InterGovernmental Partnership. I also want to take this opportunity to acknowledge h r block, the Robin Hood Foundation and the Kellogg Foundation for whom without their suppo the research and dialogue invested today wouldnt be possible. While tods event is entiry virtual, we encourage active participation for the audience and the live stream and using the hashtag bpc live and twitter handle underscore bipartisan. The cdc helps American Families access to high cost of raising children and support workers with low and moderate wages and of the hallmark of the bipartisan success in fact theyve en expanded multiple tis with the backing of both parties. Weve worked tirelessly on policy development and tax credit repor we focused on wayso improve credit uptake and administratns. On behalf of my cauthors, im proud to release the newt Research Today to dive deeper into the issue. While theve made dents in the fight against poverty in a variety of factors including program complexity, widespread filing, lack of awarenessnd the perception of the benefits persistent levels of the programs a also many honest mistakes made by individuals play that intrica role. Forxample approximately one in four dollars each year those that are eligible or receive re than they should by law due to theten children for household tax purposes governed by enormously complicatedic regulations. The response ability to address these chlenges and the reforms that weve released today couldnt only increase the takeuamong eligible americans but combat the proper paymes and humanize the process at the same tim ong this, bolstering the irs administrative capacityor the social benefit programs and improving Customer Service and a staffing and funding, increasing codination between all levels of government and Nonprofit Sectors whi streamlining the process oflaiming state and local versions of the ci tc. The Technology Resources that ople use to access the benefit programs permitting the i to certify and regulate the tax preparers, modernizing the eligibility requirements and data sharing practices between all levels o government, authorities and third parties but specifically those p surrounding child egibility. Lastly, investing in the irs customer svice throughout the compliance better process. Including the low income tax clinics. Is comes on the heels of congress debating the future of the programs and the passage of the act that provided a monumental invtment ofearly 80 billion in additional funding for the irs. It is in this that we look foard to hosting a robus discussion today about the role of not only both parties but both of the executive and legislative branches, state and federal government and the private and Nonprofit Sector that could all Work Together to prove the administration of the childax credit and earned income tax credit. And with that i would like to turn it over. President and ceo of the National Academy of public ministrations. Im honored to have you introduced the keynote speaker today. Thank you and thanks to everybody for joining us today. As rachel said, i am t president and c of the nationalcademy of Public Administration and i a delighted to be here to promote the partnership between the acady center for the terGovernmental Partnerships and the Bipartisan Policy Center and the support on this important topic. For those of you that may not one of the center for intergovernmentall partnerships is the academys resource aimed at promoting improved governance, communicaon and collaboration out and across all the levels of gernment. Todays event is a pfect example of that type of issue. The tax credits such as the Child Tax Credit a earne income tax credit are vital partisan mechanisms for alleviating poverty in the united states. As rachel said, despite the support fromcross the aisle many administrative challenges keep the credits from achieving their full potential. The recommendations within the bbc paper will help ensure that these credits are accessible to all, equitab distributed and efficientlyanaged from an admistrative and auditing perspective and to speak fther on some of thehe trouble just ad the successes around the tax credits id like to introduce john hoski and academy fellow and former comssioner of the Internal Revenue service. A dedicated lifelong Public Service who spent over 45ears 4working to support Good Governance across ageies and all levelsf government. In addition to his time at t irs he woed as a city administrator for the district of columbia, deputy direcr for management of theffice of management and budget and the chairman of the board and director of freddie mac. Thk you so much for being with us today and the stage is yours. Thankss for the introduction. A brief summary of my employment caer im delighted to be here to talk about these important prrams. Ims would note at the start the bipartisan picy center report coming out today is thoughtful detailed alysis with recommendations i think everybody should pay aention to and look at. These are two critical programs a lot of people are aware of b designed both of them to encourage low and moderate income families and workers to work and reword work. Designed tax credits tied to the amount of money being earned by the taxpayer and the number of children they have. D as noted, the are very large programs. Two of them together. Said years ago a billion dollars here and a billion dollars there and ptty soon you are into money. So the challenge for the irs and for the programs excuse me im going to, get a drink of water h here. The challen iso get an enllment up and increase at the same time make se the right peopl are getting the right amount of payments. The report notes and the