TaxSpeak refers to the language and meaning of words used by employees of the taxing authorities which differ from PeopleSpeak (Regular American English in everyday usage). TaxSpeak is so similar and yet so different from PeopleSpeak that it confuses not only those to whom English is a second language, but also those to whom it is a first language and to those graduating from Universities in the US where proficiency in English is a requirement. In general, most people practice PeopleSpeak for everyday communication, using a dictionary for clarification, whereas TaxSpeak clarification requires reading though 1040 instructions, Pub 17, or calling the toll-free 1-800-829-1040 where the helpful customer service agent will patiently search for and read out the relevant sections from these publications.

Employees at the IRS are so immersed in tax forms, tax form numbers, and tax definitions that they sometimes use the same in communication with non-immersed volunteers and taxpayers. At the beginning of each season, many volunteers need to refresh themselves about what 8879, 8453, 8821s and other forms refer to. VITA Volunteer Tax Preparers and Site Coordinators get a quick course in it every year when getting certified. While we look for natural language translators each season to translate to and from English to non-English, we forget that one important requirement of a successful volunteer is ability to translate between TaxSpeak and PeopleSpeak.

Here is a satirical, irreverent and tongue in cheek attempt to demystify some of the lingo and point out differences. Please take it in that spirit.

Relationship Manager: The IRS employee responsible for communicating and working with Site Coordinators. The strange part is that they do not have this in their title when they send out emails, but the term is used in both oral and written communication as referring to some mystical mythical third person, especially if blame needs to be assigned. We have never seen any official document stating who is the Relationship Manager for Santa Clara County Sites, but rest assured that there is one who is watching, watching, watching that Santa Clara Sites trod the straight and narrow path without deviating, and the title of the person may be something like SPEC Relationship Tax Consultant or Tax Specialist. If the term Manager refers to someone with subordinates in the pecking order of an organization and who at least one other person calls "boss", then usually the Relationship Manager is not a Manager!

Territory Manager: The IRS employee in charge of a territory. A territory is usually, but not always, a contiguous area whose edges seem to line up with parts of State boundaries; this manager appears to be a true manager, and is "boss" of Relationship Managers.

Qualifying Child: In PeopleSpeak, usually a person below a certain age, usually 21 and sometimes 18, and in the stage of life before becoming an adult. When used with the term "my" in front as in "My Child" or "My Children", it usually reflects a parental relationship, or one between an elder - younger relationship. In TaxSpeak, it refers to someone not providing more than half his or her own support for living expenses, and may refer to adult siblings, nephews, and certain in-laws. Sometimes the Qualifying Child may actually be an adult. A person can be the Qualifying Child of only one Taxpayer; if the person can be the Qualifying Child of a non-taxpayer, then the Child is not a Qualifying Child (poor non-qualifying child!!). Since a person is permitted to be the Qualifying Child of only one TaxPayer, if multiple taxpayers who could qualify this child can agree peacefully who is the beneficiary of the Qualifying Child, can duke it out using strong language, boxing gloves, and sticks and stones until there is only one taxpayer left standing, or the IRS to sorting it out using well defined tiebreaker rules. Needless to say, the subject of all this attention, the Child, has little or no say in the matter.

Qualifying Relative: In PeopleSpeak, a person with a familial relationship usually through blood or marriage. In TaxSpeak, sometimes, but not always, Qualifying Relative may be an unrelated person in the same household and but not a PeopleSpeak relative. Since this may cause confusion - why not call the person a Qualifying Non-Relative? Is there such a thing as a Non-Qualifying Relative? It would be fair to assume that just as there is a non Qualifying Child, there should/could also be a non Qualifying Relative that is not the Qualifying Relative of any taxpayer.

Qualifying Person: In TaxSpeak, usually but not always, a Qualifying Child or a Qualifying Relative even if the person is neither a child nor a relative. So what is the opposite of a Qualifying person? It may be a non-Qualifying Person, a Qualifying non-person, a non-Qualifying Non-person, or a combination of some or all of the above three.

Single: In PeopleSpeak, a person without a current spouse, significant other, or domestic partner. Somewhere in between being Single and being Married is being Engaged. A TaxSpeak Single is a person who is considered not married. So what does being not married mean? Well if two married PeopleSpeak people live apart after June 30 of the previous year, they can consider themselves unmarried in TaxSpeak, and the IRS will agree with them. They could choose to be considered married in TaxSpeak and the IRS will also agree with them.  But the courts, the churches (if appropriate) and PeopleSpeak consider them Married. What if they lived together on July 1 then did not see or meet each other the rest of the year, and/or planned to get divorced the following year? In TaxSpeak, they are married at the end of the year and for the whole year. What if they id not live together under the same roof any time after June 30, but saw each other and enjoyed the other joys and tribulations of Marriage?  This situation does not appear to be addressed in TaxSpeak.  What if they are legally divorced on or before December 31? In both TaxSpeak and PeopleSpeak they are not married to each other on December 31, but in TaxSpeak they are considered unmarried the whole year. But wait, what if they re-marry the following year? Well, in that case, TaxSpeak says they were always Married and never unmarried (unlike PeopleSpeak). What if they got married right after their returns had been filed as unmarried?  In that case, they probably would need to file an amended return explaining that they were married TaxSpeak-wise the whole time.  On the other hand, if the TaxPayer is married, and the spouse is not in the US and does not have a Tax id, then for TaxSpeak only (not PeopleSpeak), the spouse does not exist, and TaxPayer could file as Single. (Or the spouse could file with the TaxPayer, but getting a TaxID would be difficult because the spouse cannot appear before the IRS, and sending originals to the IRS has its own problems - remember the news story several years ago about an office manager unable to keep up with the number of returns and applications who solved the personnel problem by quietly shredding the documents in the quiet of the night so no-one would notice, except the spouse several months later when he/she realized he/she had no tax id, no original legal documents, and the the IRS did not recognize the TaxPayer as married (in TaxSpeak) because the spouse did not have a Taxpayer ID).  By the way, Engaged appears non-existent in the vocabulary of TaxSpeak.

