The IRS on Tuesday announced that it will redesign and simplify the long and often complicated notices it sends to taxpayers every year.
Each year, the tax-collecting agency sends about 170 million notices to individual taxpayers regarding credits, deductions and taxes owed. But the notices have been previously "criticized as too long, filled with complex legal jargon and difficult to understand," Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said during a call with reporters.
Ahead of the 2024 filing season, the IRS is rewriting the notices as part of its new "Simple Notice Initiative."
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) building in Washington, D.C., on April 17, 2023. ((Photo by STEFANI REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images) / Getty Images)
"Redesigned notices will be shorter, clearer and easier to understand," Yellen said. "Taxpayers will see the difference when they open the mail and when they log into their online accounts."
Americans can officially start filing their individual income tax returns for 2023 on Jan. 29.
The updated notices will be rolled out over the next several years. Although some redesigned notices will start going out this year, the IRS said the majority will not be sent to taxpayers until the 2025 filing season.
A blank 1040 tax return form from the IRS. (iStock / iStock)
The overhaul stems from the Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law by President Biden in 2022.
The law directed $80 billion to the IRS to modernize technology, improve customer service, deliver real-time alerts, enhance customer service and crack down on the so-called tax gap by enhancing enforcement of the wealthy.