tv. advocateirs taxpayer nina olson on irs reform, tax law, and how to resolve tax problems with the irs. she joined us on mondays "washington journal." your cable or satellite provider. >> washington journal continues. host: each >> each week, we like to look at how your money is at work carried we will focus on the irs with the help of national taxpayer advocate nina olson joining us. olson joining us once again. -- irs national taxpayer advocate nina olson joining us once again. i had an organization, the taxpayer advocate service that is inside the irs but also independent. we help taxpayer solve their problems with the irs. it could be something the irs is doing or not doing creates economic harm to them or because they have been trying to get their issues resolved and they haven't been able to do it

through normal channels. they can come to one of my 79 offices around the country. host: you are independent of the irs. who do you report to? guest: i report to the commissioner of the irs by law. i and my employees are inside the irs so we can see the data and find out what's really going on. i am appointed by the secretary of the treasury and that access a safety valve. my direct boss cannot hire me nor can he fire the national taxpayer advocate. host: you also make plenty of reports to congress on issues facing the irs. what is the most recent report? guest: i'm required by law to provide two reports to congress each year and they have to go directly to congress before anyone in the irs or the treasury department or the white house or anybody sees it other than my own staff. june 30th inne was which we informed congress what we were focusing on for the next

fiscal year starting october 1. there were a whole bunch of issues we were saying we were going to focus on. quite a will go through few of those issues on the washington journal. we are inviting you to call in your questions about the irs and concerns about interacting. take yourre to questions and comments. eastern and central time zones, (202) 748-8000. mountain or pacific time zones (202) 748-8001. olson, one of the issues he will be focusing on in the next year is the continued implementation -- you will be focus on -- focusing on in the next year is the continued implementation of the tax cuts. what lessons have we learned about how this is being implemented? guest: this is a heavy lift. the irs has to reprogram computers.

they've have -- they have scores of tax reform forms that need to be changed. the treasury department has wanted the irs to come out with a new 1040 and eliminated -- eliminate the 1040a and the 1040e. people it will be very simple. others will have instead of just one or two forms they will maybe even have to file six schedules. that's out there for review. or you can gopage and look at it and i would encourage people to go and look at it and weigh in on what they think. irs andried about the the heavy lift for the filing season getting all the systems programmed. will this filing season need to be delayed? in many ways they are going to get it done. they will get it done. i don't doubt that. my second level of concern is what doesn't get done in order

to deliver tax reform? some of the normal improvements for taxpayer service and things like that get put on the back burner while you are trying to do something like this. host: what seems to confuse taxpayers the most when it comes to the tax cuts and jobs act? guest: one thing that is going to be a big issue for small business and self-employed is 199 cap a. 20% reduction for pass-through entities. that could be sole proprietors, partners, persons who have limited single owned limited liability companies. the first draft of the regulations for that provision that didn't yet go public or 261 pages and i don't think a small business person is going to read 261 pages. i think it's down to about 135. but it's very complex.

worried that different advisors will say one thing or another thing. the irs may say something completely different. host: you have talked about your concern about a shrinking irs budget. and how that's going to affect taxpayers. when it comes to the tax cuts and jobs act what more requirements are being put on the irs and was there any money built in to do that? guest: there was about $395 million that congress gave over two years for the irs to implement that and it will be able to hire more employees, particularly to answer the phones. in my june report we tested some questions under the old tax law. that came out of this program. last time a lot of people called up and said, has this changed? first of all what we've done in my organization is we have created a website at taxpayer advocate. irs.gov.

you can go there and look up questions by topic or you can formlly go to the 2017 1040 and click on the line and see whether anything has changed in the law whether it has gone up or gone down. if you click on dependency exemptions that like there are no more dependence. we have a child tax credit. at least you can look at your old tax return and say i wonder what's changed for next year. that's on our website and we tested some questions calling into the irs toll-free line. old law, law that hadn't changed and new law and we got really varying results. or has not been a lot of training on irs employees. if you call it may not be able to get answers to your questions as you are trying to plan and that's what i'm really concerned about. are people going to get good