irs has been working on for some years though takeup on the one hand isery large 90 of eligibility f the Child Tax Creditsax and families apply and about 80 of the earned income tax credit eligible people but thattill leaves millions eligible who are not participating in the programs and are taking advantage of them. One ofag the ironies is the socl welfar programs designed to combat poverty are administered by the Internal Revenueervice. Most people think of the Internal Revenue svice in the extent they think of it atll primarily recognizing its tax collection and enforcement functi which is important for a trillio dollars aear and basically funds the vast amount of work the government doe across the board. Then people are sometimes familiar with the irs and other functions which is Taxpayers Service trying to help the taxpayers become compliant. And if youre trying to be compliant, they are anxious to help you. Most people dt think of it as a social welfare organization. In addition recently with the stimulus payments tt the irs paid out, they actually issued almost the same amount of money in the sociasecurity administration with a smaller budget to that effect. So, it is an impornt part of the irs operations to try to ensure both the number of people applying and the percente is as high as possible and also that the money is going to the right people in the right amnt. Butig the underlining pending pt of the program as rachel noted is tt the bipartisan in nature. Of theon both sides aisle always make reference the earned iome tax credit was Ronald Reagans favorite and to some extent that explainshy even in the face of fairly high and prope payment ratio the Program Continues to receive bipaisan support. The improper payment ratio f the Child Tax Credit is about 14 , still high but more manageable. For the tax credit th percentage is 24 not all of that is being stolen. The reason people are somewhat comfortable withhat is a lot of them when it does go to t right to sector of the population but perhaps not to the right people specifically and in t right amounts. So the irs has bee focused on the sand trying toeal with it for some years. Its on the general accountability high risk list whh doesnt help, and every time i testify i get asked questions about why cant we do better about it. Weve made a pot of progrs in a lot of ways and we were talking borene we started one of the areas we made great progress was dealing with Identity Theft andefund. Created a Publicprivate Partnership like h r block and others as well as the state tax commissioners that ty couldnt dealith Identity Theft all by itself so for the first time, we had a rking partnership called the security summit. The number o the victims of Identity Theft went down by over 60 , andef im told the number w is down by over 8. So thats a lot ofaxpayers who have benefited by that. Thereslso been a lot of time to irease the uptake particularly on the end income tax credit and at the same time th right people got the right yments. And we made almost no progress no matter whate did and in fa i held a seminar bringing in the gernment Accountability Office anddvocates a people concerned and peoe who knew something about this and i challeng them to figure out what we could do differently partularly on the improper payments. And i said that the test w could they come up with Something Better than my suggestion to redo the statute totally. Athe end of the two days, nobody had a better idea an part of the problem having read thstatute is its almost impossible to figure out how to apply for the credit and tohom the credit should go. The statute uerstandably and appropriately tries to make sure the people who areaking care of the child get the credit but e problem is Everybody Knows they are complicated family situations. A lot of times you have a single parent whose working and supporting their children. They are grandparents, uncles, aunts, neighbors. A lot of people taking care of those chilen who move around to some extent and so it seems to me that even s if you try to figure that out its always going to be difficult. That is part of the reason sometimes u t have two people applying for the same job because they are taking care of that person for a significant part of the year. My suggestion then and continues to be i dont know if we will ever be able t sort through fr afar by statute how to allocate appropriately. So if you are married on december 301st, you armarried the whole year and file jointly. It doesnt matter when you get married during the year. Similarly, for a long time if you are a taking care of has stody of a child on december 301st, you get the payment andbe as i said, you wod then let the family sort out whos putting in more time or effort o financial suprt for the child and each family will ma their own judgmen and determinations but it would make it easier for the taxpayers and certainly for the irs if the standard were simplified significantly and that i think uld increase the participation because prior to the concern of people thinkg about applying as thaof the complicated to atute concerns they may not get it right and that if theyet dont they wil be audited by the irs. Recently thanks to the budget ts into the decline in the number of employees generally and in particular the decline of thef number of tho able to answer t phone, fewer than 20 of calls are answered andome estimates are 11 ot answered so if you are a low income taxpayer concerned about doing this right and you want to call somebody to get help the last couple of yea its been impossible to get somebody at the irs. So to make improvements across the board, one of the first places those improvements will be