Master File
Master File
Master File
By David L. Miner
Copyright 2009
MASTER FILE
What Secret IRS File Subjects You to IRS Authority?
Have you or a friend or relative ever been chased by the IRS for back taxes that
seemed waaaay out of line? Ever been chased by the IRS for back taxes in
excess of what you actually made for that year? Ever received from the IRS a
Notice or collection letter that had “SB” in the upper right corner of the notice or
letter and wondered what that meant? How about a letter from the IRS Small
Business Division when you were not a small business?
These and many other actions happen every year to millions of Americans.
Some of these collection letters are well-deserved. No one should say or do
anything in support anyone who cheats on their income tax forms. If you can’t be
honest in what you are doing, you are doing the wrong thing.
But many Americans work hard, complete their tax returns, pay their taxes, and
then get hit for additional back taxes, penalties and interest with no explanation.
And they have that feeling deep in their gut that something is wrong.
This booklet contains detailed information about a relatively new means to find
out what is going on. The IRS keeps a secret file on each and every American
that has ever filed a tax return, and in that file are a whole host of “facts” that the
IRS does not want you to know. While it is true that quite a number of people
have been writing and speaking about this “secret file” for a number of years, it is
only in recent years that the full threat of this "secret file" has been exposed, and
your need to completely disable that threat has been clearly and properly
revealed. The secret file we will be exposing in this booklet contains all sorts of
inaccurate and possibly fraudulent details. Over the years I have reviewed close
to 3,000 IMFs, and every one of them includes serious errors about the individual
whose name is one the file.
The information in your IRS files, and especially in your Individual Master
File, is what places you under the authority and jurisdiction of the Internal
Revenue Service … who often mistakes itself for the all-powerful “judge,
jury, and executioner” of a totalitarian government (not just a department
within a Constitutional Republic!), and sometimes engages in actions
against many individual Americans that are far beyond its authority.
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In this booklet, we will take a close look at the Individual Master File and see how
this could be true.
But first let us digress a little so we can better understand how and why the IRS
stores and tracks information concerning Americans.
The IRS keeps its records separated into a number of different databases. There
may be many legitimate reasons for this, among them the need to have files of a
manageable size. More than 130 million tax returns are filed each year, and
each return is added to a file of existing returns from that same individual. So
you can imagine that the IRS records are probably the largest collection of data
on the planet. This makes record-keeping an absolute nightmare for the IRS and
its database managers. Consequently, the IRS breaks this huge stack of records
into separate databases grouped according to specific function or content, and
spreads the database management responsibilities to many different employees
in many different offices across America.
There are more than 200 individual databases, or records systems, used by the
IRS to track everything about every American that it possibly can. And one of the
“benefits” of having separate databases is that any attempt by you to get your
hands on your records can be stymied and frustrated, and sometimes totally
stymied. The IRS Disclosure Procedures require that any request for records
must include the form number or document title, the specific name of the
database in which it is contained, and the numerical designation of that
database. The IRS generally will not deny you access to your records, but it will
make sure that you have to work hard to get at them.
Say you want to find out what happened to the house the IRS confiscated from
your sweet grandmother when she couldn’t pay your grandfather’s taxes after he
died unexpectedly. It is not enough that you ask about the current status and
disposition of a house at a specific address. You must ask for the current status
and disposition of a particular house at a specific address which is contained in a
database named "Acquired Property Records” with the numerical designation of
“Treasury/IRS 26.001.” Any of the relevant details that the IRS demands and
deems as necessary better be in the request. If you don’t include it all in your
request, you just may receive a somewhat short comment from the Disclosure
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Officer that the IRS is not required to perform research for you, but only required
to produce records for you. And your request for records will be denied.
As a result, you can well imagine the difficulty in searching for a specific piece of
information in the huge collection of data stored by the IRS. You have to know
the name of the database you want to access, the numerical designation of that
database, and often the location of the office that houses the computer system
that contains that specific database. If you miss any one of those details in your
request, you will most likely receive a letter from the Disclosure Office indicating
its inability to fulfill your request. This is at least partially by design – the IRS
does not WANT you to have easy access to your files. To some extent this is
because the IRS doesn’t want to get bogged down in copying and mailing lots of
pages to thousands of Americans each month. But sometimes it seems that
obtaining your documents is difficult because the IRS just might have data there
that would hurt specific agents if it were to become public knowledge.
Let me make that more clear. The IRS almost certainly has false and
possibly fraudulent data concerning you in its permanent records.
I have seen IRS records that claim a particular individual was visited by a local
IRS agent and the individual waved a gun around, threatening the agent. These
claims were then forwarded to another IRS office, which naturally became
alarmed. A well-armed team of Criminal Investigation Division (CID) officers
accompanied the next IRS agent to visit the individual. Comments in the file by
the CID team indicated a confrontation took place where the CID officers pulled
out handguns and aimed them at the individual.
At that moment, any movement or even comment by the individual could have
pushed the CID agents enough to make them feel threatened, resulting in them
pulling their triggers and killing the man. The individual was both careful and
lucky, and no one was hurt in the confusion. However, on deeper investigation, it
turned out that the original agent reporting the initial firearm confrontation had
never visited that individual at all and simply lied about it. The agent apparently
entered the comments into the record because the individual had said something
which angered the IRS agent, and that agent set into motion actions that could
very well have cost the man his life!
I have seen records that gave an account of an individual who did not seem (to
the agent) to be cooperating with the IRS in its investigation into another man.
