IRS' Telephone Assistance Program

GAO discussed the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) Integrated Test Call Survey System, focusing on the accuracy of IRS responses to taxpayer questions about tax law. GAO found that: (1) as of March 10, 1989, IRS reported a 30.8-percent error rate for toll-free telephone assistance, but based those results on only 29 of 62 test questions; (2) IRS added a new category of response in reporting accuracy statistics which failed to meet minimal standards; (3) many of the answers IRS wanted to score as correct were incomplete and potentially misleading; and (4) IRS failure to maintain consistent scoring standards raised questions about the validity and integrity of test results.