IRS "Adopts" Taxpayer Bill of Rights, Except No Actual Taxpayer Rights Adopted

The IRS issued a press releases this week, which can be found here, alerting taxpayers to the newly adopted Taxpayer Bill of Rights, which are outlined here.  Except there are no new rights and nothing can be "adopted" when it is a list of responsibilities and rights already belonging to the IRS and taxpayers.  Imagine if McDonald's put a customer "Bill of Rights" on their menu, which said that, when you pay for a hamburger, we'll give you a hamburger, except when we don't, in which case you can complain to your cashier and then to the manager to see if they care.  The IRS's Taxpayer Bill of Rights, included in Publication 1, which presumably will be sent to taxpayers during audits, provides the following:

The Right to Be Informed

The Right to Quality Service

The Right to Pay No More than the Correct Amount of Tax

The Right to Challenge the IRS’s Position and Be Heard

The Right to Appeal an IRS Decision in an Independent Forum

The Right to Finality

The Right to Privacy

The Right to Confidentiality

The Right to Retain Representation

The Right to a Fair and Just Tax System

The problem with this list of rights isn't just that they don't (and can't, as a matter of law) provide additional, substantive, judicially-enforceable rights to taxpayers than can be found in statutes, regulations, and case law.  Even outside of a court of law, parallel changes to the IRS's Internal Revenue Manual would be needed adding more responsibilities to IRS employees for this list to have any teeth when a taxpayer fights against the IRS. Without the force of law or a substantive change in internal IRS procedures, they are little more than PR Buzz.  It is as though they were trying to put a positive spin on something that intuitively sounds unpleasant.  I imaging the process went something like this:

     IRS Commissioner, to PR Guy: I want to make sure the taxpayers know that the IRS can collect every penny you owe in taxes, including interest and penalties, every cent of it! 

     PR Guy:  But that sounds pretty negative.  It won't come off well for us...

    IRS Commissioner:  How about, "The good news is the IRS can't collect more than you owe."

     PR Guy:  I don't know.  I think taxpayers will see right through it.

     IRS Commissioner:  Make it happen!

Even if that weren't the exchange, we still somehow ended up with "The Right to Pay No More than the Correct Amount of Tax."

According to the IRS, this means "Taxpayers have the right to pay only the amount of tax legally due, including interest and penalties, and to have the IRS apply all tax payments properly."  That sounds great!  But, what is "the amount of tax legally due?"  Under the law, when the IRS assesses a tax, that becomes tax legally due.  That amount grows with interest and penalties, and you have to pay those, too, because they are also legally due. Then, what does it mean to "apply all tax payments properly?"  Under well-established law, unless you specifically direct a tax payment you make to a specific tax year, the IRS can properly apply that payment to any of your tax liabilities for any year as the IRS sees fit.  So, this "right" amounts to this: "The IRS can collect all the taxes, penalties, and interest you owe until they are fully paid, and the IRS will apply your payments to your taxes, but will do so in a manner fits its own best interest in most cases."

Ultimately, there should be one item in the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, bolded for emphasis: You have the right to not blindly trust the IRS to act in your best interest.  Put that on a poster and slap it on the IRS walls.

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