aboutation from the irs the tax reform. host: give viewers the website one more time. advocate.payer irs.gov/tax changes. with ninang questions olson. talk about your interaction with the irs. brett isup first -- up first in florida. caller: good morning. and i tooklover ira about 10,000 last year with no taxes. how much can i take out with the new tax law without paying no taxes? all, depending on your age, if you are 59 and a half or older then you won't have an early withdrawal penalty on an ira. because if you take your money out of the ira early before you

are of what the congress has determined is retirement age starting at 59 and have they are going to penalize you because it is supposed to be in your savings for retirement. at that point congress and the increase the standard deduction to $12,000. muchs a baseline for how you would be able to take out. that's the standard deduction. think about that as the baseline. it also depends on what other kind of money -- income you have. that $12,000 covers all of your income. host: james in jackson, mississippi. go ahead. caller: good morning. i know you are on the show about three or four months ago. i found my taxes on february 1, 2018 of this year.

in the situation going through right now is that i have a 13-year-old and i have twin girls and their 11 years old and i have been claiming them since day one. now i'm getting an audit. and they want all this information. i'm in the process of going to the tax advocate as we speak. they want all types of information. birth certificate, school records. shot records. my apartment plumbing records, w-2 forms. i was wondering how long does that take to be processed because i have been calling the irs twice a month for the past i would like to know what is the hold up on this and how long will it take before i get my tax return. have a nice day. guest: thank you for calling. first of all i do encourage you to go to the taxpayer advocate service. you called in so you can tell

them that their boss sent you. if you look in the phone book on -- or on our website there is at least one office in every single state. wherever you live there is a local taxpayer advocate office serving your stay. some large states have more than one. when you go to the taxpayer advocate service you get one person assigned to your case and you will have an 800 number that rings right onto that person's extension. you might have to leave messages for that person but you are leaving it for a human being who has responsibility for your case. legos goes to what you are under. you are under an audit which is called a correspondence audit. about 75% of all irs audits of individuals are done by correspondence which means that no one human being is assigned to your case. every time you have called the irs you have gotten a different person.

and they are just looking on some system to see notes of whomever has made that -- talked to you before. but nobody is assigned to just handle your case. and a lot of times the documentation gets sent in and it just sits there for a while until somebody is available to work it. what you need to do because this obviously you need to get through this. the system isn't working. it has been long and delayed. get to the taxpayer advocate service. we will get you one person assigned. the bad news is that the easiest and fastest way may either we ask you to send us everything you have sent the irs. because we may not be able to find it in the irs. if we can get it from you then we can bundle it up perfectly. send it over and say, you need to deal with this in a certain amount of time and if you have questions you have to come back to us. we may say, you've got enough information. you don't need any more information.

make the decision. as person is entitled etc. host: the caller's concern is about audits. you have coined a term, real and unreal audits. what is the difference and why do they concern you? guest: an audit under the law as an examination of taxpayers books and records like what this gentleman was discussing. you can claim something on the return and now what it got to backup your entitlement to claiming your children as an exemption. have they lived with you for more than half the year? have you paid for more than half their support? etc. so that's an audit. the significant and that is that once the irs is doing it, one audit for ataxia. it is very unusual for them to do a second audit for the same year. you are done for the year unless there has been fraud or misrepresentation. with an unreal audit which is really the bulk of what the irs the in its contacts with taxpayers, takes like sending them a notice and saying you left off your 1099 for interest off of this return.

here's the extra tax. or you left a w-2 off. or you haven't filed a return and they create one for you based on all of your w-2s that they've got on their systems. lately they've been doing an enormous amount of math errors. you did something wrong but it doesn't amount to a full audit. that is youwith could do a full audit and any kinds of these other contacts, the irs has said they can go back several years and do these math errors which they've never done before. so you don't get any finality on your tax year. the other thing that it does is they report out an audit rate. right now their figures are less than 1%. but if you add in all of these like unreal audit and it's closer to 6% or 7% is the coverage of the united states. there's a lot more work going on and they are actually reporting and i think that is a

transparency issue. so there are taxpayer rights issues, finality, appeals, and the transparency and accuracy of the full picture. host: our breath in georgia -- barbara in georgia. good morning. caller: my husband died two years ago. he had an ira with a local bank. they send me the amount and so on. cpa.t it to my he pays tax on it. they won't give me the payout. i send them a certified letter saying please do that. nothing. they won't do it. guest: so you are asking for a full distribution of the account? caller: no. i'm just asking for the regular amount that is payout. i'm 80 and the account is dwindling down.

