Yes, IRS forms can be made easier.
Now more than 24 million copies of easy-to-understand tax forms are filed every year
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Our ground-breaking, easy-to-understand, and easy-to-use forms have been adopted by the IRS over the last few years after the IRS, long criticized for complex and difficult forms, took major steps toward making employers' lives easier.
After years of making piecemeal fixes to forms and their instructions, IRS tried a different approach. Working with a task force of diverse IRS stakeholders, we began with the Form 941, Employer’s Quarterly Tax Report, a form that all employers file every quarter, making a total of more than 24 million forms a year — no small task to undertake.
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Widely applauded by the professional community, the revised form has been called:
”A welcome sight to many businesses, tax practitioners, and payroll companies … The form is easier to follow, and the instructions have been greatly improved.”
”The improved format should help all business owners, but especially new business owners… The form is much less confusing. The redesigned form features an improved layout, plain language instructions, simplified deposit reporting and paid preparer identification.”
This well-received publication recently won the 2008 Excellence in Writing for Clients (IRS Form 941 and instructions) presented by the Association for Professional Communication Consultants.
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Using that project as the model for design, language, and structure of the task force, we worked with IRS to to develop several other forms and their instructions, namely:
— Form 940, Employer’s Annual Federal Unemployment (FUTA) Tax Return
— Form 944, Employer’s Annual Federal Tax Return
— Form 8857: Request for Innocent Spouse Relief, Separation of Liability, and Equitable Relief
— Form 2678: Employer Appointment of Agent
— Form 12508: Questionnaire for Non-Requesting Spouse
— Schedule B, Form 941
— Schedule D, Form 941
— Schedule A, Form 940
— and the instructions for all of these forms
Working with Westat, a research company, we also rewrote, designed, and tested Publication 594, The IRS Collection Process, which the IRS published and continues to use.
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Center for Clear Communication ι 26 Hawthorn Court ι Rockville, MD 20850
(301) 340-1747 ι Clearly@aol.com
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