Center for Taxpayer Rights

Effective Tax Administration Programs/Projects: This initiative is designed to improve the protection of taxpayer rights, taxpayer knowledge, and tax administration policies and practices to increase voluntary compliance and trust, particularly with respect to underserved or vulnerable populations. Programming and projects include Tax Chats!, workshops and conferences, Effective Tax Administration briefs and other publications, amicus briefs in courts in cases raising important taxpayer rights issues, FOIA requests, training programs, and the Center's website and its newsletter, Taxpayer Rights Digest.

Low Income Taxpayer Clinic Support Center: The Center supports LITCs in the US and internationally through its LITC Support Center. The Center works with academics and practitioners in other countries who are interested in creating LITCs, and also works with tax agencies in those countries to educate them about LITCs. In the US, the Center also hosts a weekly litigation strategy call with US LITCs to coordinate litigation and identify emerging issues. The Center is developing a nationwide pro bono referral network, through its application, LITC Connect, which matches up volunteer attorneys with small, rural and other LITCs that do not have many volunteers in their communities. The LITC Support Center website, www.litcsupportcenter.org, not only hosts LITC Connect but provides resources and training for Low Income Taxpayers and their representatives.

International Conference on Taxpayer Rights (ICTR): The Center organizes and convenes an annual international conference on taxpayer rights. The ICTR brings together scholars, practitioners, and government officials from over 40 countries to discuss and explore how to promote, enhance, and provide taxpayer rights and protections. In 2023, the Center held its conference at the University of Chile in Santiago,Chile; the conference was also live-streamed, with simultaneous translation in English and Spanish. The theme of the conference was "Access to Justice: Judicial Review and Alternative Dispute Resolution." Judges, tax agency officials, academics and practitioners from all over the world participated. Each of the conferences includes a pre- or post-conference workshop or roundtable for persons working for or interested in establishing Low Income Taxpayer Clinics and Taxpayer Advocate/Ombuds offices in their respective countries. Videos and materials of the conference panels are publicly available on the Center's website and youtube channel.