Taxpayer Advocate Gets Legal Muscle: New Bill Grants Authority to Hire In-House Lawyers

This bill, officially titled the National Taxpayer Advocate Enhancement Act of 2025, makes a targeted but significant change to how the National Taxpayer Advocate (NTA) operates. Essentially, it updates the Internal Revenue Code to give the NTA the explicit power to hire and appoint lawyers to work directly within the Office of the Taxpayer Advocate. These new legal hires would report straight to the NTA or their designee, ensuring they are focused solely on the Advocate’s mission of helping taxpayers navigate the IRS.

Giving the People's Advocate a Sharper Edge

Think of the National Taxpayer Advocate as the referee—or maybe the defense attorney—for regular people dealing with the IRS. They are supposed to be an independent voice inside the agency, helping taxpayers resolve problems that haven’t been fixed through normal IRS channels. Historically, their ability to hire dedicated legal counsel who report directly to them has been somewhat ambiguous. This bill cuts through that ambiguity by specifically granting the NTA the authority to appoint counsel (Section 7803(c)(2)(D)(i)). For the average person, this means the office designed to protect your rights against the tax collector is getting a direct injection of legal expertise, which could translate into faster, more effective resolutions when you run into a tax nightmare.

What This Means When You Get That Scary Letter

If you’ve ever had a complicated tax issue—say, you’re a small business owner navigating payroll taxes or a freelancer dealing with a complex audit—you know how quickly things can escalate into legal territory. Before this change, the NTA’s office relied on existing structures, which might mean less direct control over the legal support they received. By allowing the NTA to hire dedicated, in-house lawyers who report only to them, the bill strengthens the independence of the office. This is crucial because it ensures that when the NTA steps in to fight for a taxpayer, their legal team’s loyalty and focus are entirely on the taxpayer’s best interest, not on the broader IRS bureaucracy. This increased legal firepower means the Advocate’s office can more aggressively and effectively advocate for fairness and resolution, potentially streamlining the process and saving you time and money.

The Bureaucratic Clean-Up

To make sure this new authority works smoothly, the bill also cleans up some technical language in the Internal Revenue Code (Section 7803(c)(2)(D)(i)). It updates the description of who counts as an employee of the Taxpayer Advocate's office, making sure the new hiring authority applies generally to the entire office, not just specific local branches. While this sounds like boring administrative jargon, it’s necessary plumbing to ensure the NTA has the operational flexibility to place these new legal experts where they are needed most. Finally, the bill makes these changes retroactive to the original 1998 IRS restructuring act, which essentially solidifies the NTA’s mandate and ensures this new legal authority is fully integrated into the existing framework.