Recently, the Tax Exempt and Government Entities (TE/GE) Business Operating Division issued their Fiscal Year 2019 Program Letter. This letter signals the areas of focus for the organization in the upcoming fiscal year.
The number of plan auditors and audits seems to be on the decline. To counterbalance the reduction in raw resources available to audit, the service is investing in efforts to better target audits to areas of high risk and potential non-compliance.
“TE/GE continually seeks to advance data and analytics to drive decisions about identifying and addressing existing and emerging high-risk areas of noncompliance to which it applies optimal resources. TE/GE has partnered with Research, Applied Analytics, and Statistics (RAAS) to design and test data-driven approaches to identify noncompliance in both EO and EP. We also took some initial steps to introduce new tools to visualize data to make it easier to identify opportunities to enhance our operations throughout TE/GE. In FY 2019, our partnership with RAAS will expand to include testing new approaches to identify noncompliance in TEB. We also anticipate broadening access for our managers and analysts to new visualization tools, which are becoming an industry standard.”
In short, the service will seek to use readily available data to aid them in targeting scarce audit resources. The message from the Commissioners further highlighted their goal to foster compliance through the utilization of its “robust voluntary correction program.”
Frequently plan sponsors outsource the preparation of government filings, like Form 5500’s for tax-exempt employers. Given the area of focus, plan sponsors would be well-advised to familiarize themselves with the plan 5500 filings, to ensure what’s being reported is accurate and doesn’t trigger potential audits in the areas of focus.
For a full copy of the Fiscal Year 2019 Program Letter, click here.
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