made is to hire more people to answer the phones tanswer those questions. I think that wld help. I think also what happens have a lot in particular that are going to prepare us to get help and they areot goingecessarilynd to h r block. They are going to somebody with a set up shop in a local pking lot or a relative who may or may not know anything about the earned income tax credit. In fact we saw some saying come with me and i will give you a refund. And a lot of times they would fly over rund is greater than the taxpayer was entitled to. They would disappear and say this doesnt look right. So one of the things the Bipartisan Policy Center has is recommended thatte we recommendd stroly was the irs begin and thority to require minimum confidence and standards by all eparers if they are going to prepare fo the return. We shodnt necessarily call iton relation. Everybody gets nervous what are they going to do with all these preparers. Its just the question of making sure every year they demonstrate their understanding of the basic agreements of the tax law particarly in the low income areas they understand how to apply for the earned income tax credit for their clients and Child Tax Credit. That wou eliminate a significant amount of the improper payment. And to the extent the taxpayers had more confidence the present end of the local communityun center knows what they are doing, ty might be more willing to say i will take my chances. Now my preparer knows what he or she is doing and the statute has been in a way that even i can figure outhe title to discredit. So there are critical programs. A 25 million or more benefit from these programand i think that its important on both sides of the equation. Onwe need to make sure tt everyone is eligible and understands the programs and appliefor them approprialy and we need to make sure that as they apply, themproper payment goes down and the stem is made as seamless as possible where the irs is providing as much service as psible to the taxpayers thatave legitimate questions and they have a situation they would likeo check before they make the calling. Right now that is almost impossible. With the additnal funding, i would hope that we are about to sea significant change in that regard as well. We have a lot of different perspectives on the sand like everybody else i am delighted to see what they have to say about these very important programs. Thank you very much. Thank you, commissioner, for those incrediy insightful remarks. Its an honor to have you with us today. For the audiee qanda but for w i would like to ing in our panelists who each bring a rich and diverse experience in host of expertise acrosshe public, private and nonpublic sectors. We have the director of ancy and relations and virtual tax at h and rt block institutes. A highly qualified team of experts, attorneys and enrolled agents who study the tax laws to support the 70,000 Tax Professionals and tax preparation. Next from houston, texas a senior policadvisor for the office. In this capacity part of the teamam that created the child tx Credit Outreach Program that leveraged American Rescue pla funds to help low income families access Free Tax Preparation Service to benefit from the expanded in 2021. Also, rebecca thompson,t Vice President of Strategic Partnerships and network buildingng at prosperity now whe she leads efforts to engage and grow diverse arrays of stakeholders that make up the networks on the economic fields at large. She previously led northeast florida that included the coalition over 20,000 tax returns in northeast florida. And also isabel dixon with the Colorado Department of Public Health a child health program. In this role she identifies sttegies to improve economic stability and mobility for colora families for the economic wellbeing and improved health outcomes. Thank you all so much for joining us today. And a reminder to the audience we encourage you to submit questions using v the hashtag bc live and to engage with the twitter handle. Lets get right to it. Throughout the course of the research one of the primary areas we were investigating was struck for a number of years and of the investments in funding. The act was passed just last month does that by providing 80 million of funding to address longstanding concerns over the weakening tax enforcement, Customer Service and Information Technology as e commissioner remarked. Now that we have policymakers attention focused on the Taxpayers Services, i was hoping that each of you could see to this perspective across various sectors and government. Happy to start. First thank you so much to the bipartisan picy center my fellow panelis and then of course the commissioner i will speak a little more Tax Administration if you will. Think first jusstarting with opportunities on the administration of the credi. Electronic tax filings its much faster for taxpaye. In addition when therrors are discovered during this process they cane addressed in a much timelier fashion. However, every year a large number of taxpayers have a tax return that would otherwise qualify for electronifiling. But they are not able to do so because they experience from the irs and i was a variety of reasons. In a situation where there is a duplicate of claimwi i think the commissioner call koskinen talked about that in his opening remarks. That can be due to id theft iten can be the comexity an honest mistake if you well, cfusion around the rules, or it mabe tootentially those that disagree about the outcome of who should claim that dependent. Let me go to what happens there. Firs taxpayer files and they ar able to claim that pendence on the tax return for the child and family related benefits and th