The IRS with little official fanfare and no real advance warning began a “national research project” to study (1) payroll taxes, (2) fringe benefits, (3) independent contractor, (4) expense reimbursements and (5) other related “payroll” issues.
Use of the phrase “National Research Project” seems fairly innocuous and is easily confused with the IRS’ more benign National Research Program. The goal of the latter is to design a strategy to collect data that will be used to measure filing and reporting compliance with the guiding principle “to minimize taxpayer burden as data are [sic] collected.”
Confusion of the National Research Project with the National Research Program may be the IRS’ intent, because there have been few public statements that actually describe what is in reality a massive audit initiative.
As the rumored audits have begun, the IRS finally published “Headliner Volume 280″ describing in only the vaguest terms the audits being unleashed over the next three years. The National Research Program only created ripples in the vast sea of issues that taxpayers must address and many advisors have drawn the same conclusion with respect to the current initiative since the programs have similar names. (more…)