won't talk tobank me. guest: because it's not in your name? caller: is that why? guest: i don't know. one thing you might want to do is go into the local bank with the death certificate. they can roll over that account to your name and it want have any tax consequences because it's a rollover from a spouse to the survivor spouse. and maybe that will help. if they can see that you are the beneficiary of this along with the wealth or if the document demise it goes to you. caller: well -- ok. cpa said was they are holding my money hostage until i get an appointment with this high-powered sales pitch. guest: that may be true, too.

i would resist that. you might want to call your state consumer protection agency. because that's not appropriate. that might be something that they would be very concerned about. that that's going on. you might have some remedies there. host: thanks for the call. jen is in michigan. good morning. caller: good morning. sure if you can answer my question or not. do you actually work for the irs? i missed the very first minute. guest: yes. i'm inside. my organization is inside the irs. but congress has created this organization with all sorts of safeguards around it to protect our independence and our mission is to advocate for taxpayers. i think the reason why we are inside the irs is because we need to have access to the taxpayer data. we need to be able to see what the irs internal rules and

regulations are and what's driving the irs. are outside the irs is very hard to get that information if not impossible. caller: ok. since the beginning of last week since this change occurred, my understanding is treasury lawetary mnuchin changed regarding dark money with different entities. was the beneficiary so they don't have to disclose where they are getting their money? do you know anything about that or any of the other corporations or entities that are going to benefit from that change? guest: so this was a treasury announcement last week. and i'm not involved in that aspect of the policy at this point. i was not consulted. just to be clear, the law requires that 501(c)(3)

charities, these are your are charitable scientific organizations for which if you give money you can get a charitable contribution if you itemize your deductions. those charities have to disclose to the irs the name of any donor that gives over $5,000 year. that's the law and that hasn't been changed. that's for charitable organizations. what got changed last week was a ,egulation which treasury makes so treasury changed it, which applied the same rules that applies by law to the c threes. that's what we call the charitable organizations. forother kind of nonprofits which chart contribution deductions aren't eligible but they are nonprofits. they aren't taxed on their program income. that includes what we call social welfare organizations

that can do some -- that are designed to do lobbying and can do some political campaign activity. trade associations like the chamber of commerce etc. and it used to be that anyone who gave any of those --anizations five dollars $5,000 or more, the names had to be reported to the irs. treasury change that last week. some privacy advocates have been concerned. the annual returns of all of the nonprofits are made public or have to be made public because they are getting attacked -- we are subsidizing them because they are not paying taxes on the money that they received. so those returns reporting their activities and expenditures are public. the schedules of the donors were not disclosed because that's a privacy issue. some occasions, 14 times

over the last several years, certain donor names were disclosed by the irs mistakenly. they didn't redact them. i think that gave fuel to the fire to hide this information. that is a big controversial thing and members of congress are very concerned about it as well. i don't know whether they will take action legally and change the law to read the same way as it does right now for the charitable organizations. host: do you want to talk about the history of irs scrutiny of political organizations? that meant in terms of impacting irs's budget down the road? what a lot of a this comes from is that at one point in 2009 through 2012 the exempt statustax to these organizations and i have to apply for it. so the welfare organizations

don't need to apply for it but they would like to apply because they would like to have letter from the irs saying you are tax exempt. there were a whole bunch of tea party groups also occupy groups leading up to the 2012 election that were applying for status to be active, particularly after the citizens united supreme court decision. irs had questions. many of the employees had questions about some of these applications and they help them asking for guidance from national office and the guidance either didn't come more wasn't very clear and these organizations were held for years. congress asked for the inspector general to do a review and the inspector general found that the irs had a list called be on the list, bolo, that had freedom,e tea party,

occupy, 99% and they would pull organizations with any reference to that and put them in a pile waiting for guidance. that resulted in a whole series of hearings. people losing their jobs. people resigning. it resulted in the irs's budget being cut so that today we are at or below 2010 levels. we estimated that if you include budget hashe irs's been cut by 20% since 2010. host: about a half hour left with nina olson. the national tax their advocate taking your questions and concerns about your interactions with the irs. john is in singh augustine, florida. good morning. caller: my question has to do with forms. i'm one of those folks that still files taxes the old-fashioned way. always place my order over the phone in january.

