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entitled 'Tax Administration: Planning for IRS's Enforcement Process 
Changes Included Many Key Steps but Can Be Improved' which was released 
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Report to the Chairman and Ranking Minority Member, Committee on 
Finance, U.S. Senate:

January 2004:

TAX ADMINISTRATION:

Planning for IRS's Enforcement Process Changes Included Many Key Steps 
but Can Be Improved:

GAO-04-287:

GAO Highlights:

HIGHLIGHTS OF GAO-04-287, A REPORT TO THE COMMITTEE ON FINANCE, U.S. 
SENATE 

Why GAO Did This Study:

In recent years, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has experienced 
declines in most of its enforcement programs, including declines in 
audits and in efforts to collect delinquent taxes. Increasing 
enforcement productivity is one strategy that can help reverse these 
declines. To this end, IRS is currently planning and has begun 
implementing enforcement process improvement projects.

GAO WAS ASKED TO ASSESS THE EXTENT TO WHICH THE PLANNING FOR THE 
PROJECTS FOLLOWED STEPS CONSISTENT WITH BOTH PUBLISHED GAO GUIDANCE 
AND THE EXPERIENCES OF PRIVATE SECTOR AND GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS. 
SPECIFICALLY, GAO ASSESSED THE EXTENT TO WHICH FOUR JUDGMENTALLY 
SELECTED PROJECTS FOLLOWED THE 20 PLANNING STEPS SUMMARIZED IN THE 
FIGURE. 

What GAO Found:

Planning for the four enforcement process improvement projects GAO 
reviewed included most of the 20-step framework developed to assess 
the projects. This increases the likelihood that projects target the 
right processes for improvement, choose the best target process from 
among alternatives, effectively implement the project, accurately 
assess project outcomes, and properly manage the change to the new 
process. However, none of the projects completed all of the steps. For 
example, some projects did not fully identify the causes of 
productivity shortfalls, leaving a risk that the project did not fix 
the right problem. In the course of this work, GAO found that IRS 
managers do not have guidance about the steps to follow in planning 
process improvement projects, increasing the possibility of omitting 
steps. 

A RECURRING ISSUE IN THE FOUR PROJECTS WAS THAT IRS’S ENFORCEMENT DATA 
ONLY PARTIALLY ADJUST FOR THE COMPLEXITY AND QUALITY OF CASES WORKED. 
THIS ISSUE IS ALSO A PROBLEM FOR IRS ENFORCEMENT PRODUCTIVITY DATA 
GENERALLY. FAILING TO ADJUST FOR BOTH COMPLEXITY AND QUALITY INCREASES 
THE RISK THAT TRENDS IN PRODUCTIVITY WILL BE MISUNDERSTOOD. FOR 
EXAMPLE, A DECLINE IN THE NUMBER OF CASES CLOSED PER EMPLOYEE AT THE 
SAME TIME THAT CASE COMPLEXITY IS INCREASING MAY NOT BE A REAL DECLINE 
IN PRODUCTIVITY. GAO RECOGNIZES THAT SOME OPTIONS FOR IMPROVING 
PRODUCTIVITY DATA COULD BE COSTLY. HOWEVER, COSTS COULD BE MITIGATED 
BY USING EXISTING STATISTICAL METHODS AND IRS COMPLEXITY AND QUALITY 
DATA. 

What GAO Recommends:

GAO RECOMMENDS THAT THE COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE TAKE ACTIONS 
TO (1) PUT IN PLACE A FRAMEWORK TO GUIDE THE PLANNING FOR PROCESS 
IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS AND (2) INVEST IN BETTER ENFORCEMENT PROGRAM 
PRODUCTIVITY DATA, RECOGNIZING THE COSTS AND BENEFITS OF DOING SO. 

www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-287.

To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click 
on the link above. FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT JAMES WHITE AT (202) 
512-9110 OR WHITEJ@GAO.GOV.

[End of section]

Contents:

Letter: 

Results in Brief: 

Background: 

SB/SE Process Improvement Projects Included Most Key Steps but 
Productivity Measurement Could Be Improved: 

Conclusions: 

Recommendations for Executive Action: 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation: 

Appendixes:

Appendix I: Process Improvement Project Framework: 

Decision to Change: 

Target Process Development: 

Implementation: 

Outcome Assessment: 

Change Management: 

Appendix II: Scope and Methodology: 

Appendix III: GAO Assessment of Four Selected SB/SE Process Improvement 
Projects: 

Appendix IV: Descriptions of SB/SE Process Improvement Projects: 

Appendix V: Comments from the Internal Revenue Service: 

Table: 

Table 1: Major Process Improvement Projects in IRS's Small Business/Self 
Employed Operating Division: 

Figures: 

Figure 1: 20-Step Process Improvement Framework: 

Figure 2: Key Steps Included in Selected SB/SE Process Improvement 
Projects: 

Figure 3: 20-Step Process Improvement Framework: 

Figure 4: Key Steps Included in the Field Examination Reengineering 
Project: 