Because of his apparent lack of cooperation, the IRS fabricated a large amount
of overdue taxes and instigated a levy against 100% of the man’s monthly
retirement check. It took months for the levy to be stopped, and all allegations of
wrong-doing by the agent were covered up or ignored by the IRS. And there was
no refund of the illegally and fraudulently confiscated funds.
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I have seen records where the agent has flagged the individual as being an
importer of illegal drugs. Of course, no allegations of such activities were ever
passed to law enforcement because then there would be an investigation. Any
investigation would have resulted in the individual proving no involvement with
drugs at all. No, letting law enforcement know about a possible drug deal was
not the reason for the IRS flagging his account in this manner. The reason the
IRS had flagged that man as an importer of illegal drugs was because the agent
could more easily justify searching for “hidden income sources” and therefore
could perform all sorts of harassing data searches, audits, and investigations.
In truth, I have seen hundreds of IMFs where the individual was flagged as an
importer of illegal drugs, and to my knowledge the IRS has never reported any of
these individuals to any law enforcement organization.
I have seen records documenting all sorts of IRS illegalities which became
evident only after careful examination. Believe me, it sometimes seems that the
IRS does not want Americans to see its records on them because for years many
agents, used to doing what they wanted with no accountability, freely and openly
documented actions that would land those same agents in jail - in a just world,
that is.
And most of all, I have reviewed several thousand master files, each and every
one of them containing inaccuracies and illegalities. It sometimes seems that, if
exposed and then properly prosecuted, the inaccurate data in these Master Files
would result in court cases where the IRS would be hit with huge fines that would
become the retirement of the individuals victimized by the IRS. Some IMFs had
errors so serious that they could result in jail sentences being “awarded” to the
IRS agents. Again, in a just world…
And it is the information in your IRS files, especially in your Individual Master File,
that is what places you under the almost unlimited authority and jurisdiction of the
Internal Revenue Service.
In this booklet, we will take a close look at the Individual Master File and see how
this could be true. We will see how to obtain it and how to understand it.
“But Wait!” you say. “Doesn’t federal law require the IRS to keep accurate
records if it is going to keep any records at all?” The simplistic answer to that
question is “yes.” But the real answer to that question is “So what?” In truth,
how do you know if the IRS is doing its job unless you check those records?
What kinds of problems have you experienced, or are about to experience,
because of these false entries in your files? And what is the risk to you if you do
not check those files?
The IRS could be after you for back taxes on money you never earned. Or it
could be preparing a criminal investigation against you because your return got
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lost in the mail and the IRS never received it. Or possibly an IRS agent made an
error in your record resulting in the IRS secretly going to all your family and
friends and business associates and even your boss and asking all sorts of
questions. Believe me, I have seen situations where this happened and I have
watched how quickly family and friends and business associates distanced
themselves from the individual without ever questioning the accuracy or validity
of the suspicions of the IRS.
.
The bad news in all this? There is no IRS procedure to automatically check the
data and assure that your records are correct. The only way anyone can know is
if they requested their records and reviewed them. But even if an individual is
able to obtain some or all of the requested records, the IRS keeps your IMF in a
very cryptic format, making it pretty much unreadable by most IRS employees
and almost all individuals. There are, however, books and materials available
that you can use to decode the entries in your records. We will demonstrate that
entire process very briefly in this booklet. In addition, at the end of this booklet
you will find out how to obtain your own copy of the 650 page book published by
the IRS that is required to decode your files.
When you request your records through a Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) or
Privacy Act request, the IMF documents that will be forwarded to you have a
standard layout that is common to all IMF documents. The IMF comes in two
different flavors, Complete and Specific, each one important. The IMF-Complete
is only slightly different than the IMF-Specific. Both formats are broken into
similar sections, each with its own purpose and showing its own data.
At the very top of the IMF-Specific report is the heading. It includes several items
common to headings: page number, title (IMF Transcript-Specific), Employee ID
Number, Account Number (SSN), and some dates. The heading ends with a line
of asterisks across the top of the page.
Below the line of asterisks at the top of the first page and continuing about one-
third down the page is called the Entity Section. It establishes who and what
you are as an entity. This section identifies you through your name, address,
account number (SSN) and your spouse information. It also defines the type of
entity you are and gives some information about that entity, and it claims what
year you last filed a return (for most Americans this would be last year), plus
some other information the IRS probably hopes you won’t see.
The second section, called the Module Section, begins where the Entity
Section leaves off and shows the main contents of the return that was filed. To
the IRS, a module is the return for that particular year. In your case, you
probably filed your return. But according to the IRS, more than 45 million
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Americans do not file returns and pay taxes. This means that one in four of your
family and friends do not file and do not pay, and they simply don’t tell you about
it. For these people, the return indicated in the IMF Module Section is a bogus
return filed for them by the IRS, called a Substitute for Return (SFR). In the case
of an SFR, all income numbers are usually entered as zeros, and then several
transaction codes are entered into the record at a later time to make many
adjustments to the amounts due.
The last section, called the Status Section, contains a series of Master File
Status Codes. These Stat Codes describe specific actions taken. Stat Codes
can be entered for all sorts of actions. You will sometimes find status codes in
this section for actions that don’t make sense or never happened as far as you
know. The IRS agent can use this section to document activity so the boss will
think, ”Hmmm. Agent Smith is certainly getting a lot done.” Every Transaction
Code requires a Document Locator Number (DLN), so anyone can ultimately
look up the physical documents actually filed or the description of action actually
performed. (We will talk later about the increasing pattern I have seen over the
past five years of entering bogus DLNs so there is no collection of documents for
anyone to see if they request that DLN. Perhaps this is simply an issue of
convenience for the IRS, but I have seen some things that cause me to wonder if
a fake DLN was entered so the agent doesn’t have to file anything that could get
him or her in trouble. But more on this later…) Status Codes do not require any
DLNs and therefore can be used to falsify an agent’s activities just to cover their
actions, legal or not. There is no way to document if the action taken was
actually taken, especially actions that are required by tax law. I have not seen
this situation often, but I have seen it entirely too frequently.