So what if two unmarried people are living together (in sin, as it were) as a couple without the recognition of church or state, and enjoying (or suffering) the privileges, joys and tribulations of marriage? In PeopleSpeak, they are considered unmarried - no ands, ifs or buts. On the other hand, in TaxSpeak, they are considered unmarried except in a couple of interesting situations....
If they are of the same gender, not close relatives, and register with the Secretary of State as Registered Domestic Partners (RDP) in California, then in California TaxSpeak for purposes of State Income Tax they fall into the category of RDP, and the rules and tax tables and rates relating to MFJ or MFS apply to them.. .. except that for Federal TaxSpeak purposes they are considered unmarried. This appears to save them from the "marriage penalty" of married couples for Federal Tax purposes. But wait, doesn't the California return rely on the Federal return? Yes, it does! So what federal return should be used? Not the return of one or the other, but a hypothetical return or returns of a hypothetical married couple filing MFJ or MFS which is hypothetically filed with the IRS and which the IRS will hypothetically never see. In yet another wrinkle, if the two people are of different genders, and one or both above the age of 62, and otherwise not legally prohibited from marrying one another (such a prohibited situation might be brother and sister, or parent and child), and they register with the Secretary of State, they could be RDPs (why not just simplify things by getting married in this case?) Point to note - dialects of TaxSpeak may at times be inconsistent with one another; e.g. the Federal TaxSpeak is different from the California TaxSpeak.

So how does one become Head of Household? Not by being King of the castle (PeopleSpeakl) or being the only one in the house, but by having at least one dependent. (Guess this means that a person may be Head of Household only if there is one or more non-Head(s) of Household.) Having a dependent and being considered unmarried is necessary but not sufficient for becoming Head of Household, since some additional conditions must be satisfied. The standard deduction is larger than for a single, allows the TaxPayer to take a personal exemption of the dependent, and the tax rate tables are also different. If the person who could help qualify the taxpayer to be head of household is an unrelated Qualifying Relative, the taxpayer must file as a single, but can take the personal exemption for the unrelated dependent.

So what if a person is below the age of 24, goes to school, lives at home with the parents, and makes more money than the parents and but lives off the parents (e.g puts all the earnings into investments but has the parents feed, clothe, and board him/her/it)? Well, in TaxSpeak, the person is still a Qualifying Child of the parents.

How does this affect the Earned Income Credit (EIC)? Also sometimes referred to as Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), it is a credit a taxpayer gets for some, but not too much earned income. It increases as earned income increases...up to a point.. and then decreases as the earned income increases, and finally goes to zero. The Credit is higher with 2 qualifying children than with 1 qualifying child, which is higher than with no child. The EIC does not recognize more than 2 qualifying children. The taxpayer could choose to forgo the EIC. It could actually give some money back to the taxpayer beyond what is withheld in taxes during the year. What if the taxpayer also has unearned income? Then it depends on how much unearned income there is. Beyond a certain amount of unearned income, the taxpayer does not qualify regardless of how little, how much or how non-existent the earned income. What are some examples of Unearned income? They include interest, dividends, capital gains, Unemployment Compensation, Alimony payments received, and possibly winning the lottery.

AMT:  TaxSpeak term which stands for Alternative Minimum Tax. It is computed in a way which makes it more meaningful and easier to think of as Additional Minimum Tax. In PeopleSpeak, Alternative usually means "instead of", but if you look at a tax return with AMT, you will note that Total Tax is the regular Tax Plus the AMT, so in TaxSpeak, Alternative appears to mean "in addition to" for purposes of AMT.

So who or what is a Qualifying Widow or Widower? In TaxSpeak, a person whose spouse passed away in the previous tax year or the year before that, but only if there is a dependent. Without a qualifying dependent, the surviving spouse transforms from married into single across the end of the year without ever become widowed or widowered. In one situation a taxpayer at the VITA site argued long and hard that since the spouse passed away 6 years ago, and she had been a qualifying Widow the first two years, since the marital status had not changed, the status should still apply to her. It took a long time and a lot of energy to explain that though she was a PeopleSpeak Widow, she definitely was not a TaxSpeak widow.

 Child Tax Credit: A credit towards the income tax for a dependent Child who is 16 or younger during the tax year. Well, in this case the Child is definitely not an Adult, so TaxSpeak and PeopleSpeak agree,.... except that a PeopleSpeak adult is 18 or 21 and above. Some taxpayers insist on their right to the Child Tax Credit when their son or daughter turns 17 because in PeopleSpeak, he/she is not an adult, and therefore still a Child.

Finally, for Economic Stimulus Payment (aka Tax Rebate) purposes,  SSA (Social Security Administration) Benefits are Qualifying Income whereas SSI (Supplemental Security Income) - which has the word income prominently included in it - is not Qualifying Income! Go Figure! It would appears that the President, Congress and Senate have succumbed to TaxSpeak!

Amused? Bewildered? Confused? Distraught? So is the author! Call 1-800-829-1040 toll-free for help!