this year it was done january 3. i made several subsequent follow-up phone calls and did not finally received the last of my forms until sometime in mid march. of course i was getting one story after another about the fact that congress didn't do anything until late in the year. late in getting their forms put together and so forth. is it going to be even worse now or can you give me any suggestions about how i can expedite getting forms to be filled out? guest: the comment about congress enacting changes late in the year is actually accurate. every are certain provisions in the internal revenue code expire. we call these sunset provisions. some of the reason that happens is when congress enact something that might reduce federal it also reduces federal revenue.

and the way congress does its budgeting you look at a 10 year window. so if it goes beyond that it may create on paper the huge cost and also in reality. so they sunset did. they say it's going to sunset after five years so it reduces the cost on paper, not in reality. thatroblem with that is every few years there are 40 or 50 tax law provisions that sunset. this year in 2018. there were a bunch of provisions that ended on december 31 20 17 and unless congress acts to filed them when you go to your 2018 returns either they won't either or usually what happens is congress extends them in december 2018 and the irs can't print forms for something that is not the law.

we don't know whether congress is actually going to do that. and that's what happened last year. some of these extended provisions got extended so late in the year, irs had to hold up its printing schedule. and that's a problem. all these new forms coming out. i encourage anyone to go to irs. does. they do have a place where you can look at under the new law various forms that you can see what it's going to look like going forward. and they are in draft form now. so you can see what they look like. if you are really interested in that you can do that. don't have an extender form, an issue that has caught up with the extenders and the people on the phones can actually tell you that. they are really tell you the truth when you call about that. if it's just the system isn't working you can go to a walk-in site and get them to print off a form. they say to make an appointment

but they also say that they will handle same day walk-ins for things like forms and making payments and things. visit the taxpayer advocate service if you don't have internet and my folks can print off the form. host: question from twitter. how does the irs make sure that companies like turbotax and h&r block get it right? the irs has an electronic return filer office and they work closely with the software companies. one of the concerns that i have is that the irs doesn't do testing to my knowledge. they don't go out with scenarios to see whether people have done things right according to the irs. a couple years ago my employees started getting complaints. we have what we call systemic advocacy function. not just dealing with one off taxpayer cases but systemic issues.

in that office we got a whole bunch of complaints from taxpayers saying that the software didn't allow them to enter certain exemptions for the penalty for not having insurance. sure enough when we went in we found three or four of the software companies had not asked the right questions or hadn't calculated the red exemptions that they could have automatically from the data. we were able to get them to change it. to my knowledge there is no testing of that kind of thing which i think is a real problem because so many taxpayers you software today. host: in hampton, massachusetts. good morning. caller: good morning. you and one to miss olson. it is good to see you here. out one grossint reaction of you in week ahead in

washington. a wacoler said he was survivor. you laughed at him. what's funny? you are ashamed. you get paid for that? host: i don't remember laughing about that. i do have a second. what's your question for the irs? with thisat is wrong tax law? you might be sticking your employee with a tax bill without even knowing it. it happened. host: i'm not quite sure what the question was. -- guest: i'm not quite sure what the question was. host: are not sure what it was either. we will go to maxine in wesley chapel, florida. good morning.

caller: i think she answered my main question. the question i have is because insurance wasi the 2017.o expire for and then after i have filed my 2017 itax in 2018 for wasn't in the turbotax. for that exemption. and then later on i get a letter from my mortgage company that said on february 8 they had agreed to allow the mpi insurance deduction. so that meant i had to go and file an amendment. when i go onto to the irs website that tells me that i have to allow 16 weeks from my refund. and so it has now been 18 weeks and when i go back on and look

