IRS Is Ending The Taxpayer Advocacy Panel. Here’s What We Know.
The IRS has decided to end the Taxpayer Advocacy Panel (TAP) as it currently exists and replace the volunteer advisory panel with what the agency describes as a broader, more technology-focused approach to gathering public feedback. What that might look like isn’t yet clear.
Immediate Changes to TAP
The change has not been widely publicized. The IRS website still lists TAP as an active federal advisory committee. And until very recently, TAP also maintained a separate public website, ImproveIRS.org, featuring its members, current projects, meeting information, reports, and a form for taxpayers to submit suggestions. That site was still publishing new TAP content on September 16. Now, however, the site’s main address redirects visitors to the IRS’s general Taxpayer Advocate page.
That tracks with a September 17 letter to TAP National Chair Philip Hwang, in which Frank J. Bisignano (acting as the IRS’ “CEO,” a position created administratively by Treasury and not subject to Senate confirmation) wrote that the agency had “made the decision to conclude TAP’s work in its current form” as the IRS transforms into what he called a “digital-first agency.” The IRS says TAP will be replaced with “a new, broader forum for public engagement,” with a greater focus on online and digital offerings. Details about what that will look like have not been released yet.
Bisignano’s letter also indicates TAP will be allowed to “accomplish its work this year.” However, TAP members were told that the panel’s work will conclude on November 30, 2026.
What is TAP?
TAP is a federal advisory committee composed of roughly 75 volunteers who serve three-year terms and are expected to volunteer 200 to 300 hours each year. According to the IRS, TAP staff handles recruiting and administering the volunteers who make up the panel. Members undergo a strict vetting process, including a lobbyist check (applicants must not be a federally registered lobbyist), an Office of Professional Responsibility check, a federal tax compliance check, and a fingerprint background investigation.
TAP includes representatives from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico, as well as a member representing U.S. taxpayers living and working abroad. Its role is to listen to taxpayers, identify recurring problems, and recommend how the IRS can improve its services, products, and procedures. That can include everything from confusing IRS notices to frustrating administrative processes.
TAP members conduct grassroots outreach, participate in meetings and focus groups, and work with IRS program owners on projects. In practical terms, taxpayers tell TAP what’s not working, and TAP takes those concerns to the IRS.
The panel traces its roots to 1998, when Treasury created the first Citizen Advocacy Panel as part of a broader push to reform the IRS and give ordinary taxpayers a more direct voice in how the agency operated. The first panel was created in South Florida, with pilot panels following in Brooklyn, the Midwest, and the Pacific Northwest. In 2002, Treasury expanded the program nationwide and renamed it the Taxpayer Advocacy Panel; the first nationwide TAP included 102 members.
Since then, the panel says it has forwarded more than 3,169 recommendations to the IRS. Some of those recommendations have led to changes taxpayers would recognize. In a Federal Register notice earlier this year, the IRS credited TAP’s work with helping introduce callback technology on IRS toll-free telephone lines, improving procedures involving third-party authorizations and identity verification, clarifying taxpayer rights involving Form 8821, improving installment agreement notices, and contributing to a complete rewrite of Form 709, the federal gift and generation-skipping transfer tax return.
In 2025 alone, TAP submitted 20 referrals containing 188 recommendations. (While the news announcement about the recommendations remains on the IRS website, the link to the annual report redirects back to the IRS’s general Taxpayer Advocate page.)
A Change of Direction
TAP isn’t mandated by Congress. It is a federal advisory committee established by Treasury under its authority to administer the tax laws and governed by the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA). Its charter is renewed every two years and is filed with the House Ways and Means Committee, the Senate Finance Committee, and the Library of Congress.
That’s what happened recently. In March 2026, Treasury announced it was reestablishing TAP for another two years, saying the panel’s continued operation was “in the public interest.”
At the time, Treasury described TAP as providing a “unique, independent structure” for obtaining nationwide grassroots taxpayer input. The government said the panel offered taxpayers a “transparent and structured forum” to influence tax administration and noted that, from December 2023 through November 2025 alone, members conducted more than 1,300 outreach activities and dedicated more than 8,000 hours to reaching more than 150,000 taxpayers.
As recently as August 24, the IRS published a Federal Register notice announcing the September 16 public meeting. The agenda included discussion of “new and continuing issues and other activities related to the new TAP year.” The letter outlining the intent to end TAP in its current form followed the next day.
Bisignano’s September 17 letter says the new forum would make it easier for more taxpayers, tax professionals, stakeholders, and advocates to share their experiences and ideas directly with the IRS. He also emphasized that the decision “does not diminish the value of the TAP or the contributions of its members.”
National Taxpayer Advocate Reacts
In a separate September 16 letter to Hwang, National Taxpayer Advocate Erin M. Collins praised TAP’s work and acknowledged the coming transition.
Collins, whose office has long worked closely with TAP, credited members with improving IRS processes, forms, notices, and procedures. “Some of the best ideas for improving tax administration come from the people who experience it every day,” she wrote.
Collins noted that the IRS intends to use new technology and other methods to gather ideas directly from taxpayers and the public. But she stressed that while the method may be changing, the need to listen to taxpayers remains.
“The decision to transition from a volunteer panel to a new model for obtaining public feedback does not diminish TAP’s accomplishments or the extraordinary value of the service its members have provided,” Collins wrote. “Quite the opposite.”
What happens next?
The decision caught many, including me, off guard. It’s unclear what comes next.
Bisignano’s letter states only that the IRS will create a broader public-engagement forum with greater emphasis on technology and online interaction. It does not explain how taxpayers will be selected to participate, how recommendations will be developed or tracked, whether meetings will be public, or whether the new forum will operate under FACA.
Importantly, under FACA, TAP operates within a formal structure that includes a charter, open-meeting requirements, and other public-accountability measures. Whether the IRS’s new model will preserve those features remains unclear. What is clear is that after more than two decades, TAP in its current form is coming to an end.