The primary difference between the IMF-Complete and IMF-Specific is the fact
that the Complete has one Entity Section and then a Module and Transaction
Sections each for multiple years. The Specific has all three sections, but reports
on only one year per report.
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Below is a sample Privacy Act Request that I have used to obtain thousands of
IMF records for clients. And at the end of this booklet I have attached a list of the
IRS Disclosure Offices for you to use. Find the Disclosure Office nearest to you
and substitute that address for the one in the letter. You send the Privacy Act
Request to the nearest Disclosure Office and you can expect your documents to
arrive in the mail within four weeks. It usually takes only minutes to enter the
details into the IRS computer system and print out your records, but the IRS will
usually take the full time allowed by law to get your IMF in your hands.
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I. M. Free
c/o 1234 Main Street
Anycity, CA 92199
RE: Account No. 999-99-9999 used to identify and maintain your system of records
PRIVACY ACT (PA) REQUEST
Dear Sirs:
This is a request under the FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT at 5 U.S.C. 552, PRIVACY
ACT at 5 U.S.C. 552a and INTERNAL REVENUE CODE at 26 U.S.C. 6103 and 6110. This
request does not fall under exception 26 U.S.C. 6103(e)(7). These documents are not sought for
any commercial purposes. This is my firm promise to pay fees and costs for locating and
duplicating the records requested below, ultimately determined in accordance with 26 CFR
601.702(f).
Understanding that most exemptions are discretionary, rather than mandatory, if for some reason
you determined any portion of this request to be exempt from release, please furnish the
following: (1) those portions reasonably segregable after the exempt material is deleted; (b)
detailed justification for your discretionary exemption since the overriding objective of the FOIA
is to maximize public access to agency records. See IRM [1.3]13.7.1 (08-31-2000) Approach to
Exemptions, and; (c) provide the name of the official and correct address to whom an
administrative appeal should be addressed.
I am attesting under the penalty of perjury under the laws of the united States of America 28
U.S.C. 1746(1) and from without the "United States", that I am a category 5 CFR 294.103(d)
requester. Pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 552(a)(6)(A)(i), you have no more than 20 days to respond to this
request.
No certification of records is required (see IRM 11.3.6) at this time.
Please send me a copy of all documents for above referenced requester and for tax years 2001,
2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009 which are maintained in the following records or
systems of records.
Item # Item description
01. A copy of all documents maintained in the system of records identified as "Individual
Master File (IMF) specific and not literal; Data Service, Treasury/IRS 24.030" or
simply "IMF MCC TRANSCRIPT-SPECIFIC".
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02. A copy of all documents identified as Individual Master File (IMF) complete and not
literal; Data Service, Treasury/IRS 24.030" "IMF MCC TRANSCRIPT-COMPLETE"
that includes the period in question but may include a longer time period if not
selectable for only the specific interval requested.
In your agency's response to my request, please identify the record systems searched as well as
the scope, depth and nature of the search for appropriate data. Should you decide this request has
been sent to the wrong office, please make certain that you forward it to the proper office and
notify me of same.
I understand the penalties provided in 5 U.S.C. 552(a)(i)(3) for requesting or obtaining access to
records under false pretenses.
Respectfully submitted,
I. M. Free
Enclosure(s):
Photocopy of Drivers License enclosed to provide proof of identification
[Please note that you will need to enclose a photocopy of your drivers license for
identification purposes, or else have the PA Request notarized. This is required
by law and is for your protection. You certainly do not want your IRS files to be
easily obtained by just anyone, do you? So photocopy your DL or have someone
notarize your request.]
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Now that you have a copy of your IMF records, take some time to review what
you have. Also, by now you should have taken the time to download the IRS
6209 Manual (instructions to do so are at the end of this booklet). The 6209
Manual is published by the IRS to help you decode the IMF. The first thing you
will notice is that you can understand almost nothing in the IMF. The second
thing you will notice is that you can understand almost nothing in the IRS 6209
Manual. And this is the manual the IRS is required by law to publish in order to
help you “decode” your IMF. You can’t understand the file, and you can’t
understand the decoding manual. Does anyone smell a rat here?
Because of attempts by the IRS to assure you will not understand your records, I
have included in this booklet an actual IMF and some of the decoded details that
we furnish to our clients. Your own IMF may or may not have the same details,
or even the same errors, that you will see below. But after reviewing thousands
of IMFs, it appears that at least 80 percent of them have these errors and more.
Below is an actual IMF I have in my client files. It was not chosen for all the
errors it contains. It is quite typical of almost every IMF we receive in our office.
Allow me to point out some items in the Entity Portion. Remember, that is the
portion that extends partway down the first page to the second line of asterisks,
where the “Tax Period” is listed.
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As you can see, almost every entry uses codes and the entire 3 pages will most
likely seem like so much gibberish to you. The IRS has printed a large manual of
more than 650 pages that supposedly contains the interpretation of each and
every entry contained in the IMF. It really doesn’t, but most of the entries are
contained in this manual. Every entry that I will describe below comes directly
from this huge book printed by the IRS. These are not my thoughts and opinions
and interpretations, but the codes and definitions that the IRS itself has printed.