at the status it is still showing processing. so how many more weeks to i have to wait? first of all, mortgage insurance premium and you are absolutely right. this is an example of an extender legislation. because you probably file your income tax return early you had an early version of the software. are in the exact same situation as the irs. their early persons are not going to include things that aren't yet the law. so they might send out updates later on when congress enacted things. but maybe you didn't get the update or you filed already before the update. so you do have to file an amended return. said 16 weeks to process. you have gone 18 weeks. what i would suggest is you reach out to your local taxpayer advocate service office. tell them i sent you. we can find out where the return is and most likely it is sitting somewhere that needs to be assigned to someone to process

through. we can get it signed. and get them to process it through. once it gets in its just a simple thing like that. the machines will take care of it. it is getting someone to actually look at it. and this goes to the cuts. when they are not enough bodies to do the volume of work and the work is incremental. there's the normal work of just going through the regular filing season and then you add onto that they extender -- late extender so folks have to fire amended returns -- file amended returns. for each taxpayer that's two returns. millionit affects 10 that's 10 million more pieces of paper the irs needs to process. that means more employees need to be there to do the extra work. it sort of snowballs. host: in terms of the amount of employees at the irs and whether they can do all the work that they have any tough about the

role of private debt collections agencies when it comes to collecting all the taxes? guest: the irs doesn't incredible job -- taxpayers do incredible job. involuntarilypay $3.7 trillion a year with their income tax returns and through the payroll system. that is just extraordinary. then the irs itself through its own collection employees collects about $40 billion year. but there is still a lot of debt. that isn't collected out there. several billion dollars on the books that the irs is not able to get to to assign its employees. arguef that debt we would the vast majority of that text there cannot afford to pay and that's why they haven't paid it. they can't make their basic living expenses. congress said many years ago,

, passed into law that the irs could use private debt collectors and pay them on commission. but they only said that debt collectors could collect full or put taxpayers into a five-year installment agreement. they could get financial information to put that to the irs so the irs could put them in an account called currently not collectible hardship. which means you can't afford to pay your basic living expenses so we are not going to get blood from a stone. the first go around didn't work. irs stopped it because it was not really being very effective. came back a few years ago in mandated rather than saying you can use this, you have to use it. looking at the data. it has been in place for a year. what we have looked at is that

about 20% of the taxpayers who are actually making payments to the private debt collectors have income at or below federal poverty level. the wiki and income was about $6,000 a year. under no stretch of imagination with the irs collect any money whatsoever from that taxpayer. taxpayers whohe are entering making installment agreements, their income is below the allowable living expenses which means they can't afford to pay their basic living expenses but they are making installment agreements. and when you look at what happens to those installment agreements more than a quarter of them, 26% of them default me. -- default. which means they start making payments and then stop. to the private% debt collectors to the 18% with the irs. the irsthat's because

isn't screening out taxpayers who really can't afford to pay before they send them to the private debt collectors. say i personally believe that the collection of federal tax debt is inherently governmental duty. requires the exercise of judgment and discretion you just can't -- people's lives are complex. you need to have a conversation with taxpayers. that's not what i'm looking at in my analysis of this program. congress has already spoken. they want -- they are mandating the irs use private debt collection. so what i'm looking at is how is the irs implementing it? f for notet an screening of persons that are not allowed to pay -- not able to pay. when they get private debt collectors they agree anything to just get off the phone. host: a nonprofit coalition working to advance this program that we are talking about, that

group out with a press release earlier this month saying nina olson has consistently made false and misleading claims about the irs and its private debt collection program. own political agenda. they say the program is growing into a successful public private that strengthens the irs and provides funding for federal programs benefiting millions of americans. it also offers taxpayers voluntary and manageable solutions that allow them to achieve a zero tax balance. guest: first of all, they misspelled my name so we can talk about accuracy. no political agenda. i am not a political appointee. i am not senate confirmed. my agenda is in the internal revenue code. congress has mandated that i help taxpayers solve their problem with the irs and make recommendations to mitigate those problems. so to make taking money from people who cannot afford to pay their basic living expenses actually goes against congress's

intent where it has put into the basicnsideration of living expenses in various collection activities that the irs does. so what i'm focusing on is how the irs is choosing the cases to send out the private debt collectors and i think they are selecting them in a way that harms low income taxpayers who cannot afford to pay their basic living expenses. and that means medicine, food, housing, basic transportation. we are not talking about going to harvard and having vacations in the bahamas. so i think that is squarely within my mission. i think the concern from the thatte debt collectors is you and i in this age of identity theft and scams, if we see an unrecognized phone number , weing up on our phones don't answer it. we let it go to voicemail. the people who are the most vulnerable, the elderly. people who don't have that kind of sophistication and consumer

