In the Tax Chat! we first discuss the important work of Professors Pamela Herd and Don Moynihan in the field of public administration and apply their observations to U.S. tax administration.  Herd and Moynihan go beyond traditional cost/benefit analysis to identify three categories of burden: compliance costs, learning costs, and psychological costs.  While acknowledging that some administrative burden may be justified in order to protect the integrity of the program, rather than focus on the agency’s administrative burden, this analysis views administrative burden from the perspective of the taxpayer. 

In the Tax Chat! and in our draft article we review the various ways the U.S. Congress has attempted to get executive branch agencies to consider administrative burden.  The Regulatory Flexibility Act requires agencies to identify the burden a proposed regulation may have on small businesses; the Paperwork Reduction Act requires agencies to estimate the time spent on persons’ recordkeeping and preparation in filling out required forms; and the Privacy Act and Privacy Impact Assessments require agencies to document the reasons for a collection of data, the use to which that data will be put, and the privacy rights implications of the agency obtaining and using that data.

None of these approaches specifically identifies or measures the impact of agency procedures, regulations, and rules with respect to the excess administrative burdens they create for specific populations or their impact on the population’s ability to exercise taxpayer rights and protections.  Toward this end, as we discuss in the Tax Chat! and in our article, we propose a new mechanism, the Taxpayer Rights Impact Statement, which would require the tax agency to identify the populations disproportionately affected by a proposed (or existing) initiative, whether the proposed initiative would result in excess administrative burden based on the specific characteristics of that population, and if so, what steps can be taken to mitigate or eliminate that burden.  We propose this analysis not only be prepared in consultation with internal and external stakeholders but also be published on the agency’s website, similar to Privacy Impact Assessments conducted under the Privacy Act.  Finally, we apply the rights-based framework to a specific example relating to COVID relief.

We covered a lot in this Tax Chat! and there were lots of excellent questions and discussion.  I hope you will check this out.

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In the meantime, don’t forget to register for the 6^th International Conference on Taxpayer Rights.  We’ll resume with our monthly Tax Chats! in November, after our conference.

Hope all is well,

Nina

Nina E. Olson
Executive Director