In the heading of the report, at the top of the page in the center, you can read
that this is an IMF-Specific. On the left at the top is a page number and over to
the right side of the page is an IRS employee number. On the line below the
IMF-Specific and over to the left is the Account Number, which is merely the
Social Security Number, and it has been blacked out, for obvious reasons. Just
below that is a field where the IRS lists the first four letters of the last name,
which has also been blacked out. And in the center of the page under IMF-
Specific are two dates. The first indicates that the IMF was printed in November
of 2007. Just below that is the cycle date, listed as the 45th week of 2007. For
those of you without a computer background, older computer systems processed
or cycled large amounts of data over the weekend – it was usually called batch
processing. The IRS computer systems still use this tradition and display the
date as the year and the week in a number of places within the IMF.
Just below the heading is a wide line of asterisks and below that on the left side
of the page you can see that this report was printed FOR an employee number
BY an employee number (in this case the entries are the same) and on the same
date that was listed above. You can also see that the report is again described
as an IMF-Specific (TYPE S-30) for the entire year (all 12 months) of 2000. Type
S-30 is the IMF Specific for individual income taxes. I have seen Type S-31,
which is Specific for a corporation. I can find no explanation in the 6209 Manual
for how there can be an individual IMF for a corporation, but I have seen it.
On the left, I have blacked out the name, address and city of the individual. And
to the right of that you will see the first of several very important entries. The
print-out lists BODC-SB. This field is the Business Operating Division Code. If
there is an entry here, the IRS sees you as a business. If the IRS has defined
you as an individual, this entry will be blank. In this case, the IRS records show
this man as a Small Business (SB), a designation indicating a business earning
as much as $10 million a year. There is actually a table in the 6209 Manual that
indicates the SB entry is not allowed in the IMF, but is reserved only for the BMF
(Business Master File). Yet probably 80% of the IMFs I have reviewed list the
individual as a Small Business. To the right of that entry is Business Operating
Division Client Code (BODCLC). I can find no IRS document that defines what
BODCLC-V means.
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As we move down the page, two lines down and almost in the center we see a
designation for any prior names the IRS might have you listed under, like maybe
a maiden name or something. Then, to the right of that, is the freeze code (FZ).
There are two different freeze codes. This one is for the entity in general, and
the one further down the page is just for a single year. The freeze code entry is
always displayed in two parts: a letter or two, then a dash, then a letter or two.
Just about every entry that might be here would stop any tax refunds that might
be owed you. Examples of possible entries here might include delinquent child
support or alimony payments, overdue taxes, or my favorite the importer of illegal
drugs. In this case, there are no freeze codes entered for this entity.
Just under the PRIOR NAME CONTROL are two more extremely important
entries. The first is the Mail and Filing Requirements (MFR). If there is any entry
here, the IRS believes you are required by law to file certain specific forms. In
this case, the MFR-05 means that this “person” is required to file a long and
detailed set of business forms along with the Form 1040. The IRS refers to this
particular configuration of forms as “Form 1040 Business Filer” and it includes
Schedule F, Profit and Loss From a Farming Business.
Just to the right of the MFR designation is the VAL-1 entry. This is a particularly
interesting entry according to the IRS manuals. A validity code of “1” means that
this person is using a false SSN to report income figures. Obviously, this is a
crime, a felony, and the IRS software is supposed to lock this record and allow
no additional entries until this crime is resolved. All data is considered suspect,
according to the IRS training course for the IMF, and the entire account is locked
and rendered “invalid” until a thorough investigation has been conducted. Of
course, there is no real crime here – the IRS enters a VAL-1 in every IMF I have
ever reviewed.
Why the obvious errors? Quite simple, really. If the IRS can make these claims
about you, then it has total authority over you to demand forms, access bank and
employer records, and talk with friends and family about you. According to IRS
records, you are not an individual with rights guaranteed by the Constitution.
You are a business, an artificial entity existing by government permission, with
certain specific requirements, and breaking certain specific tax laws. According
to Congress and the US Supreme Court, these “facts” in your IMF give the IRS
absolute authority and jurisdiction over you and your finances. You don’t need
gold fringes on any flags. You don’t need to use federal reserve notes (what
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most Americans call “money”). You don’t need a name with all capital letters. All
you need are these entrees in your IMF, and the IRS owns you.
To the left you will see ULC-59 and AO-23. These entries mean the IRS District
Office that has jurisdiction over this entity is in Atlanta, and the Area Office is in
Philadelphia. I have seen no logic or pattern in these entries – they are usually
cities that are a thousand miles or more apart.
Just below the MFR designation is the FYM entry. This stands for Fiscal Year
and Month, showing a fiscal year ending on December 31, or a calendar-based
fiscal year. For those of you with an accounting background, you know that only
a business has a fiscal year. An individual has no fiscal year and no fiscal
requirements.
We will skip a few entries and go down to just above the line of asterisks. There
you will see that the last year this entity filed a tax return was 1999 (LSTRET-
1999). An entry to the right of that is the Condition Code. In this case the CND-
R means that the account is owed a refund. Please note this – a refund is owed
to this “person” for this year. This will come up again.
Then we have a small box of asterisks surrounding the tax period, which is
designated as the year 2000, all 12 months. This introduces us to the Module
Section. Remember, to the IRS, a “module” is a tax return for a specific year.
