The campaigns cover five topics from two practice areas
On Mar. 13, 2018, the Large Business & International (LB&I) Division of the IRS announced that it was adding five new compliance campaigns to the 11 campaigns announced in November 2017 and 13 campaigns announced in January 2017. LB&I originally created the campaigns to ensure taxpayer examinations remain issue-based. The campaigns are intended to focus on compliance issues that present the greatest risk of non-compliance. Like the previously announced campaign issues, the new five campaign topics were identified through the suggestions of IRS compliance employees and LB&I data analysis.
The following table summarizes the new campaigns, including the practice areas, focus, treatment stream and lead executive.
Campaign |
Practice Area |
Focus |
Treatment Stream |
Lead Executive |
Costs that facilitate an IRC Section 355 Transaction |
Enterprise Activities |
Ensure taxpayers compliance with the requirement to capitalize, not deduct, the facilitative costs when the distribution is completed |
Issue-based examinations |
Scott Callint |
Self Employment Contributions Act (SECA) Tax |
Pass Through Entities and Northeastern Compliance |
Increase compliance with the law as supported by several recent court cases |
Issue-based examinations and outreach to practitioners, professional service provider associations and software vendors |
Cliff Scherwinski and Darlena Billops-Hill |
Partnership Stop Filer |
Pass Through Entities and Western Compliance |
Some partnerships stop filing tax returns for various reasons yet still have economic transactions that are not being reported to and by their partners |
Issue-based examinations, soft letters encouraging voluntary self-correction and stakeholder outreach |
Cliff Scherwinski and Eric Slack |
Sale of Partnership Interest |
Pass Through Entities and Eastern Compliance |
Taxpayers who do not report the sale or report the gain or loss incorrectly |
Examinations and soft-letters |
Cliff Scherwinski and Joseph Banks |
Partial Disposition Election for Buildings |
Eastern Compliance |
Ensure taxpayers accurately compute and recognize the gain or loss on the partial disposition of a building, including its structural components |
Issue-based examinations and potential changes to IRS forms and the supporting instructions and publications |
Judith McNamara |