The IRS Designation - PDT and CAU - Have you received your yet?

Real estate professionals love getting real estate designations because designations validate their level of expertise in a particular subject matter.   I know real estate agents with more designations than they can put on their business card.  But the IRS  designation is not a designation you want to get or put on your business card.   I am an expert on the IRS and will be the first to admit that I do not like dealing with them.  But threatening them or presenting myself in a way that could be perceived as dangerous is something that I would never do.  Yet it happens enough that the IRS has designations for people who are perceived as a threat.  Do you have the IRS Designation?   I hope not!

Since front-line employees of the IRS may be exposed to many difficult, threatening and dangerous situations when dealing with taxpayers and their representatives, it is their priority to take care of the safety of their employees. The IRS has programs that help protect their front-line employees when interacting with individuals who are known to be violent, abusive, or pose some type of danger. These programs include the Potentially Dangerous Taxpayer (PDT) and Caution Upon Contact (CAU) programs.

These are two  designations that no citizen or real estate professional should ever earn: PST or CAU. Being on any of the two lists would not help you in dealing with the IRS.  The IRS designated 84 taxpayers with a PDT or CAU indicator.  Now this is special club of people.   Of the 2 million people that file tax returns  84 earned the PDT or CAU designations.  Can you believe it?  While this may be a small percentage, the risk to the IRS employee is very serious.  The IRS employees reported four incidents of physical assaults in the last four years.  I think we would all agree that one assault is one too many.   Perhaps the post office should come up with a similar designation for its own employees given their history.   Although lately the Post Office has not been in the news.  Thank God for that.

The objective of the IRS designation is to identify people who are designated as potentially dangerous or who need to be approached with caution. Unfortunately, the IRS has not developed sufficient procedures to identify people designated as PDT or CAU.  An individual’s tax account can be identified on the PDT or CAU using their Social Security Number (SSN).  However, employees rarely have access to an individual's SSN.  Without the SSN, the IRS employees will be unable to identify PDT or CAU indicator  until it too late. 

Now here is the dilemma, which can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your social or political persuasion. The IRS maintains systems that can be used to better identify PDT or CAU designations, these systems cannot be granted to employees due to privacy concerns. So instead, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration Office,  recommends developing a process to enable front-line employees to readily access PDT and CAU designation and to ensure that outreach and training is performed so that front-line employees will be equip to deal with the threat.   Let's see if happens.  In the mean time don't get the designation.

http://www.treasury.gov/tigta/auditreports/2014reports/201440020fr.html