Tax Administration: Assessment of IRS' 2000 Tax Filing Season

During an audit of IRS' 2000 tax filing season, GAO found that the data used by IRS to monitor timeliness at its walk-in sites was limited by three factors: 1) it did not establish a standardized time with which to hold sites accountable for responding to taxpayers needs or unanticipated changes; 2) wait-times were, in many cases, being computed manually and more prone to error; and 3) regional variation in different reporting formats created a potential for inconsistent results. Consequently, GAO recommended that IRS enhance the usefulness of data by providing it in a standard format and establish wait-time goals. The steps taken by IRS since the 2001 filing season to address the factors limiting the usefulness of timeliness data from IRS walk-in sites. First, according to IRS officials, it has established a wait-time reporting requirement at walk-in sites as part of the Internal Revenue Manual. Second, wait-times at nearly all walk-in sites are calculate via an automated system and on a virtually real-time basis. Therefore, IRS management has enhanced wait-time information readily available. Managers can retrieve the reports daily, weekly or annually from the system. Managers can track and monitor live customer wait-time in the walk-in site on a daily basis. This information is used by IRS to determine staffing and training needs.

In its report, GAO noted that IRS was assessing the quality of returns prepared by volunteer sites, but did not have measures for assessing the timeliness of service provided by the sites or taxpayer satisfaction with those services. IRS has since, with the help of a contractor, conducted surveys to measure (1) the satisfaction of providers of volunteer services with the support provided by IRS, and (2) the satisfaction of taxpayers who used the services of volunteers. As part of the latter survey, taxpayers were asked about their satisfaction with the amount of time they had to wait for service and the quality of the service received.

According to IRS, it (1) developed a new Intranet ordering system for field offices to use in monitoring daily the status of their orders, and (2) revised its volunteer tax preparation site visitation report to include specific questions that can be used to gauge the site's ability to provide assistance to taxpayers. GAO's review of the revised report indicated that it provided the kind of volunteer site visitation/review guidance that GAO found lacking during its review in 2000.

According to IRS officials, it tested and implemented an order tracking system in 2002 that would track an order from the time it is received until it is filled. Under this system, IRS uses software to document when an order for IRS forms and publications is received. IRS then developed a timeliness measure to monitor the time taken to fill the order, which could than be compared to the agency's 10-day delivery goal. The system also tracks the time for backorders to help monitor time required for printing and related processes at the back-end.

During an audit of IRS' 2000 tax filing season, GAO found several instances of data on IRS' web site that were either obsolete or inconsistent. Contributing to the problem was the lack of responsibility for ensuring information on IRS' web site was accurate and up-to-date. Consequently, GAO recommended that IRS (1) assign clear responsibility in a central location for identifying and correcting outdated and inconsistent data; and (2) develop minimum requirements for information to be included on the stage pages in the "Around the Nation" section of the site. Regarding the latter, IRS should consider including information on the location of walk-in sites and their hours of operation. As of March, 2005, IRS was working on the development of its content management program. However, it will not have fully implemented it until 2007 because of budget constraints. Still, IRS had taken intermediate steps to address concerns raised in GAO's report. After reviewing these steps and IRS' web site, we support IRS officials' view that the intermediate steps that it has taken seem to have eliminated out-of-date and inaccurate information from being on the web site. Furthermore, IRS has taken steps to improve the accuracy and currency of information by assigning officials to be accountable for information on their sections. Additionally, IRS is working with a contractor to redesign and support its web site. Finally, IRS has added data on its web site regarding the locations and hours to its walk-in sites. We find these intermediate steps, together with the progress on development and implementation, to be sufficient to address and correct the problem identified by the GAO report.