A hearty thank you to Sandy Zinman, Chair of the NCCPAP Tax Committee, who continues to nurture and leverage relationships with the NY State Department of Taxation on your behalf. On September 14, 2017, nine NCCPAP members (representing the Westchester/Rockland and Nassau/Suffolk Chapters) met with 13 Directors/Assistant Directors from the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance at their offices in Albany. The NCCPAP team had compiled a lengthy list of issues that were submitted to the Tax Department in advance. If you run across an issue that appears to be a systemic problem, please do not hesitate to contact Sandy. We encourage you to maintain excellent relationships with your State Tax Departments, across the US, in addition to our work with the IRS at the Federal level.
Diane O'Donnell, Tax Department Director of Communications, will be at the
LITPS in November. The Department will provide a 100-minute panel discussion on "NY State Tax Department Tools and Resources to Integrate into Your Office".
Please see a summary of the September meeting below:
1. New POA-1 Web Application
The new POA-1 is a web application that can alternatively be printed and mailed to Albany. The Tax Department has tried to streamline the form. The taxpayer signature is mandatory and has to be attached as a PDF to the electronic filing of the POA. Once submitted, the approval or rejection will be completed within 24 hours. Any problems on the form will result in a call from the Department. The TR-2000 has been modified to make it easier to add a client to your list.
2. New ET-14 Form
There a new Form ET-14 (Estate Power of Attorney).
3. Easier to Add New Business to Tax Professional Pages
Online Services has made enhancements to the Tax Professionals pages. These enhancements should be tested and available in January 2018. New businesses will be easier to add.
4. Driver's License Info Requirement Amended to 3 Digits Only
The Tax Department uses Driver's License information on tax returns to compare with the DMV for identity theft protection. The new requirement will be amended to enter only the first 3 characters of the driver's license document ID number beginning 2017. Software providers are prohibited from carrying forward the driver's license information to the subsequent year. This information will have to be re-entered each year.
5. New Audit Letter and Standard Deduction Remain
The Tax Department is aware of issues caused by the new audit letter, which recalculates individual returns and overpayment refunds using the standard deduction. However, while they are revising the letter to remove questions of the fee paid to the preparer, the Tax Department has determined that this program is successful and will continue it.
6. Taxpayer Advocate Statistics
The Taxpayer Advocate handles about 2,000 cases each year; about one-third are resolved in favor of the taxpayer. BCMS handles about 4,100 cases annually and about 60% are closed at BCMS. The driver's license revocation program has handled about 26,000 cases with 5,000 licenses revoked and about 50% fully paid.
7. Self-Service App for Collections
The Collections Division has a new self–service IPA web application for liabilities with amount due under $20,000. These liabilities can be paid off in as much as 36 months (or less).
8. Residency Audits Will Continue
Clients who will not return as planned to Florida because of the hurricane should be careful about their residency status. The state will be forgiving about a few days but not longer.
9. Software Payment Date Default
All preparers should be aware that the Tax Department is requiring tax preparation software payment dates to default to the submission date. Payment dates can still be overwritten to another date, but each return payment date will have to be adjusted.
10. The Tax Department Wants to Hear From You!
The Tax Department people indicated emphatically that they would like to hear from us about problems on an ongoing basis.