protection pick up the phones. they're the ones talking to the private debt collectors and they are also the ones that can't afford to pay. this can all be avoided if the irs and an algorithm that screened out these people and in the 21st century it is shameful that the irs has not done that. host: we've got about 15 minutes left with nina olson this morning. taking your calls, looking to solve your tax problems. joe has been waiting in illinois. good morning. caller: good morning c-span. make you for taking my call. i think c-span does a wonderful job. over 65. and i'm i was wondering is that exemption still going to be in place in the new tax code? guest: yes. and i actually know that for a fact because the last time i was on this show someone asked about that and i didn't know the ander and i went back actually that led to our creation of this tax change website so you can go to the

2017 1040 or onto the site and it is 508 compliant if that helps you. which is the code section that says that it has to be visually adaptable for people that need assistance looking at things online or translated into audio. that you can look and see that on that line of the return for that particular provision yes, it has been retained under the law. sharon in georgia. good morning. caller: good morning. i just want to call and let everyone know that if you can hear my voice, no matter how small your tax problem is, please contact your local tax advocate. because they will help you. thank you. host: it sounds like you have a story to share of your own. have you ever done that? caller: yes i have. i had a problem with some taxes. the bank didn't send me the form

that i should have filed with my taxes. upouple years later they end saying that i owed taxes. so i got in touch with the tax advocate and they did as much as they could. they looked at the problem. they will help you. that's what i really want to say to any taxpayer out there. they will go the extra yard to help you. guest: thank you for that and i'm glad that happened. i do hear occasionally from people where we have fallen down on the job and i just want to say where that has happened that what you need to do, we have local offices and people individual people are assigned to your case. one person to your case. sometimes that person may be out sick but they are assigned to your case. and if you feel like the service isn't doing a good job then reach out. every office is headed by a local taxpayer advocate and that's the head of the local office. reach out to that person.

me if not you can contact and my phone number. my email is out there. you can contact me and we will figure out a way to take care of you. host: denise in upper marlboro, maryland. good morning. caller: good morning. i have a problem about the tax cut. itause when i file my taxes stated that after the president signed the jobs cut act it would be applied. and i've never gotten it. guest: the tax cuts and jobs act doesn't apply to the return that you just filed. in 2018 but it was for the 2017 tax year. teen is the first year that the provision in the jobs and you won't

really see the impact of it until you file your 2018 tax return in 2019. one thing that i really suggest people do is there's a new w-4 out for calculating your exemptions and there's also a calculator that the irs has on the website. it isot really easy, but a calculator out there and i really encourage people to either use the new w-4. it's not required by law that you do it. w-4 or the calculator to make sure you have enough withholding taken out. most wage earners if all of your income is just coming from wages you are going to be pretty ok. if you self-employment income or other kind of income you might want to use the calculator to make sure you are not shorting yourself. host: stella asked, how much can i just might get an attack of ways yo?

guest: i forget the annual exclusion. it might be up to $2000. can look it up on the irs website. there are also private websites. it is indexed for inflation. and youre married spouse and you can gift the same amount it would be doubled the amount. if you go over that in any given year generally you would need to file a gift tax return and then there's an estate tax at the end where you calculate it all up. the law has changed those thresholds and raise the amount that would make a taxable estates of that very few people in the united states lead -- very few people in the end would have to file an estate tax return. host: taking your text questions

with nina olson, the national taxpayer advocate. with us for about 10 more minutes. rodney is in clermont, florida. good morning. caller: i was calling because i had an issue with the taxes. andife has multiple myeloma she was out of work for about a year. thats paying our taxes they had told us to pay extra. this cancer is a very vicious cancer. most people don't live for four years with this. she had a stem cell transplant so it prolonged her life little longer. but my thing is, the hospital -- it gets to be so expensive. we owe so much money in hospital and ourd medicine co-pay is ridiculous. she's trying to live. you know?

