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CLIENT ALERT: Taxpayer Passport Application will be Denied Due to Unpaid Taxes

Client Alert
July 23, 2018

In late 2015, Congress passed The Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (FAST) into law. This law allows the IRS and State Department to refuse to issue a Passport if the taxpayer has a seriously delinquent tax debt. The law also permits the IRS and State Department to revoke a taxpayer’s Passport for these same delinquent tax debts. To be considered a seriously delinquent tax debt, the tax debt must total more than $51,000.

 

While some taxpayers may not think they have unpaid taxes near the $51,000 threshold, the amount includes penalties, interest, and assessed taxes. These added amounts could easily increase a taxpayer’s tax liability above $51,000.

 

Enforcement began in February 2018 and the IRS has been actively alerting the State Department of individuals who owe more than the threshold. The IRS expects to have a complete list of taxpayers who fall into this category to the State Department by the end of the year. As of now, the State Department has only been denying Passport applications and has not revoked an active Passport. However, revocation could happen at any time and a taxpayer who tries to renew a Passport will be denied.

 

Individuals who owe the IRS unpaid taxes can contact Tracy Derteen, Esq. at (330) 253-9195 (tlderteen@bmdllc.com) to discuss all available options to address the tax liability or other tax matters.

IRSTax Law
Client Alert

A Win for the Hospitals: An Update on the Latest 340B Lawsuit

June 16, 2022On Wednesday, the Supreme Court unanimously rejected massive payment cuts to hospitals under the 340B drug discount program. Now, the Department of Health and Human Services no longer has the discretion to change 340B reimbursement rates without gathering data on what hospitals actually pay for outpatient drugs. This “straightforward” ruling was based on the text and structure of the statute, per the Supreme Court. Simply put, because HHS did not conduct a survey of hospitals’ acquisition costs, HHS acted unlawfully by reducing the reimbursement rates for 340B hospitals.Client Alert

New Office of Environmental Justice Announced

June 9, 2022The profound impacts of climate change, combined with environmental and industrial pollutions, have led the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to establish the Office of Environmental Justice (OEJ). The creation of OEJ aligns with President Biden’s Executive Order Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad. The OEJ will be led by Sharunda Buchanan, a former official for the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and will target disadvantaged communities around the country in hopes of improving the health of those populations and preventing future harm.Client Alert

New York, Kansas, Massachusetts, and Delaware Become the latest States to Adopt Full Practice Authority for Nurse Practitioners

May 19, 2022While the COVID-19 pandemic certainly created many obstacles and hardships, it also created many opportunities to try doing things differently. This can be seen in the instant rise of remote work opportunities, telehealth visits, and virtual meetings. Many States took the challenges of the pandemic and turned them into an opportunity to adjust the regulations governing licensed professionals, including for advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs).Client Alert, Blog Post

Explosive Growth in Pot of Gold Opportunity for Bank (and Other) Cannabis Lenders Driving Erosion of the Barriers

May 13, 2022Our original article on bank lending to the cannabis industry anticipated that the convergence of interest between banks and the cannabis industry would draw more and larger banks to the industry. Banks were awash in liquidity with limited deployment options, while bankable cannabis businesses had rapidly growing needs for more and lower cost credit. Since then, the pot of gold opportunity for banks to lend into the cannabis industry has grown exponentially due to a combination of market constraints on equity causing a dramatic shift to debt and the ever-increasing capital needs of one of the country’s fastest growing industries. At the same time, hurdles to entry of new banks are being systematically cleared as the yellow brick road to the cannabis industry’s access to the financial markets is being paved, brick by brick, by the progressively increasing number and size of banks that are now entering the market.Client Alert

2021 EEOC Charge Statistics: Retaliation & Impact of Remote Work

May 11, 2022The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) released its detailed information on workplace discrimination charges it received in 2021. Unsurprisingly, for the second year in a row, the total number of charges decreased as COVID-19 either shut down workplaces or disconnected employees from each other. In 2021, the agency received a total of approximately 61,000 workplace discrimination charges - the fewest in 25 years by a wide margin. For reference, the agency received over 67,000 charges in 2020, and averaged almost 90,000 charges per year over the previous 10 years.
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