United States Government Publishing Office publisher pbl distributor dst United States Government Accountability Office author aut Government Organization text government publication eng GAOREPORTS Legislative Agency Publications gao legislative 2010-08-12 U.S. Government Printing Office 2003-11-06 monographic deposited born digital 13 p. GA 1.13:GAO-04-79R https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-GAO-04-79R P0b002ee180389ee2 f:d0479r DGPO 2010-08-12 2011-03-28 GAOREPORTS-GAO-04-79R machine generated eng fdlp REPORT GAOREPORTS-GAO-04-79R GAO-04-79R Data collection Data integrity Federal taxes Income taxes Tax administration Tax exempt status Taxpayers IRS Questionable Form W-4 Program Correspondence A08830

In September 2003, we responded to a request from Representative Elton Gallegly to provide information on the number of taxpayers who claimed more than 10 withholding allowances and taxpayers who claimed exemption from federal income tax withholding. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) calls such claims questionable Form W-4s. However, in the course of performing our work, we became concerned about the reliability of the information that IRS maintains on these taxpayers and decided that we could not use it to answer Representative Gallegly's questions. The objectives of this letter are to summarize our findings about the reliability of the information IRS maintains on taxpayers who claimed more than 10 withholding allowances or exemption from federal tax withholding and to bring to your attention some resulting questions about the value of IRS continuing to collect the information. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-GAO-04-79R/html/GAOREPORTS-GAO-04-79R.htm https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-GAO-04-79R/pdf/GAOREPORTS-GAO-04-79R.pdf GAO-04-79R https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-GAO-04-79R Correspondence GAO-04-79R; IRS's Use of Information on Taxpayers Claiming Many Allowances or Exemption From Federal Income Tax Withholding; Data collection Data integrity Federal taxes Income taxes Tax administration Tax exempt status Taxpayers IRS Questionable Form W-4 Program Title 31 Section 720 31 U.S.C. 720