Insights

Washington – August 15, 2024: The 2025 edition of The Best Lawyers in America® has recognized 42 Crowell & Moring lawyers as "Best Lawyers" and 29 lawyers as “Ones to Watch.”

Washington – August 17, 2023: The 2024 edition of The Best Lawyers in America® has recognized 47 firm lawyers as "Best Lawyers" and 41 lawyers as “Ones to Watch.”

On October 1, 2025, the IRS Independent Office of Appeals launched a two-year pilot program to make Post Appeals Mediation (PAM) more attractive and accessible to taxpayers. See IRS Announcement 2025-10. The new PAM pilot program offers taxpayers the opportunity to be assigned to a new Appeals team, which is otherwise unconnected to the underlying case, who will represent the original Appeals team in the mediation session. The assignment of the new Appeals team does not begin a new appeals process but rather is intended to help facilitate an expedited and impartial look at the underlying case with the goal of further exploring all potential paths to resolution prior to litigation.

On July 23, 2025, the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) issued interim guidance for Large Business & International Division (“LB&I”) audit procedure. The IRS announced three major changes: (1) the Acknowledgement of Facts Information Document Request (“AOF IDR”) will be eliminated; (2) Accelerated Issue Resolution (“AIR”) applies to Large Corporate Compliance (“LCC”) cases; and (3) the IRS must conduct additional review before denying a taxpayer’s request to participate in the Fast Track Settlement (“FTS”). These changes reflect the IRS’s continued push to make its examinations “more efficient and current.”

In the wake of the Trump Administration’s recent scrutiny of various nonprofit organizations, including Harvard University, and threats to revoke organizations’ tax-exempt status, nonprofit organizations should take proactive steps in the event of an IRS audit that may target their federal tax-exempt status. Proactive planning and preparation measures are essential to being well-equipped to deal with potential IRS inquiries or an audit. The faster and more efficiently an IRS inquiry can be concluded, the better likelihood of avoiding a full audit or worse, revocation of status. An organization may be particularly vulnerable where there has been any level of political involvement that could be viewed as controversial, but also involvement with activities and efforts focused on renewable energy and diversity, equity & inclusion (“DEI”) may now cause additional scrutiny of an organization’s tax-exempt status. Common potential foot-faults that can bring an organization into the crosshairs (and which are oftentimes not fully considered in light of potential risk of revocation of tax-exempt status) include negotiating typical agreements, including commercial contracting and similar arrangements, where contractual provisions may call for representations and commitments from a non-profit around its DEI efforts or similar efforts. Extra care should be taken to review such instances and other potential activities that may increase the organization’s risk of IRS audit.

Crowell & Moring’s Tax Group invites you to join us for the 37th Annual Managing Tax Audits and Appeals. The seminar will provide an overview of everything you need to know about recent developments and hot topics in tax, from planning through litigation, including perspectives from the IRS.