Broader dialogue boosts existing — and new — relationships
Advocacy
Paul Marquart | June/July 2023 Footnote
Editor's note: Updated May 30, 2023
With this year’s income tax filing season behind us, I want to thank CPAs for your dedication and hard work helping your clients meet their filing obligations and pay — or receive — the right amount.
So far, the Minnesota Department of Revenue has processed 2.6 million individual income tax returns and issued 1.8 million refunds for tax year 2022. As of May 10, we processed 150,000 business income tax returns and issued 25,000 refunds.
As always, your services played a key role in Revenue’s ability to handle most returns with no follow-up needed and to issue refunds in less than 10 days, on average. We appreciate your work and the value we all gain from the MNCPA-Revenue relationship.
Partnerships like ours play a key role in Revenue’s continual efforts to improve the services, information and systems we provide to taxpayers, their representatives and others we serve.
CPAs are among our “power users.” Providing the information, support and systems you need to serve your clients — who are also our customers — is integral to Revenue’s work. To that end, we’re expanding our engagement with CPAs and tax preparers and working to improve our tax education offerings. We surveyed tax professionals to learn more about your education needs. Your feedback will help us improve our existing CPE content and offer new courses.
We recently added a second tax professional outreach coordinator to help answer questions and connect you with educational resources. Mena Duarte joins Mark Krause, who also coordinates withholding tax education for employers and payroll professionals. You can reach them at taxpro.outreach@state.mn.us. You’ll find Mark and Mena at various MNCPA and Revenue events this year as we work to increase our engagement with an even broader range of partners, customers and community groups.
Our goal is to enhance and build on previous outreach efforts to hear from the full spectrum of Minnesotans we serve, including communities who have not always been part of tax policy discussions in the past. These efforts include our partners like the MNCPA, while also bringing a broader range of voices to the conversation.
We believe strongly at Revenue that building relationships with more Minnesotans enhances our existing partnerships and ultimately benefits everyone who lives, works or does business in our state.
Legislative update
At the time of writing, the Minnesota House and Senate are working on this year’s budget and tax bills before session’s end (no later than May 22). It’s likely that some notable changes to our state tax system will be law by the time you read this column.
Before and during the session, Revenue works with the governor and legislators from across the political spectrum. We may propose tax policy or technical changes to improve current laws or proposed changes to them. We strive for laws that can be understood and administered in a fair and efficient way.
Even before a tax bill is signed, we analyze how it may affect individual and business taxpayers, and how it impacts Revenue operations, forms and systems.
Once the legislative session ends, we communicate law changes to partners and the public through email updates, law summaries and on our website. We follow up with more detailed information and guidance for those affected by the changes.
When law changes affect prior tax years, we update previously filed returns — if possible — and adjust or issue refunds to the affected taxpayers. In some cases, we may need more information to make those adjustments, or taxpayers may need to amend their returns to benefit from the changes.
For the latest information on this year’s tax changes, you can:
We understand — and share — the challenge of keeping up with changing tax laws and we work hard to provide the information you need, as tax professionals, to serve your clients. Please contact us if you have questions or need additional guidance and we’ll do our best to help.
Paul Marquart is the commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Revenue. You can find more about tax laws and the department’s mission and strategies at www.revenue.state.mn.us.