my thing is i don't understand $15,000, 10lt -- thousand dollars. i'm getting all these letters. i explained that them when they first went to the hospital. i don't understand how can i get this off of that because we can't really afford to do this. guest: is this about a tax? you're getting letters about a tax problem? the irs is saying you own them? let's assume that's the case. that you are getting letters from the irs and you got all these other medical bills. there is a provision called offer in compromise. let's say the debt is correct. you got behind on your taxes. here you've got this catastrophic illness in your family. can't afford to pay the taxes and you are really struggling right now. the foreseeable future. there's a program called the offer in compromise program which will compromise the tax debt.

ands say you owe $30,000 the irs will look at your ability to pay. that's where those allowable living expenses come in. how much do you need to live and hear that would include your medical expenses that you are paying out. because you need them to live. and any transportation and things like that that go with that. i can calculate the monthly amount that you can afford to pay. it could be zero. that you can't afford to pay anything. and they look at your assets. they come up with a number which could be very low. we have compromised debts for taxpayers at $100. is based on your ability to pay. any sound that you have even some very special circumstances there. and that gets rid of your debt forever. you have to promise that you will be in tax compliance for the next five years or the debt will get right back in place.

that's part of the deal that you make. and i would really encourage you to call your local taxpayer advocate and one thing that they can do and i don't know your financial situation but if you are low income and that's not a level, that's 250% of poverty level. there are low income taxpayer clinics around the country who are designed to help people like you and they have lawyers and cpas and enrolled agents who are volunteers and attorneys on their staff will take your case free of charge and represent you before the irs. so if you call the taxpayer advocate service they could not only help you with your case but maybe even refer you to a low income taxpayer clinic, give you the names of the clinics in your area you might be able to get assistance from their to resolve your debt. didn't want to run out of

time without asking you about this story print thousands of americans will be denied a past board because of unpaid taxes. irs officials provided details on it passed in 2015. guest: congress passed this law. they have the line for like that child support. support.hild the child-support agencies would tell department of state, don't do than the passport until they get their child support. if it is passed that saying if you have a tax debt today its inflation-adjusted so it's over 51,000 and you didn't get an offer in compromise. --'re not in installment of installment agreement. the states to tell department you have the debt and the state department will not give you a passport or renew your passport unless you get into an installment of -- agreement.

i have been looking very closely at the procedures for that and i have a lot of can serves about the way it is in and in that program. host: what are some of those concerns yet the guest: they are not giving taxpayer sufficient notice. if you give the taxpayer's 30 day notice before you are going to certify that meets constitutional procedural due muster. it gives you a chance to come in before the harm has happened. we have already seen cases where the irs has certified people incorrectly instead they send out a letter pretty much at the same time that they sort of to the department of state so the harm is already done and you are backing up something rather than having a 30 day period to really fix it or go in and say, i don't know this debt. we have had situations where the taxpayers don't owe the debt and a half to get it all result in a

get it all resolved. host: ruth is in pennsylvania. good morning. caller: good morning. host: go ahead. caller: i was calling to ask weston. 2012 my family -- college kids -- guest: i missed that. could you repeat that? in 2012 my son went to college and i sent his paperwork. ok? 2012. and his school closed. he didn't get new kind of degree or anything. but i had to pay the money back and he didn't get no degree. school closed and they took my money. i was wondering why did they do

that. i thought when you go to school to go to get some kind of degree so you can move on. guest: there have been a number of things -- the issues we have been looking at our student debt where the schools have closed. there is thatns the loans are written off. you don't have to repay them. you end up having taxable income because you got debt forgiveness. provisionsave been where the treasury department has said you actually don't have to pay any taxes on that debt forgiveness dealing with some of these closures. i think what you are saying is you actually paid hard cash for the education and they closed and didn't get any education. that's not as i understand describing it in tax issue. but there i really would go to your state attorney general

which has a fraud division. they may be looking at that action and there's -- in their state about that school. there may be several attorney general's looking at that. you may be part of that action. so if you paid it out and you were basically robbed or fraud was committed. go to the consumer protection agency or your state attorney general because often under state laws there's remedies. host: what if she had used 529 college savings plan money to do that? would there be any penalty on her for using that money if the school closed? guest: i don't think so. but if she had been she could go to the taxpayer advocate service and we can figure it out. i haven't seen that area. -- scenario. the irs saying it is disallowed because you didn't get an education.