There are only a few things I want to point out in the Module Section; the rest is
pretty much obvious. The Master File Module Balance (MF MOD BAL) indicates
that there are no taxes owed on this account for this year. In addition, there is no
accrued interest and no accrued penalties. But the dates show some serious
problems. The last date on which the IRS can attempt any new collections
(Collection Statutory Expiration Date – CSED) is blank. According to law, the
IRS is restricted to chasing you for only ten years, and the CSED is supposed to
be entered here to remind the IRS of this limitation. The law requires this date to
be established, but the IRS has neglected to put any date here. Why? Because
the IMF software will enforce the deadline if it is entered. If the CSED is not
entered, the IMF software will allow collections activities forever.
The deadline for filing for a refund (Refund Statutory Expiration Date – RSED) is
completed, of course, establishing clearly how long you have until you can no
longer file a modified return or collect any refund. And the Assessment Statutory
Expiration Date (ASED) has all zeros, implying that the IRS is not subject to the
statutory limitation of three years beyond which it cannot assess additional taxes.
Again, the law requires a date in this field, which the IRS has apparently for some
reason over looked. The IRS will often enter the date that limits the individual,
RSED, but it normally neglects to enter the dates that limit its own activities,
CSED and ASED in 80% or more of the IMFs I have reviewed.
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The last item I want to point out is the accounts receivable dollar inventory field
(ARDI). This is, as it sounds, an accounts receivable report indicating about how
much the IRS can expect from this account and all other accounts in this district
in the near future. In this case, the answer is 0, which actually means for this
particular account “zero due or less than $25,000.” Kind of confusing, but that is
what the IRS 6209 Manual states. I guess we could translate that into “owes less
than $25,000 and might owe nothing.”
But we do want to take a look at the actual Transaction Code here in the Module
Section. The SFR-150 indicates that the entity has not filed a return and the IRS
has completed one for it. The Substitute For Return is an exciting benefit that the
IRS offers to entities that don’t want to file a return or who don’t believe they are
required to file a return. So, skip the hours it takes to complete a return and the
cost of paying your taxes on time, and the IRS will complete a return for you.
Your tax money at work. Pardon my sarcasm here…
In this situation, the IRS claims it has authority to complete a return for you, and it
documents this by completing a Form 13496 IRS Section 6020(b) Certification.
This is a formal sworn statement that the IRS has the authority to complete a tax
return for this entity, based on IRS Delegation Order 182. With all government
agencies, all authority given by statute is given to agency heads, and not to any
levels below that. So the Secretary of the Treasury is given the authority to
complete tax returns by Section 6020(b) of the Internal Revenue Code. Then the
Secretary delegated this authority to the Commissioner of Internal Revenue,
who, in turn, delegated that authority to certain specific job titles under him/her.
Each delegation of authority is documented so there is a record of who can do
what in the IRS. This Form 13496 must be filled out for each SFR that is
completed by the IRS.
Delegation Order 182 is, of course, not discussed by the IRS in any local offices,
and is not available on the IRS website. One of the reasons is that an actual IRS
employee must sign this Form 13496, along with employee number, claiming that
Delegation Order 182 gives him/her the authority to complete a tax return for this
entity. The IRS DOES NOT want you to know of the existence of this Delegation
Order, much less get a copy of it.
What no one in the IRS has ever admitted to me after almost 20 years of
requests is the fact that Delegation Order 182 authorizes the IRS to complete
only certain BUSINESS returns, and the Form 1040 is not on the list. About 15
years ago, I obtained a copy of D.O. 182, but it has been years since the IRS has
made this available to anyone. Even the Delegation Order 182 that is available
on the IRS website is a summary, redacted, so you do not read this limitation.
Further, the D.O. 182 that is re-printed in the Internal Revenue Manual leaves out
all the forms authorized for completion by the IRS so there would be no
embarrassing questions by any honest IRS agent, assuming there are any of
those still with the IRS. Yet the IRS uses the Form 13496 to claim it has the
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authority to complete a Form 1040 for you. The documents itemizing this fraud
are contained in the Document Locator Number (DLN) related to this SFR-150,
which is the long number with dashes in it that is on the line below and almost in
the center of the page.
Every individual should request from the IRS the contents of the DLN associated
with any SFR-150 in your IMF. In my opinion, the existence of a signed Form
13496 resulting in an SFR 150 in the name of an individual is fraudulent.
Also, if you study the details of the DLN itself, you will often find evidence of
additional errors. The DLN is a kind of code – each of the digits stand for specific
details. The first two digits specifies the IRS office where the action was taken.
The third digit specifies the tax class, and it should always indicate “2” for the
individual income tax. The fourth and fifth digits indicate the returns, forms or
other documents that are in the file. Certain documents can be used only for
individuals and certain documents can be used only for businesses. But it is
common to find the DOC CODES specifying the use of business forms in the
Individual Master File. The next three digits state what day of the year the DLN
was created by the computer. Digits nine, ten, and eleven clarify in more detail
the documents and forms used in the file which, again, are often business forms.
The next two digits give us a sort of serial number. And the last digit indicates
the year the DLN was created.
Another evidence of what might be fraud found in virtually every IMF involves
dates. When the IRS agent enters a transaction code, there are three dates
involved. The first date (the transaction date – the date the agent supposedly
took the action or completed the form) for the SFR 150 listed below was
02032003, or February 3, 2003. The second date is on that same line and to the
right – 200304. This means the end of the fourth week of 2003, or January 28.
