The Nation - News from March 22, 1989

The Internal Revenue Service has abandoned a policy under which employees were told not to notify taxpayers who inadvertently overpaid their income taxes, acting Commissioner Michael J. Murphy said. The change was announced after a meeting with Sen. Albert Gore Jr. (D-Tenn.), to whom some employees of the IRS service center in Memphis had complained. Those employees said the old policy amounted to the IRS’s stealing from taxpayers--most of whom apparently were pensioners. In addition to dropping the old policy, Murphy and Gore said, the IRS will make provisions for taxpayers who inadvertently overpaid their 1985 and 1986 taxes to file amended returns.