that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. that she go to the taxpayer advocate service. host: susan in dayton, ohio. good morning. caller: good morning. i'm a retired social worker /mental health therapist. and i work contract and receive a 1099. i file a schedule c. i'm calling about that 20% reduction for sole proprietors. i thought i would receive it as long as i didn't make like over $250,000 or something. guest: ok. so the rules are not yet finalized on that. that it doesn't go into effect until this year. so you will see it on your 2019 return. proprietor as long as

you are not in certain professions you would be eligible for that deduction. and i haven't seen the final rules to know whether mental is one offessional those professions. but you are right. there is also an income cap or an income threshold as well. is go tocommend you do the irs.gov site to be able to see. they will publish the schedule c form and then the instructions and it will be published in draft. it won't be finalized but that will give you a heads up as soon as they publish it as to whether it has changed. you can also go to our text changes to. -- changes site. we will put up the schedule c and link to the irs guidance as soon as they have it out.

be another way because the whole point of our text change site is for you to say what has happened to my tax is their newere information and an easy way to navigate it. host: did that answer your question? i think we lost susan. in alabama. good morning. back during ivan, the hurricane down but gulf shores -- by gulf shores, i live about nine miles from the beach on the golf course. i had all of these beautiful live oaks. ii had won the side of my house that was blown all the way over to the middle of the fairway. i lost my river birches, pine trees. branchdid, there was a , forestryuniversity

and other stuff and i went to them and got an estimate. i took pictures and everything. i got an estimate on what those trees would cost to replace. they came up, they gave me brochures and they based it on live oaks and mobile in places and they gave me an estimate of around $30,000. i called the irs back when you could talk to them and not a robot. i talked to a supervisor and told them what i had done and could i claim that and he said yes you can and with the hurricane seasons coming up, this may be some information that people ought to know about. $30,000 onlaim that my income tax -- i got to claim that $30,000 on income tax. i was glad to sell our house

that april and get back up here in the mountains. i did not want any more hurricanes. guest: i am sorry for what you went through. and inseen both in texas i haven't all of those places and have seen the devastation and i am really sorry for what you went through. i will say this. the casualty loss rules have changed for the 2018 return. one of my takeaways from this program is that i need to make sure that we have that form up on our tax changes website. peoplean make sure that can check out what is going to 2019lowed in 2018 and going forward, and what is not going to be allowed historically. host: i wonder if the call speaks to the importance of

talking to a live person. caller: you prepare your cell -- guest: you prepare your self for something challenging and there is no replacing talking to a live person. you can check the balance on your account and make sure things are moving properly. when you have issues like that, when you have collection issues, you need to talk to a live human being, somebody who is -- who preferably has skin in the game. host: we all -- we are all very happy to have talked to you and have you with us. journal,'s washington live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up, cq health care discusses the future of

the affordable care act. and brian costello will be on to talk about the trump administration's trade policy. john sarbanes will be with us to talk about the democrats' role in the midterm election. that is this morning at 7 a.m. eastern. watch washington journal wednesday morning when members of the agricultural committee discussed how the trade and terra policies are impacting the bottom line. on friday, a discussion on the opioid crisis live from baltimore, maryland. >> here is what is on the networks on tuesday. house 10 a.m. eastern for morning our speeches. legislative work begins at noon. taking of the measure that would eliminate the medical device tax. the senate debates the number of spending measures. interior, financial services, transportation and agriculture spending this week. on c-span 3, the house you were

-- oversight committee looks at u.s. election security. at noon eastern, president trump delivers remarks at the veterans of foreign wars convention. after that, members of the u.s. olympic committee, usa gymnastics and michigan state university testify on changes of the institutions have made to protect amateur athletes from sexual abuse. that begins at 2:30 p.m. eastern. ahead of the summer recess, british prime minister theresa may took questions from the parliament about the current brexit negotiations. it came under fire when two cabinet officials, boris johnson resigned overs, disagreements. the u.k. is scheduled to leave the european union march 20 9, 2019.