The normal process for all this is for the IRS agent to complete a short form
indicating the transaction code, the transaction date, and certain other bits of
data. That form is forwarded to the “In Basket” of a data entry operator, to be
entered into the IRS computer system by the end of the week. (In some of the
larger offices, the IRS computer system has been upgraded such that the agent
is the one entering the data directly into the computer system, eliminating the
data entry operator.) Then the computer processes all the transactions entered
that week in a batch mode, as we discussed earlier. That is why the IRS often
uses dates that specify only the year and the week. There is no telling when the
agent completes the data entry form, but the date the transaction was actually
processed by the computer will be accurate. The IRS agent can specify any date
he/she wants (and often does) but the date that is official is the date the
transaction is actually processed into the Master File.
As I just stated, the data entry clerks are to enter all forms before the end of the
week so they can be processed over the weekend. Of course, not every form is
entered the same week it was created, but things usually happens that way. For
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this action, there is a difference between the transaction date (the date the agent
supposedly did the deed) and the date of computer batch mode processing.
Oops! Wait a minute. What actually happened here is the computer processed
the transaction into the Master File a few days before the agent ever did it.
Perhaps we will understand this more when we look at the third date involved in
this transaction. The DLN date is the 360th day of 2002, or December 26. Now
we can see that the agent created the file to contain all these documents in
December, created the transaction itself on February 3, and turned everything in
to the data entry operator on January 28.
Huh?!!!
How could the computer process a transaction into the Master File almost a
week before it was created by the agent? The IRS must have a very smart
computer system or a very crooked agent. And how could the agent create a
DLN and be placing paperwork into that file the month before actually doing any
of the paperwork? I think we can see that the issue here is not actually a really
smart computer system…
The almost two months it took to complete everything had nothing to do with the
time it took to create the SFR-150, and we will see this as we look down the form
at the rest of the transactions. Instead, the time lag was possibly so that the
agent could complete certain steps that were required, or else fabricate those
steps so that it looks like they were accomplished and in a particular order.
In order to complete the SFR-150 transaction, a series of actions must first occur.
Initially, someone has to notice that there is no return for this particular person for
this particular year. The IRS has a “delinquent Return Program” that prints a list
of “taxpayers” who have not filed returns within a specified amount of time after
April 15. It used to be 16 months but I don’t know how long it is now. I have a
client that was called by an IRS agent in June because the IRS had no record of
his return less than 90 days earlier. Then, a TC of 140 requesting a specific type
of internal review must be executed. The TC-140 manually opens or establishes
a Module Section in that Master File for that year because there was no TC-150
(return filed by the “taxpayer”) to open that module normally. There is a sub-field
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for the TC-140 that MUST list a “source code” of 1, 5, 10, or 20. Without one of
those “source codes,” the TC-140 is just plain illegal. The required source codes
all involve activities related to alcohol, tobacco or firearms. It is used without a
source code here because the TC-140 is the only way to create a Module
Section if there is no return filed by the individual. In other words, if someone
declines to file a return, the IRS can do absolutely nothing at all unless and until
someone creates an illegal Form 13496 resulting in an illegal TC-140 in that
individual’s Master File. That TC-140 allows the IRS to begin procedures against
the non-filer. So we can expect a TC-140 to show up on the record of a non-filer,
and it almost always does.
This illegal TC-140 results in the Master File getting on someone’s list and some
IRS agent saying, “Hey, there is no tax return for this entity for this year. Let’s do
one for him.” Next, a TC-424 is typically entered into the record, where the Form
13496 is already completed and signed, declaring IRS authority to complete a
return for this business. The agent signing the Form 13496 knows this is a
process only authorized by federal statute and IRS regulation for businesses that
are engaged in activities related to alcohol, tobacco or firearms activities and
NOT for any individuals. However, this does not stop him/her from forwarding
that file of information to an IRS assessment officer. The SFR-150 is created
under that false ATF authority. Then, because the IRS knows this TC-424 is
illegal against an individual, a TC-425 is entered which totally erases the TC-424
from the record!
Now, transaction codes for any pending tax assessments and penalties for late
payment are entered, creating a balance due. This usually results in a TC-420,
which initiates an audit where some agent looks up all the information returns
(any Forms 1099 or W-2) with that name and Taxpayer ID. Then codes for
specific penalties and specific interest amounts are entered which add to the
assessment of tax. This is the normal sequence of events in most IMF records I
have reviewed. But, as you can see, for some reason there is no TC-425 here.
Unusual…
The process starts with the Delinquent Returns print-out. This results in a TC-
140, an examination only authorized for businesses engaged in activities related
to alcohol, tobacco, or firearms. The TC-140 results in a Form 13496 being
signed and completed to justify the next steps. Then the TC-424 is entered in
the record so the IRS can complete the SFR-150 and process other transaction
codes to assess taxes, and add interest and penalties to the record. Then the
TC-425 is entered so it deletes from the record the illegal TC-424.
The above procedure is required by statute. However, the IRS usually cuts
corners, skipping one or more steps, just to save time. Or maybe the agent is
not well-trained. Or maybe the agent believes he/she can get away with it. No
one can explain why the IRS violates procedure so often, but anyone can obtain
an IMF and document the shortcuts in it. What is much more difficult to see is
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the fact that the entire procedure can only be completed for a business which is
engaged in ATF-related activities. This is why the Entity Section above specifies
that the individual is not an individual at all, but a business.
All these transactions are often accomplished within a few minutes but could take
days. Then we have a TC-971, which declares that a modified return has just
been filed showing the newly assessed taxes due. There are a couple more
transaction codes that may or may not be involved in the process, but these are
the main ones that must occur every time. This is the normal process followed
when someone does not file a Form 1040. It is a totally illegal process from the
very first TC-140, but no one would ever know if they were not reviewing the IMF.
