May 20, 1999 | Read Time: 1 minute
Officials at the I.R.S. have offered new details on how the agency’s major reorganization — scheduled to be completed this fall — could affect non-profit groups.
Evelyn A. Petschek, who will head the new Tax Exempt Operating Division, told an American Bar Association seminar in Washington that the I.R.S. is considering dividing its non-profit work into three categories. Each of the three areas — education and communications, rulings and agreements, and examinations — would be overseen by a national division commissioner. Currently, officials at the tax agency’s six regional divisions share responsibility for audits and other non-profit work.
Marc Owens, head of the service’s current non-profit unit, said the proposed changes could be helpful to charities and foundations that run into problems with the I.R.S. “There ought to be more easily discerned contact points here and quicker responses to dealing with whatever the problem is,” he said in an interview. “The idea is that all the pieces of the I.R.S. that impact a tax-exempt organization are going to be marching to a single drumbeat, as opposed to having multiple masters, as they do now.”
Mr. Owens added that all non-profit groups should benefit from the new attention that the I.R.S. expects to give to publishing “plain language” educational materials.
“If you’re the average organization out there with no problems,” he said, “you may simply notice a greater amount of stuff available about how to comply with the tax law.”
