Due to a lack of demand the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has announced that it is doing away with the appeals arbitration program. Revenue Procedure 2015-44 will do away with the program that was originally set up as a two-year pilot program in 2000. The program let tax payers attempt to expedite the appeals process by being able to request arbitration for certain factual issues subject to the appeals administrative process. In the end this program had very little practical impact because during the 14-year period that this program existed only two cases were settled using arbitration. The new program will become effective on September 21, 2015, when the IRS publishes the new revenue procedure in its Internal Revenue Bulletin.
See Michael Cohn, IRS Eliminates Appeals Arbitration Program, Accounting Today, September 8, 2015.
