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I have an offer number. Someone forgot to enter that information on the client's account. When the number was created, it should have been attached to the account. Seems simple enough to me. OK, someone messed up. But when you call, and they won't take your call, and when you do get to someone, they say they can't help? I could have faxed the official letter to PPS and they could have put a 30 day collection hold on the account while I tried to get to the right person to get them to do their job. If I can't get someone at the OIC office to pick up the phone, I am going to have to go to TAS to get this taken care of. And that will put extra work on TAS, which I guess is where we should start with every attempt to resolve an issue with the IRS. Normal means of dispute resolution are just not working any more. I am going to go play softball tonight and try and work off this frustration. Tom Modesto, CA

Tom, I completely understand your frustration. I hope you or your client mailed the offer via certified mail with a return receipt. Underfunded and understaffed is no excuse for incompetence. It goes beyond comprehension as to how and why the IRS and some States loose documents or claim they never got them. I recently resolved and issue with NC where they claim a form was not included in the return. Totally impossible and I guess it fell off of some examiners desk. But.... they are never wrong and it is always what we or the taxpayer failed to do. Hang in there!

My client is under OIC consideration. We sent the offer 12/27/18, got the confirmation letter 3/27/19. Letter says they will respond by July 24. This weekend, I get 8 letters for my client saying they are going to levy. While you are under offer consideration, everything is supposed to stop. So I try calling collections. They are too busy to answer the phone. So I call PPS. They tell me they can't see anything on the record that shows we have an offer under consideration and I need to call the OIC folks. I call them and they are too busy to answer the phone. I am so sick and tired of these lazy (fill in the blank) never being able to do their job right. And I don't care if they are overworked or underfunded or any of that other bullcrap they put out there for justification of not doing their job. I don't have time to call them every single day until they decide to pick up the phone. It makes me feel like becoming a tax protester. The IRS SUCKS! SUCKS! SUCKS! SUCKS! SUCKS! SUCKS! SUCKS! Tom Modesto, CA

I've taken my cordless phone into the bathroom more than once.

2 hours hold time and counting. I think I ought to get a Facebook account and live stream what I do while on hold for the IRS. I bet it would be a big hit. I could get my own YouTube channel and have people watch me play solitaire while holding for the IRS. I am real good at solitaire. Tom Modesto, CA

I really need to pee, but I can't take the chance that they will pick up while I am in the bathroom and I miss out and have to start all over again. Tom Modesto, CA

Look, I know you're just trying to help and thanks for laying it all out for us (obviously you've done a lot of research), but I guess the problem is that many of us don't want to do calculations and become responsible for clients' withholdings. It's like doing the tax return twice; but they won't want to pay you very much for a W-4 form. Of course I'm beating a dead horse here because IRS will do what they want, which is probably to collect more money up front. Software (which I don't want to buy) can make it easier, but it won't absorb the blame when taxpayers give you understated or wrong estimates and owe money in April. We had a perfectly good, simple, and practical W-4 which was the taxpayer's problem - not ours. If short, all they needed to do was write in hold X dollars per week more next time. Now (along with the 1040) it has been blown all to hell - they've created a problem and handed it to us. Maybe the "estimates" will work out; maybe they won't, but clients will have a handy target when they don't. Okay; rant over, but Lion's right - this isn't simplification. It's more in the direction of the ever-expanding 8867 whereby we became IRS' "partners".

Hmmmm….I wonder if that will work with my client when they call me and say their account was swept by the IRS? Tom Modesto, CA

The IRS is underfunded, understaffed and probably won't be caught up until sometime next year. It is what it is, work with it.

Actually, I think it is horrible (the same as Abby did in his tiff with Medlin: "What? No percentages?") And since they killed off the number of dependents there's nothing left for the average employee to work with. It was hard to get them to fill out a W-4 before and even then they could only because they knew they were single/married and who lived with them. Now the boss gives them five pages of junk and says "Fill this out." I can imagine how that's going to go. People at small employers like a cafe will simply say "I can't do this" and hand it back to the boss who will then bring it to me. Large employers (factories) will require their people to fill it out or be replaced; they'll take it to the payroll clerk there who will say "I can't do this. Take it to your tax person." We'll also get those. As Medlin said, you can make some money out of this, but my God, at what cost? How many hundred people have I seen who are dissatisfied with their withholdings at tax time (and they'll remember who filled out that new form). There's not enough money to compensate us for the ill-will that will be generated amongst clientele when it doesn't work out. When those forms are issued I think I'll either take a vacation or, like the college kids, try to find a "safe space" where I can't be found for a good while.

