The LS Program demonstrates the IRS’s commitment to assist taxpayers lacking full command of the English language (Limited-English Proficiency or LEP) with understanding and meeting their tax responsibilities. The LS Program ensures that LEP taxpayers’ rights are protected as outlined in the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TBOR). The TBOR lists rights that already existed in the tax code, putting them in simple language and grouping them into 10 fundamental rights. Employees must be familiar with and act in accord with taxpayer rights. See IRC 7803(a)(3), Execution of Duties in Accord with Taxpayer Rights. For more information about the TBOR, see https://www.irs.gov/taxpayer-bill-of-rights

The scope of the LS Program includes all tax-related written and oral communications provided by or for taxpayers in non-English languages. It does not apply to Braille, American Sign Language, or communications that are internal use only.

The LS Program is Servicewide. All IRS organizations and their agents (e.g., contractors, volunteers) must uphold its requirements.

The LS Program, through the Standard Translation Process (STP) sets procedures, processes, and requirements for translation.

Oral language assistance is available through the Over-the-Phone Interpreter (OPI) Service. For more information, see IRM 22.31.1.6, Over-the-Phone Interpreter (OPI) Service.

The goal of the LS Program is for the IRS to provide LEP taxpayers meaningful access to the same products and services as English-speaking taxpayers.

Executive Order 14224 of March 01, 2025, (Designating English as the Official Language of the United States) revokes Executive Order 13166 of August 11, 2000 (Improving Access to Services for Persons with Limited English Proficiency); however, nothing in this order requires or directs any change in the services provided by any agency. Agency heads should make decisions as they deem necessary to fulfill their respective agencies' mission and efficiently provide Government services to the American people. Agency heads are not required to amend, remove, or otherwise stop production of documents, products, or other services prepared or offered in languages other than English.

Policy Statement 22-3, Commitment to assist non-English speaking taxpayers understand their tax obligations, found in IRM 1.2.1.14.3 affirms IRS commitment to help non-English speaking taxpayers understand their tax obligations as follows:

The Taxpayer Services Chief owns the Language Services Program.

The LSEAC serves as the executive advisory board and is the Servicewide focal point for language services communications, coordination, and risk management (see also IRM 22.31.1.2.1), Language Services Executive Advisory Council (LSEAC) Strategic Process Responsibilities).

The Director of Media and Publications (M&P) in Taxpayer Services serves as the Language Services Program executive director and interfaces in conflict resolution, manages funding, approves priority status, and co-chairs the LSEAC.

The Multilingual and Agency Services (MAS) Branch in Taxpayer Services manages language services strategic operations (see also IRM 22.31.1.2.2), MAS Branch Strategic Process Responsibilities).

Program Reports: The IRS LEP Customer Base Report (CBR) (IRM 22.31.1.3.1) presents research findings from key assessment areas to regularly reassess demographics and needs of the LEP community. Responsibility for this report resides with the Multilingual and Agency Services (MAS) Branch within Tax Forms and Publications (TF&P). Data is obtained primarily from the Census.

Program Effectiveness: Weekly and monthly analyses of the number of translations, the business operating divisions (BOD) requesting translation, number of pages of translations, and the document types that are prepared for management to track work progress.

There is a set of steps (see IRM 22.31.1.5.4.1), Categorizing Documents, to determine document categorization (vital vs. non-vital).

The translation workflow is tracked through the Enterprise Case Management (ECM) and Multilingual Agency Services (MAS) Application.

The following table defines terms that appear throughout this IRM subsection:

The following table provides acronyms that appear throughout this IRM subsection:

This subsection presents web pages, published documents, and decision tools supporting the Language Services Program.

The LSEAC facilitates the IRS’s administration of multilingual policies and strategies as they relate to Media and Publications activities. The Multilingual Executive Council (MEC) serves as the Executive Oversight Board that establishes the overarching Multilingual Initiative Strategic Vision and Action Plan for the IRS. Their responsibilities include:

The Taxpayer Services Media and Publications (M&P) Director chairs the LSEAC. The LSEAC serves as the executive advisory board and is the Servicewide focal point for language services communications, coordination, and risk management.

LSEAC membership includes executive representatives from BODs across IRS, such as:

LSEAC members serve as key points of access to their respective BODs about matters of language assistance.

The mission of MAS is to facilitate IRS administration of policies and strategies supporting delivery of language assistance to LEP taxpayers.

MAS works with the LSEAC to provide oversight of language services.

MAS monitors compliance with Department of Treasury LEP Guidance 70 FR 6067 by:

MAS maintains the non-English language web pages on the IRS.gov web site. For more information, see IRM 22.31.1.7, Multilingual Web Page Content Publishing Process.

