January 31, 2017

IRS announces initial rollout of campaigns

The IRS Large Business and International division has announced the identification and selection of 13 campaigns. This is a significant milestone for LB&I in the campaign effort. LB&I is moving toward issue-based examinations and a compliance campaign process in which the organization decides which compliance issues that present risk require a response in the form of one or multiple treatment streams to achieve compliance objectives. This approach makes use of IRS knowledge and deploys the right resources to address those issues.

The campaigns are the culmination of an extensive effort to redefine large business compliance work and build a supportive infrastructure inside LB&I. Campaign development requires strategic planning and deployment of resources, training and tools, metrics and feedback. LB&I is investing the time and resources necessary to build well-run and well-planned compliance campaigns.

These campaigns were identified through LB&I extensive data analysis, suggestions from IRS compliance employees and feedback from the tax community. LB&I's goal is to improve return selection, identify issues representing a risk of non-compliance, and make the greatest use of limited resources.

As part of this effort, LB&I leaders will continue discussion with the tax community to assist with work on these areas to best meet the needs of the taxpayers as well as tax administration. These discussions will also help in determining additional areas for future campaigns.

The 13 campaigns selected for this initial rollout are:

These campaigns represent the first wave of LB&I's issue-based compliance work. More campaigns will continue to be identified, approved and launched in the coming months.