Oh what a relief. Finally. 2 and a half hours for a 5 minute conversation. The guy on the other end was competent and resolved my problem quickly. Blamed it on a computer program not working properly. What else is new. Tom Modesto, CA

Mine has a cord. I am not fancy dancy like that. Hoping this gets resolved soon or I may have a puddle under my chair. Tom Modesto, CA

I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I'm taking my phone off the hook when it hits. USA Today had an article on it yesterday https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/04/09/tax-withholding-irs-release-new-more-complex-w-4-form-year/3401811002/.

After holding for 25 minutes this morning, it looked like I was going to get through.....NOPE. "Due to technical difficulties, we cannot answer your call at this time. Try your call again later." Tom Modesto, CA

I am not a gatekeeper, but marquiri does not appear to be a tax pro as he doesn't seem to realize that a 1099-C, being a cancellation of loan debt, beomes income to be reported on his tax return. The amount would have been the unpaid amount after the settlement. This means that the ITS is collecting from any signer on the loan. What if i there are 3 signers? Does the IRS collect 3 times for the same amount. One possible solution: If the loan is not a gov't backed loan, and he qualifies for indebteness. form 982 can be sent back with the CP2000.

You may be overly concerned about your client being levied. Levy letters are only of concern when the are the FINAL Notice of Intent to Levy. IRS letters have a code in the upper right corner. Those with CP501, CP503 and CP504 are all levy notices, but the only one that matters is the Final Notice LT11 (sometimes 1058). LT11 is the Final Notice with 30 days to respond. There is also a grace period of 10 days, but I find, in practice, it is usually several weeks.

I'm going to chime in here. The privacy issue is moot to me. The taxpayer keeps the worksheets and does not submit them to his/her employer. Number 3 below may ease the pain for current employees. However, for new hires, this will be a challenge. Due to the TCJA, a lot of folks can't itemize any more. The multiply jobs is an issue to me. I'll have to read further but two spouses, deduction amounts on the higher paying job, what does the lower pay spouse do?? . Why redesign Form W-4? The new design reduces the form’s complexity and increases the transparency and accuracy of the withholding system. While it uses the same underlying information as the old design, it replaces complicated worksheets with more straightforward questions that make accurate withholding easier for employees. 2. What happened to withholding allowances? Allowances are no longer used for the redesigned Form W-4 to increase transparency, simplicity, and accuracy. In the past, the value of a withholding allowance was tied to the amount of the personal exemption. Due to changes in law, currently you cannot claim personal exemptions or dependency exemptions. 3. Are all employees required to submit a new Form W-4? No. Employees who have submitted Form W-4 in any year before 2020 are not required to submit a new form merely because of the redesign. Employers will continue to compute withholding based on the information from the employee’s most recently submitted Form W-4.

The IRS has released the following FAQ : https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/faqs-on-the-early-release-of-the-2020-form-w-4

My idea for a W4: Enter the % you want withheld (min 8%). You can still claim exempt if you expect your EIC or other credits to zero out your tax. This will help part-timers, especially if their hours vary and sometimes have no tax withheld due to low hours in a pay period. Then everyone will be having a discussion about what % they're having withheld and people will start to understand what their effective tax rate is. And if they're under/over withheld, they can easily increase/decrease the %.

Basically, it requires that you know, in advance, what the numbers will be when you file your tax return at the end of the year. This smacks of the Obamacare requirement for APTC, know what your income is going to be at the end of the year, and if you are wrong, pay up. Tom Modesto, CA

While it may result in more accurate withholdings, do they truly expect tax payers to understand what is required by the new form??

People barely understand the old W4, so let's make it crazy complicated!