The IRS Limited-English Proficiency CBR is published every three to five years (based on resources available) by the IRS to revisit the scope and needs of LEP taxpayers in the United States. It presents research findings from key assessment areas.

The CBR components are the:

The findings of the CBR are used to:

The following actions are taken for frequently encountered languages:

The following actions are taken for all other non-English languages not designated as frequently encountered:

Language standards have been established to ensure consistency and uniformity in providing language assistance.

The standard languages for translation are (see also IRM 22.31.1.1.7, Related Resources):

Language standards are used to determine languages, tax terminology, and common tax phrases (e.g., Making Work Pay Credit) when providing assistance.

These language standards are to be followed by IRS employees and their agents (e.g., contractors and volunteer partners).

Oral language assistance through the OPI Service must be guided by Publication 850 in the applicable language pair and dictionary standards provided. OPI is available to most business operating divisions (BODs). For more information, see IRM 22.31.1.6, OPI Service.

Written language assistance must conform to the language, Publication 850 in the applicable language pair, the IRS Spanish Writing Style Guide (where applicable), dictionary standards provided, and quality review standards.

BODs must apply language standards to their oral and written language assistance.

The translation process begins by:

Before evaluating the need for translation, you must have determined:

It is not necessary to translate all documents, but it is necessary to ensure meaningful access, within resource constraints.

To be a candidate for translation, a document must be:

Document translation could necessitate actions on the part of the IRS. The anticipated actions must be assessed to determine candidacy.

Documents with unacceptable organizational impact (as determined by the business operating division (BOD) or function) and excessive cost (as identified by the BOD and the MAS Branch if use of the translation contract for translation is required) will not be translated. The document originator must conduct the impact evaluation to document estimated cost necessitated by the document translation.

Further translation activities cannot proceed until an impact assessment is performed.

Considerations to determine impacts include:

The document originator must look at all potential impacts and decide whether they have a negative organizational impact.

If you meet all the previous criteria, your document is considered viable for translation.

Over-the-Phone Interpreter (OPI) Service is billed monthly. To ensure timely processing and payment, invoice validation, and receipt and acceptance of the invoice by the business operating division (BOD)/function on the required procurement systems is necessary.

The BOD/function OPI Coordinator and Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR) are responsible for proper funding and payment in accordance with procurement guidelines.

IRS and Stakeholder Partnerships, Education, and Communication (SPEC) OPI Service users provide feedback on Form 14162, OPI Service Feedback. Each form represents a single encounter. The OPI Program Office will address feedback within three (3) business days.

The principles for managing content on the multilingual web pages correspond to those in the Taxpayer Services Internet Content Publishing Process. For more information, see IRM 11.55.2.12, Internet Support.

Posted content must meet the established language, dialect, and dictionary standards.

Content posted on the multilingual web pages must also exist in English on https://www.IRS.gov or published tax materials.

This subsection presents the responsibilities for content management of the non-English language IRS.gov web pages managed by the MAS Branch.

If a content owner has new English web pages that must be made available in non-English languages, or updates to an existing page that has multilingual children, they must work through OLS to complete a CMRS request to have the translations performed. OLS determines if translation is needed and, if so, submits a ticket to MAS.

To submit content for translation and posting to the multilingual web pages, content owners must:

OLS determines if translation is needed and, if so, submits a ticket to MAS.

MAS fulfills the ticket only if the content owner requests translation or if an existing page has multilingual children. Translation is only performed on web pages, not on pdfs or forms on the web.

The MAS manager assigns the translation request to the appropriate staff member and determines an achievable turnaround time.

MAS will assign priority dates for translation to items received.

MAS forwards translated material to Online Services (OLS) via CMRS for posting.

If the request is rush, content owners can go directly to MAS.

Content owners should retain the English content for a minimum of two weeks after submitting a completed translation request to allow sufficient turn-around time for posting new material (as this could cause broken links to the related foreign language files).

BODs must verify that their English parent pages display links to the foreign-language counterparts (related or associated assets) on the top right and below the title of the web page. Foreign language pages must have links to their English counterparts in the same location.

MAS analysts must verify that their multilingual children pages display links to the corresponding English counterparts (related or associated assets), on the top right and below the title of the web page. Foreign language pages must have links to their English counterparts in the same location.

The multilingual pages’ content is posted in the order the translation requests are received.

The following exceptions apply:

Upon posting of new content, the content provider will be informed that the page has been published.

The MAS Branch will follow the Taxpayer Services Web Certification process as instructed by the assigned process manager to ensure accuracy of the content and to verify the content usefulness and layout, broken links, old/obsolete and orphaned data on the multilingual web pages unless noted otherwise.

All business operating divisions (BODs) and content owners certify ownership and accuracy of their internet content to include any translated content posted on the multilingual web pages through these processes.

OLS content managers maintain the infrastructure of the multilingual web pages. This includes: