2010 Tax Filing Season: IRS's Performance Improved in Some Key Areas, but Efficiency Gains Are Possible in Others
GAO-11-111
Published: Dec 16, 2010. Publicly Released: Jan 18, 2011.
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Highlights
The Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) filing season is an enormous undertaking that includes processing individual income tax returns, issuing refunds, and responding to taxpayers. GAO was asked to assess IRS's 2010 filing season performance in relation to its goals and prior years' performance processing individual tax returns, answering telephones, and delivering Web and face-to-face services. To conduct the analysis, GAO analyzed data and documents from IRS, interviewed IRS officials, observed IRS operations, and interviewed tax industry experts.
Recommendations
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Internal Revenue Service | To gain efficiencies and improve taxpayer service, the Commissioner of Internal Revenue should direct the appropriate officials, based on the quality of service provided by comparable organizations and on what matters most to the customer, to determine a customer service telephone standard, and the resources required to achieve this standard based on input from Congress and other stakeholders. |
As of August 2019, IRS finalized a customer service strategy identifying an optimal telephone level of service. According to the strategy, IRS has a process to compare major metrics with other agencies and private industry, and conducted two studies to look at industry practices. In response to our recommendation, IRS compared its telephone data with similar telephone environments, and determined that a telephone level of service (LOS) between 70 and 80 percent provides an optimal balance for servicing customer service telephones and paper correspondence requests. In August 2020, IRS noted it had already identified the resources required to achieve this standard. IRS's fiscal year 2017 congressional justification identified the budget and full-time equivalents needed to achieve a 70 percent telephone LOS. In response, Congress appropriated IRS resources to achieve a telephone LOS of about 77 percent. For fiscal year 2018, Congress appropriated resources for IRS to achieve a telephone LOS of about 76 percent, following input from IRS's congressional justification. Based on this information, IRS has satisfied the recommendation, identifying a telephone standard and the resources required to achieve that standard. IRS's efforts to determine a customer service telephone standard and the resources required to achieve this standard better position IRS to improve its service to taxpayers.
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| Internal Revenue Service | To gain efficiencies and improve taxpayer service, the Commissioner of Internal Revenue should direct the appropriate officials to use the existing process of regular team meetings with frontline telephone assistors to solicit information on call trends and other potential improvements to phone service and to supplement issues identified using Contact Analytics. |
IRS implemented this recommendation in 2012. As a result of engaging the telephone assistors, IRS is better able to identify emerging issues and improve the customer experience, including by providing alternative and more cost effective services.
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| Internal Revenue Service | To gain efficiencies and improve taxpayer service, the Commissioner of Internal Revenue should direct the appropriate officials to assess business units' needs for holding Contact Analytics calls beyond 45 days and store calls for this period or document that the costs of doing so exceed the benefits. |
IRS disagreed with this recommendation. As of April 2015, IRS officials said that increasing the recorded call storage beyond 45 days would be a costly expenditure competing with other funding priorities, such as the Customer Contact History Database.
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| Internal Revenue Service | To gain efficiencies and improve taxpayer service, the Commissioner of Internal Revenue should direct the appropriate officials to establish a performance measure for taxpayer correspondence that includes providing timely service to taxpayers. |
IRS agreed with this recommendation and started using more detailed performance measures that includes an overaged/timeliness measure for its correspondence beginning in fiscal year 2011. In February 2015, we reported that overaged correspondence increased from 25 to 49 percent. While not included among IRS's suite of balanced measures, IRS has taken steps to address correspondence overage rates, such as implementing its Phased Approach to Inventory with the goal of closing as many correspondence cases as early as possible.
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| Internal Revenue Service | To gain efficiencies and improve taxpayer service, the Commissioner of Internal Revenue should direct the appropriate officials to establish an evaluation plan for the 2011 filing season debit card program that includes taxpayers, volunteer site partners, and other stakeholders and assesses the full range of reasons for program participation rates. |
In August 2011, IRS completed a study to determine how to appropriately market debit cards and other services provided at Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) sites. IRS concluded that among other things, low-cost options, such as continuing to work through VITA and Tax Counseling for the Elderly (TCE) partners to promote the cards, exist to increase the use of debit cards at VITA/TCE sites.
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Topics
Audit oversightCustomer serviceElectronic data processingFinancial managementInternal controlsPerformance appraisalPersonal income taxesStrategic planningTax administrationTax returnsTaxpayersTelephone servicesPast performance