how the IRS initiated unwarranted and illegal action against Mr. Obama’s potential critics during the election by denying them timely processing of their applications for status. How about the Senator demanding a briefing from the State Department on how their criminal negligence got their own employees killed in Benghazi?