Nina E. Olson is a former

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

Taxpayer Advocate, and former head of the

Office of the Taxpayer Advocate The Office of the Taxpayer Advocate, also called the Taxpayer Advocate Service (TAS), is an office within the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, reporting directly to the Commissioner of Internal Revenue. The ...

, a government office dedicated to helping taxpayers solve their problems with the

Internal Revenue Service The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting U.S. federal taxes and administering the Internal Revenue Code, the main body of the federal statutory ta ...

. From 1975 to 1991, she was a

tax preparer Tax preparation is the process of preparing Tax return (United States), tax returns, often income tax returns, often for a person other than the taxpayer, and generally for compensation. Tax preparation may be done by the taxpayer with or without th ...

Chapel Hill, North Carolina Chapel Hill is a town in Orange, Durham and Chatham counties in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Its population was 61,960 in the 2020 census, making Chapel Hill the 17th-largest municipality in the state. Chapel Hill, Durham, and the state ca ...

National Taxpayer Advocate duties

As the National Taxpayer Advocate, Olson was the only

(IRS) employee authorized to make legislative proposals directly to the

United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...

. Twice a year, she identified the top problems taxpayers face to the IRS and Congress, and analysed how the IRS can ameliorate those problems. "No one in the treasury department and no IRS employees, including the Commissioner of Revenue and anyone from the

Office of Management and Budget The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is the largest office within the Executive Office of the President of the United States (EOP). OMB's most prominent function is to produce the president's budget, but it also examines agency programs, pol ...

, can see the report before I deliver it to Congress," Olson said, "I am truly an independent voice inside the IRS." In 2014, Olson predicted that the 2015 "filing season is going to be the worst filing season since I’ve been the National Taxpayer Advocate; I’d love to be proved wrong, but I think it will rival the 1985 filing season when returns disappeared." According to an article in January 2015 in

Politico ''Politico'' (stylized in all caps), known originally as ''The Politico'', is an American, German-owned political journalism newspaper company based in Arlington County, Virginia, that covers politics and policy in the United States and intern ...

, the annual report of the Taxpayer Advocate to Congress indicated that IRS service was deteriorating to unprecedented poor levels in all aspects of its work, mainly in pre-filing and filing activities and also in its enforcement activities. Congress removed 17 percent from the IRS budget since fiscal 2010 when

adjusted for inflation In economics, nominal value is measured in terms of money, whereas real value is measured against goods or services. A real value is one which has been adjusted for inflation, enabling comparison of quantities as if the prices of goods had not ...

while the agency was dealing with more

tax return A tax return is the completion of documentation that calculates an entity or individual's income earned and the amount of taxes to be paid to the government or government organizations or, potentially, back to the taxpayer. Taxation is one of ...

s than ever before. Each year, the IRS answers phone calls from about 100 million people. In 2015, the IRS was also implementing Obamacare.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Olson, Nina E. Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Internal Revenue Service people Bryn Mawr College alumni American women civil servants 21st-century American women