Figure 5: Key Steps Included in the Compliance Support Case Processing 
Redesign Project: 

Figure 6: Key Steps Included in the Collection Taxpayer Delinquent 
Account Support Project: 

Figure 7: Key Steps Included in the Collection Field Function 
Consultative Initiative Project: 

Abbreviations: 

CQMS: Collection Quality Measurement System:

EQMS: Examination Quality Measurement System:

GAO: General Accounting Office:

IRS: Internal Revenue Service:

SB/SE: Small Business/Self Employed Division:

Letter January 20, 2004:

The Honorable Charles E. Grassley: 
Chairman: 
The Honorable Max Baucus: 
Ranking Minority Member: 
Committee on Finance: 
United States Senate:

In recent years, as we have reported, the Internal Revenue Service 
(IRS) has experienced declines in most of its enforcement programs, 
including steep declines in audits and broad declines in its efforts to 
collect delinquent taxes.[Footnote 1] Factors we have cited as 
contributing to these declines include the growth in tax returns filed 
each year, reallocation of enforcement resources to improve telephone 
and other services to taxpayers, the addition of new taxpayer rights 
and protections by the IRS Restructuring and Reform Act of 
1998,[Footnote 2] decreased enforcement staffing, and decreased 
enforcement productivity as measured by cases closed per staff 
time.[Footnote 3] The declines have triggered concerns that taxpayers' 
motivation to voluntarily comply with their tax obligations could be 
undermined.

Increasing enforcement productivity is one strategy that could help 
reverse these declines. To this end, IRS's Small Business/Self Employed 
(SB/SE) operating division is currently planning and has begun 
implementing 15 enforcement process improvement projects. These 
projects aim to make incremental improvements to enforcement processes 
and are distinct from the major changes expected to result from IRS's 
long-term business systems modernization effort. Because of your 
concern about the declines in IRS's enforcement programs, including the 
reported declines in their productivity, you asked us to examine IRS's 
planning of its enforcement process improvement projects. Specifically, 
as agreed with your offices, our objective was to assess the extent to 
which SB/SE's planning followed steps consistent with both GAO guidance 
and the experiences of private sector and government organizations. Our 
focus was on SB/SE's planning and development of their projects; we did 
not evaluate the results of any projects because only 1 of the 15 
projects had started implementation in August 2003, when we were 
choosing projects to review, and that project was too new to be 
evaluated.

To assess SB/SE's planning, we needed to identify criteria--the steps 
to follow in planning process improvement projects. We developed a 20-
step framework based on both GAO's Business Process Reengineering 
Assessment Guide and discussions with private sector and other 
government managers with experience planning process improvement 
projects.[Footnote 4] GAO's Guide recognizes that the steps for 
planning process improvement need to be adapted for the magnitude of 
the projects and the particular circumstances of an organization. To do 
this, we first held a roundtable meeting with the Private Sector 
Council and two of its member companies, Northrop Grumman and 
CNF.[Footnote 5] We also discussed process improvement planning with 
managers from the tax departments of California, Florida, and 
Minnesota; and the Minerals Management Service in the U.S. Department 
of the Interior. We then used GAO's guidance and the experiences of the 
above organizations to develop 20 key planning steps appropriate for 
SB/SE's incremental improvement projects. The 20 key steps, organized 
by project stages, are summarized in figure 1.

Figure 1: 20-Step Process Improvement Framework:

[See PDF for image]

[End of figure]

The first six steps are related to an organization's decision to change 
a process. These steps help an organization to understand the extent 
and causes of any weaknesses that need to be addressed. For example, in 
step 1, an organization should begin investigating change by using 
productivity data to define a baseline. Productivity measures generally 
take the form of a ratio of outputs to inputs. The remaining steps in 
this stage refine the organization's understanding of current 
performance and where the organization wants to be.

The next six steps help an organization develop the new, or target, 
process. These steps emphasize understanding and analyzing alternatives 
and planning for implementation.

The next four steps concern an organization's implementation of the new 
process. These steps help an organization through the most difficult 
phase of process improvement, where ideas about the new process are 
turned into actions. Two of these steps are related to pilot testing. 
Pilot testing allows corrective actions to be taken if needed to 
correct problems prior to full implementation. The other two steps 
address employee responsibilities.

In the next stage, an organization makes plans to assess the outcome of 
the new process. The single step in this stage ensures that an 
organization makes plans early for evaluating the success the success 
of the new process. It is important to develop assessment plans prior 
to full project implementation in order to ensure that the data 
necessary for evaluation are collected.

The last three steps are related to how an organization manages the 
change to the new process. Successfully managing change reduces the 
risk that improvement efforts will fail due to the natural resistance 
to change within an organization.

Our 20-step framework emphasizes productivity measurement and analysis 
both because the SB/SE projects focus on productivity gains and because 
the managers we consulted, particularly our roundtable participants, 
said that meaningful productivity data are an important foundation for 
design and implementation of process improvement efforts.

