Tax season was smooth, AICPA tells Congress.

"It's been a smooth tax filing season," the AICPA told Congress recently. Tax practitioners are "generally pleased" with the performance by the Internal Revenue Service this year, Tom Purcell, chair of the AICPA's Tax Executive Committee and an Associate Professor of Accounting and Professor of Law at Creighton University in Omaha, testified at a hearing by the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight.

Purcell addressed a range of topics in his testimony before Congress, as the hearing focused not only on the tax filing season, but also on the IRS's budget for 2006 and tax administration issues.

Full funding of the IRS's budget is vital, Purcell said, to give the IRS "the resources necessary to properly process tax returns and enforce the tax laws." The AICPA also supports the focus of the proposed budget on increasing staffing and resources in the enforcement area, he said, but urged that an "appropriate balance between enforcement and taxpayer service" be maintained.

Purcell testified that the AICPA has urged the IRS to delay by at least a year the mandatory electronic filing program for large corporations and exempt organizations that the IRS intends to implement for the 2006 tax filing season.

Regarding the tax gap that the IRS recently identified as being in excess of $312 billion, Purcell said, "We believe tax simplification can play a significant role in helping to reduce the overall tax gap, as simplification would result in fewer errors on tax returns and reduce taxpayer susceptibility to the marketing of abusive tax shelters."

In his testimony, Purcell also focused on the importance of continued funding for IRS's Business Systems Modernization program. The AICPA believes that the BSM program goals "are critical to future IRS success" because the program is designed to change the way the IRS conducts business with taxpayers and stakeholders.