TAS Act
Sponsored By: Senator Mike Crapo
Introduced
Summary
IRS customer-service and taxpayer-access overhaul. This bill forces major digital upgrades, creates public dashboards and taxpayer apps, widens appeal and Tax Court rights, and tightens rules and penalties for paid preparers.
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- Families and individual taxpayers gain realtime tools to track returns, refunds, and holds through a website and mobile app. The IRS must offer a callback option for unanswered calls within 5 minutes by 2028 and require electronic filing and OCR digitization of paper returns on a phased timeline.
- Paid preparers face tougher registration, background checks, education rules, and new penalties for violations. It creates a $250 penalty per failure with a $75,000 annual cap and raises criminal penalties for willful misuse of preparer IDs.
- Taxpayer advocates, appeals, and courts get stronger powers and clearer remedies. The Office of the Taxpayer Advocate gets expanded access to IRS files, the Tax Court can issue prehearing subpoenas and broaden relief, and the small disputes threshold rises to $100,000.
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Bill Overview
Analyzed Economic Effects
8 provisions identified: 5 benefits, 1 costs, 2 mixed.
New rules and penalties for preparers
If enacted, paid tax preparers would have to put a valid preparer ID on each return and meet new PTIN suitability, education, and tax-compliance checks. The bill would create civil penalties (generally $250 per missing ID, capped at $75,000 per year), raise misappropriation penalties to the greater of $1,000 or the full amount taken, and add felony penalties (fines and up to 3 years in prison) for willful misconduct. The IRS must set up a preparer-compliance program within 18 months to give a chance to fix bad IDs before penalties apply.
Faster IRS online services and e-filing
If enacted, the IRS would be required to support electronic filing and to process e-filed returns electronically. The IRS would use OCR to digitize paper returns unless OCR is slower or less reliable. The bill would require individualized refund status info online within about 12 months and online accounts showing six years of returns within about 18 months. It would also require a public real-time wait-time dashboard and a callback option by 2028.
More collection relief and refund rules
If enacted, the IRS would have to identify taxpayers likely in economic hardship and tell them about installment plans, offers-in-compromise, or being declared not collectible. The bill would waive installment-agreement user fees for taxpayers with AGI up to 250% of poverty or for those who set up plans online and pay by electronic debit. Taxpayers classified currently not collectible could get refunds up to the EITC amount for certain offsets after 12 months. The bill would cap extra interest for delayed refunds at $500, extend safe-harbor rules that avoid failure-to-pay penalties when you pay 125% of last year's tax, require quarterly delinquency notices after 24 months, and create a hostage-relief program with abatements and refunds by Jan. 1, 2027.
More support for low-income tax clinics
If enacted, Low-Income Taxpayer Clinics would generally get a 100% matching rate on grant funds, though the IRS Secretary could lower the match to as low as 25% to expand clinic coverage. Salaries and equipment can count as matching funds, but general overhead cannot. The change would apply to calendar years beginning after enactment.
Simpler rules for Americans living abroad
If enacted, U.S. taxpayers living abroad would get several changes to reduce paperwork and volatility. The bill would let some qualified individuals use the year's average exchange rate for foreign income and expenses. It would allow certain foreign-currency losses tied to foreign home mortgage debt or sales to be deducted in limited ways and prevent currency gain on certain refinancings. The GAO and Treasury must study and report on burdens for Americans abroad and the Treasury must study simplifying foreign information reporting. The bill would also raise small-dollar thresholds for personal foreign-currency gains and for a simplified foreign tax credit.
Stronger Tax Court and appeals rights
If enacted, the bill would expand Tax Court access and procedures. The small-claims limit would rise to $100,000 with inflation indexing and the court could hear recovery suits up to generally $2,000,000. The Tax Court would get broader subpoena, discovery, and clerical-correction powers and could grant relief from judgment on specified equitable grounds. The bill would strengthen the Office of the Taxpayer Advocate's access to files and let it hire counsel directly, let the Independent Office of Appeals use direct-hire authority, require supervisor sign-off on penalty notices, and allow some penalties to be treated as deficiencies subject to Tax Court procedures.
Stronger whistleblower awards and protections
If enacted, whistleblowers could get interest on awards from a defined date when the IRS delays a preliminary award recommendation. Awards under the whistleblower program would be exempt from sequestration orders issued after enactment. The bill would also allow de novo Tax Court review of some award determinations with newly discovered evidence for petitions pending or filed on or after enactment.
Voluntary withholding for gig contractors
If enacted, a payer and a worker could agree to treat some non-wage payments for services as wages for Federal income tax withholding. The Treasury would have 18 months to write rules about which payments qualify and how much to withhold. This would let some independent contractors have taxes withheld at source if both parties agree.
Sponsors & CoSponsors
Sponsor
Mike Crapo
ID • R
Cosponsors
Ron Wyden
OR • D
Sponsored 2/26/2026
Roll Call Votes
No roll call votes available for this bill.
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