Last month the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Oversight Board submitted its annual report to Congress.  The Board’s chair, Paul Cherecwich, is a retired tax executive who participated in the MAPI tax council program for a number of years.   Among other items, the report took note of two programs that affect MAPI member companies--the Compliance Assurance Process (CAP) for large corporate taxpayers and company reporting of “uncertain tax positions”.

The Board’s report noted that CAP was established as a pilot program in 2005 to provide a mechanism for large business taxpayers to identify and resolve tax issues before filing a corporate tax return.  Now a permanent program, CAP closed 93 examinations in 2011 (just shy of a goal of 102 closures.  The board’s report concluded that “increasing voluntary compliance and decreasing enforcement revenue is a highly desirable outcome”).

The Board also considered corporate reporting of “uncertain tax positions” commenting that this disclosure program is an important component of the Service’s strategy to improve voluntary compliance.