Tax law glossary of terms

Published: April 26, 2022 | Last Updated: February 8, 2024

TAS Tax Tip: Tax terms – find the meaning of them by searching our website

The IRS uses many words and terms related to taxes that aren’t always easy to understand. Taxes are complex, and the terms can be also. So, if you what to know ‘what does that term really mean to me?’, simply search for it on our website or go directly to our Tax Terms page.

Want to understand what an Refund Statute Expiration Date (RSED) is? Look it up on our site.

Want to know what a Collection Statute Expiration Date (CSED) is? Look it up on our site.

TAS added these tax terms and their explanations shortly after we launched the Taxpayer Roadmap. The taxpayer roadmap is a handy tool that performs a few valuable functions. These functions help both taxpayers and tax professionals:

• See where a tax return/an account is within the IRS’s various processes.
• Look up an IRS Notice, to get a plain language description of what it means and why it was sent.
• Find common tax terms to better understand their definition and how they might apply to your tax return or account.

There are few different ways to interact with the map to reveal important tax information.

• Enter your IRS notice number in the search field provided.
• Use the section-view quick links to navigate a topic area.
• Manually click-on different markers (stops) throughout the map.

You can also visit the Taxpayer Advocate Service’s Get Help center for a list of tax topics to assist you with resolving many tax-related issues.

For more updates from the Taxpayer Advocate Service, visit the news and information center to read the latest tax tips, blogs, alerts and more.