Of course, it helps to know what procedures and transaction codes are allowed
by law and disallowed by law to be used against individuals versus businesses.
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At the top you will see the same heading you saw on the first page of the IMF.
Then follows the actual content of the second page.
You will see that the Module Portion overlaps onto this page and ends at the
subfields PMTI and SMTI. Then we see the Transaction Section begins with
the next transaction code.
The TC-430 is a payment of estimated tax. Apparently this client had no typical
job where he punches the clock and is paid by a company. So he thinks he is
required to estimate taxes every three months. This is probably because the IRS
told him so. The TC-430 is entered into his Master File to record his payment. In
this case, he paid $3,000 to the IRS. Simple enough, right?
But there are some anomalies that we can see if we look deeper. The Tax Class
(3rd digit in the DLN – “2”) indicates the individual income tax. But the Doc Code
(4th and 5th digits in the DLN – “58”) indicates a series of business forms. And
the Block Series (the 9th through the 11th digits of the DLN – “668”) indicate a
violation of a US/UK tax treaty that relates to the shipment of illegal narcotics
from Cayman (UK) to the Virgin Islands (US). [Yes, the 6209 Manual actually
states that!] So this entry could lead some discerning (or scheming) IRS agent to
the possible conclusion that the $3,000 quarterly payment received from my
client actually came from some illegal drug transactions. Illegal drug funds
means the IRS has justification to investigate my client further just to resolve any
possible illegalities on his part.
The TC-924 is a statement that “we have received no return from this entity” and
was supposedly created on the same day as the illegal TC-140 we talked about
above, and we will look more closely at this. The computer sees no difference,
and the IMF reports no difference, between the dates of these two transactions.
In actual fact, the TC-924 is created first to document the lack of a return, and
then the TC-140 is created to start the process of completing a return.
This TC-140 indicates a DLN associated with it. Yet the five zeros indicate there
is no actual DLN in the records and no physical pages inside it. That would
make sense for obvious reasons. No IRS agent would want any copies of an
illegal TC-140 processing form with his/her signature on it. So none exists.
Next we see “An Amended/Duplicate Return Filed.” The TC-971 was supposedly
created by the agent on July 27, and processed into the computer system on
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August 13, the 32nd week of 2002. The dates are consistent with a legitimate if
slow procedure. It is the sub-fields that tell us a story. The “971-CD” indicated
that the agent sent out a CP-504, demanding payment or the IRS just might
confiscate funds belonging to the man. What the IRS doesn’t tell anyone, and
the TC-971 doesn’t explain, is the fact that a CP-504 can only be sent to a
business and not an individual. An enterprising non-filer, however, can confirm
this in the Internal Revenue Manual, which spells this out quite clearly.
Now come a couple of interesting transaction codes. The TC-570 that we see
next in line was supposedly created on February 3, and processed into the
computer system the week prior on January 28 of 2003. You will probably
remember these dates from our discussion of the TC-150 above. Yes, this
“Additional Liability Pending” declaration was expected. Of course, there is no
dollar amount that is connected with this warning, but I think we will be getting a
dollar figure soon.
In the IMF, the next transaction code by date is the TC-150. But that was
presented in all of its glory in the Module Section above and the IRS won’t list it
here, even if its date is the next transaction.
The very interesting TC-595 is detailed for us next, but not detailed enough. The
TC-595 is a “Satisfying Transaction” claim. The sub-field called “COLCLOS”
(“Collections Closing”) of 88 tells us more. Apparently the individual declared
bankruptcy. Most people have heard, mostly from the IRS, that bankruptcy will
not discharge an IRS bill. Yet the Block Series in the DLN declares the “500”
code that translates into a “timely, full paid” designation in the amount due
column. Of course, there is no explanation in the record for this transaction code
especially in light of the fact that the individual never went through bankruptcy or
even contacted a bankruptcy lawyer. But my client is quite pleased that there
was a big fat zero amount due placed in his IMF.
A TC-960 sets up a Power of Attorney for this Master File. This is a legitimate
transaction code and needs no comment.
The TC-961 a year later rescinds the power of attorney. Apparently, the client
decided he wanted no one else involved in his tax returns or his potential
refunds.
Now we get to a really interesting transaction. The TC-820 is listed last on this
page, but it is actually the first transaction in this Master File. The agent claims
on the transaction submission form that the transaction date was January 18,
2001. But the computer date claims it was not processed until July 30, 2006.
This means that the IRS allowed a credit (payment) of $3,000 on this account,
and then disallowed it (transferred it out) five and a half years after it was
received. And there is no explanation for this in the Master File. There is, of
course, in other IRS documents if we want to dig deeper. (And we did…)
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The last page of the IMF has all the same details in the header. Then it lists the
TC-290 to indicate “Additional Tax Assessment” is pending. Remember way
back in the Entity Section of this IMF I talked about the Assessment Statutory
Expiration Date – ASED? I commented that the IMF contained all zeros for the
ASED and no legitimate date. And I said this means that the software will allow
additional assessments long past the statutory limit of 3 years. Well, here we are
five years after the due date of the return, and almost four years after the IRS
created it, either date beyond the limit of the tax laws. This assessment is just
plain illegal. And it is made even worse because the statutory justification for this
particular assessment is Section 6020(b) of the Internal Revenue Code. But the
regulations for Section 6020(b) only authorizes assessments involving taxes
payable by stamp. So, if this man were creating cigarettes for resale, and this
transaction date were 8 months earlier, this just might be a legal action. But,
alas, the IRS seems to be in error here.
On the other hand, this individual really is a business earning as much as $10
million a year, really is required to file Profit and Loss from a Farming Business
because of his illegal drug imports, and really is filing income information to a
false Social Security Number, as claimed in the Entity Section of the IMF.
Obviously, he is a corporation involved in tobacco farming (right next to his
marijuana plants) and subject to the tobacco tax requiring the purchase of
tobacco stamps. And that is why the IRS can use Section 6020(b) against him
and assess him for additional taxed beyond the time the law allows. I guess…
At least that’s their story and they are sticking with it. Until, that is, this man
discovers the legal process to have his IMF corrected. And then he will get the
record corrected and find the IRS goes away and leaves him alone.
The rest of this IMF relates to IMF Status Codes. As we discussed above, Stat
Codes relate to specific notices sent out to people, but they have no DLNs
associated with them. This way IRS agents can claim a required notice was sent
out and yet not have to prove it by filing a copy of it in the DLN folder.
The first status code, Stat-04, was the form to appoint a power of attorney to
receive any refunds he had coming from the IRS for this year.
The Stat Code 02 with a transaction date of May 22 was a notice that the IRS
had no record of a return from him and a request for the man to file one quickly
was sent out. According to the next transaction code, three weeks later, the IRS
sent out a CP-515. This is a somewhat threatening request for the delinquent tax
return. But, as we have already discussed, the tax regulations allow a CP with
three digits to be sent only to a business engaged in activities related to alcohol,
tobacco or firearms. A CP letter with 3 digits is not allowed by IRS regulations to
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be sent to an individual American who lives and earns a living within the several
States and not engaged in an activity that is taxable for revenue purposes.
The second STAT-02 dated August 5 indicates a “fourth notice” was sent to the
alleged tobacco farming business that is in reality an individual. This denotes a
fourth notice (specifically a CP-518) even though there are only three in the
record. See what I mean about the IRS being able to say or do anything it wants
in the Status Code Section without having to document anything?
The STAT-03 with a Status Indicator of “9” tells us the IRS is getting serious
about collecting from this man. How do we know the IRS is getting serious?
Because the status indicator of 9 is totally bogus, and it renders this STAT-02
illegal. Further, how much it wants to collect is still unknown since there is
nothing in the record that indicates any amount due at all. Remember, the filing
Condition Code way up in the Entity Section claims that there is a refund due the
individual for this particular year? Yet here is the IRS madly chasing him for an
undocumented and unstated amount of money.
The next status code, STAT-06, claims “Delinquent Return Not Filed.” Ya think?
However, the amount field is clearly showing $0.00 due.
And the last status code, STAT-12, claims a return is filed or an amount is
assessed. This relates to the TC-290 we see at the top of the page. Yet both
the TC-290 and the STAT-12 indicate a zero balance due.
How can even the IRS justify such serious collections activities when its own
records claim a zero balance due?
Still, with a zero balance due, the IRS filed a lien against his house, and it was
threatening to levy his bank account and his wife’s retirement income. The IRS
sends him demand letters for hundreds of thousands of dollars, yet it shows a
zero balance due on his Individual Master File.
The good news is the fact that this man is almost finished in his efforts to force
the IRS to correct the records by removing the illegal entity designations and
their related transactions. In a matter of weeks from the time I write this, his IMF
will show a long series of corrections and the IRS will cease its illegal collections
efforts against this man and his wife.
The Internal Revenue Manual (and other IRS publications) establishes the
responsibility for maintaining accurate records as resting with all examiners and
their managers, as well as with all Area Directors and Field Territory Managers.
These are in addition to the Service Center Director of the Martinsburg Campus,
the IRS office that physically houses the IMF database, and other management
all the way up to the Assistant Commissioner of Internal Revenue.
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Concerning the accuracy of records under the care of the IRS, particularly the
IMF records, I submit the following references from the Internal Revenue Manual.
If the IRS does not, cannot, or chooses not to maintain accurate records about
you, the Privacy Act (5 USC Section 552a) allows for civil remedies.
5 USC Sec. 552a
TITLE 5
PART I
CHAPTER 5
SUBCHAPTER II
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adverse effect on an individual, the individual may bring a civil
action against the agency, and the district courts of the United
States shall have jurisdiction in the matters under the provisions
of this subsection.
There are many, many other references that should be consulted before anyone
goes off to do battle with the IRS over their records. But this booklet has covered
more than just the basics. And there are organizations other than IRx Solutions
that claim to be able to get your IMF corrected. Still, if you have any questions
concerning this or other issues related to the so-called income tax, you may
contact us by email at Dave@IRx-Solutions.com or by writing us at:
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How to download the “IDRS and ADP Manual”
(known as the IRS 6209 Manual)
Go to our website (www.IRx-Solutions.com) and click on the menu option
“Documents”. Scroll down until you see the 6209 Manual and click on it. The
document is quite large and it will take some time to load. It is in the well-used
PDF file format. Once it loads, you can save a copy of it to your computer.
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IRS Chicago Disclosure Office
Mail Stop 7000 CHI, Room 2820;CL:GLD:A4:CHI
230 South Dearborn Street
Chicago, IL 60604
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IRS Laguna Niguel Disclosure Office
Mail Stop 2201
24000 Avila Road, CL:GLD:A7:LN
Laguna Niguel, CA 92677
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IRS Phoenix Disclosure Office
Mail Stop 7000 PHX
210 E. Earll Drive, CL:GLD:A6:PHX:D
Phoenix, AZ 85012
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