GUWonder

I don't know. I do know that it's generally not the federal government that decides how to calculate the child support debts and penalties over payment-related problems/disagreements. The certification for that passport denial program is done by the US Department of Health and Human Services but it's all built on what the states feed DHHS.

In the matter of tax related passport denial, it's going to be entirely a federal government decision over who should and should not be denied a passport.

SkiAdcock

It doesn't take much in interest & penalties to get to $2.5K. A lot of everyday people could find that they can no longer get (or potentially) keep a passport.

Cheers.

GUWonder

Yes, but this is not about going after just fat-cats; it's about the budget and debt games the government plays when trying to appear to sort of make ends meet. If going after $2500 debts this way can pay for an overpriced bridge to nowhere wanted by some construction fat cats and their helping hands in Congress, then this will do to get the government business contract without Congress having to act as if these governmental pet projects are breaking the federal bank. This is a window into the context of why this came up in circles of concern that raised this and may pursue this eventually. The $50k trigger amount is pegged to increase by some measure of inflation, but I'm betting that this $50k trigger amount for passport denial is going to end up being subjected to a reduced trigger amount at some point of Congress' choosing.

GUWonder

This provision of law has not yet been fully implemented via the required regulatory mechanisms, and so there have been no passports denied/revoked because of this provision of law. While the IRS claimed some months back that this would change early this year, we are now in June and in a few weeks we will be in the latter half of the year.

WabiSabi89

To that end, the IRS updated their page on passport revocation on June 2nd by amending the header to remove the "early 2017" language in favor of "2017." At this point I'm beginning to wonder whether that's still a little optimistic for them.

They do appear to be making modest progress towards getting everything squared away internally to begin implementation. They published a page on their website in April discussing Notice CP508C which will be used to notify taxpayers that their passports are at risk of revocation, and have updated one section of the IRM to state the IRS procedures for passport revocation will be published here, under §5.1.12.27, which does not presently exist (at least in the public-facing version of the IRM).

GUWonder

Are you sure the change removing "early" in "early 2017" was removed on June 2nd? I'll try to have my internet logs pulled if possible, but I thought that when I made my prior post that the IRS site I saw it still noted as "early 2017". It indeed now reads without the word "early" in there.

I'm not sure how fast this will get fully implemented -- or if it even ends up happening in 2017 -- but eventually it will get implemented unless the law is changed.

WabiSabi89

As I mentioned in a prior post, I work as a Tax Attorney in the US and have been monitoring the changes pretty closely. That being said, I was actually notified of the change by a client of mine. I just checked my inbox; he sent me an email notifying me of the change on June 01, so the change was likely made prior to the 2nd. When I made my prior post I just checked the last revision date at the bottom of the page because I figured it hadn't been updated since then.

As a quick addendum to my prior post:

A blog article was posted on the Taxpayer Advocate's Website on June 7th that I just looked through today. The post contains an interesting tidbit that (to my knowledge) hadn't otherwise been made public yet:

I've said since the bill was passed that it was odd that the bill excluded from protection those that have been designated as CNC and those who have an OIC pending. Anyone who has been through the process with the IRS before knows that an OIC typically takes between 12 and 18 months for the IRS to make even an initial determination (let alone the appeals process), so the fact that the bill only provided protections for those who have had an OIC "accepted" seemed a bit silly to me. Both of these provisions are positive developments, and show the IRS is approaching this with a fair bit of tact and is willing to use administrative discretion to remedy the obvious shortcomings of the legislation itself.

GUWonder

If your US passport is cancelled/revoked while abroad, it's possible that you may end up deported back to the US if you don't have another passport or other recognized travel/residency/ID documents.

The appointment system data used to seek American Citizen Services at US Embassies/Consulates, for example, is also used to flag down some Americans and arrange for flagged down Americans of sorts to be seized by local authorities. This could include being set up to be arrested and deported to the US. And this may happen even to US citizens abroad who have rarely if ever stepped foot in the US. Just heads-up indication for when the government gets all its ducks in order to fully implement this international travel control measure.

GUWonder

The certification process so State inihibits passport entitlement is to start in January 2018, unless something else changes.

SkiAdcock

Does that mean that someone has until before then to renew a passport, or has that ship passed?

GUWonder

Until before then to renew.

GUWonder

The US Department of State is in a massive management mess, so take the following with that in mind: Treasury/IRS certification for this is to start in January 2018, but existing passport holders impacted by certification will have 90 days to attempt to keep their passport after notification of being impacted by this.

travelinmanS

Will this also apply to state tax debts that are reported to the IRS? Some states are worse than the IRS when it comes to trying to extort people to pay taxes they think they are owed.

GUWonder

Not at this point, as it would require a new federal law. But I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point in the future someone tries to toss that in as yet another ground to try to restrict the international movement of otherwise free US citizens..

SkiAdcock

GUWonder, can you clean out your PMs a bit. Your box is full & I need to send you a PM but can't currently do so. Thx.

Cheers.