We recognized in our review that there is some judgment involved in 
defining these steps and that some steps may not be appropriate on 
every project. GAO's Business Process Reengineering Assessment Guide 
notes that the guide only provides a general framework for assessing 
key issues. It says that it should not be regarded as a specific, rigid 
set of steps for conducting a project because reengineering is far too 
situational for such a rigid approach.[Footnote 6] The same caveat 
applies to the process improvement 20-step framework we developed for 
this review. Appendix I provides an expanded discussion of each 
planning step we identified as appropriate for SB/SE's projects.

We judgmentally selected four projects to study in detail, including at 
least one project in each of the three main enforcement areas that SB/
SE was revamping--audits (or examinations), collection, and compliance 
support. We also looked for projects that were sufficiently far along 
in their planning for us to expect to see either completed steps or 
plans for the remaining steps.

For the four projects we selected, we assessed the degree to which IRS 
followed our 20-step framework by first interviewing officials and 
examining the extensive documentation they provided. We then returned 
to officials responsible for each project and asked for additional 
information, particularly in areas where our initial assessment was 
that key steps were not taken. Where IRS officials showed us that 
certain steps had been addressed, we then revised our initial 
assessment. We also recognized the need for flexibility in the 
application of our criteria, in that some of the steps we identified 
may not necessarily be appropriate for every project. For instance, one 
project determined that completing a pilot was not necessary; 
accordingly they could not adjust the process based on the pilot, so 
that step was listed "not applicable" in our assessment. We describe 
the development of our framework and our assessment of selected SB/SE 
projects in detail in appendix II.

Results in Brief:

Planning for the four projects we reviewed included most of the 20-step 
framework we developed to assess SB/SE's planning of enforcement 
process improvement projects. By including so many key planning steps 
in its projects, SB/SE increased the likelihood that project teams 
target the right processes for improvement, choose the best target 
process from among alternatives, effectively implement the project, 
accurately assess project outcomes, and properly manage the change to 
the new process. However, none of the projects completed all of the 
steps. For example, some projects did not fully identify the causes of 
productivity shortfalls, leaving a risk that the projects would not fix 
the right problem. In the course of this work, we found that SB/SE 
managers do not have guidance about the steps to follow in planning 
process improvement projects, increasing the possibility of omitting 
steps. GAO's Business Process Reengineering Assessment Guide notes that 
a framework, such as the one in this report, could help ensure that key 
steps are followed.[Footnote 7]

A recurring issue in the four projects we examined in detail was that 
SB/SE's enforcement data only partially adjust for the complexity and 
quality of cases worked. This issue is also a problem for SB/SE 
enforcement productivity data generally. Failing to adjust for both 
complexity and quality increases the risk that trends in productivity 
will be misunderstood. For example, a decline in the number of cases 
closed per employee at the same time that case complexity is increasing 
may not be a real decline in productivity--more complex cases may 
require more time per case. We recognize that some options for 
improving productivity data, such as collecting more data on complexity 
and quality, could be costly. However, costs could be mitigated by 
using existing statistical methods to analyze SB/SE's current 
complexity and quality.

To improve the planning of future enforcement process changes, we are 
recommending that the Commissioner of Internal Revenue ensure that SB/
SE (1) puts in place a framework to guide planning of future process 
improvement projects and (2) invests in enforcement productivity data 
that better adjust for complexity and quality, taking into 
consideration the costs and benefits of doing so.

In commenting on a draft of this report, the Commissioner of Internal 
Revenue agreed with our first recommendation and agreed in principle 
with our second, but also raised concerns about cost and feasibility. 
The Commissioner's comments are discussed later in this report. The 
Commissioner's letter is reprinted in appendix V.

Background:

SB/SE is one of IRS's four business operating divisions. SB/SE is 
responsible for enforcement, taxpayer education, and account services 
for about 45 million taxpayers, including 33 million self-employed 
taxpayers and 7 million small businesses with assets of less than $10 
million. SB/SE also performs some collection functions for other IRS 
operating divisions.

SB/SE managers told us that the reorganization of IRS in 2000--
including the creation of SB/SE--presented an opportunity for them to 
examine enforcement-related processes from a new perspective. Prior to 
this, the agency was organized around functional and geographic lines, 
with separate groups responsible for activities such as processing 
returns, audits, and collection in particular areas. The reorganization 
eliminated or substantially modified this national, regional, and 
district structure and established organizational units serving 
particular groups of taxpayers with similar needs. Officials told us 
that with the reorganization, they were now responsible for functions 
that they had not controlled so directly before. They said that there 
was general agreement among the managers of the newly created division 
that there were opportunities to make processes more efficient and 
effective, and that this led them to start several enforcement process 
improvement projects. They also distinguished between enforcement 
process improvement projects, which are generally incremental in their 
approach, and more far-reaching efforts to modernize IRS and transform 
processes through business systems modernization and other significant 
changes. We noted in our recent Performance and Accountability Series 
that IRS has made important progress in these larger efforts but its 
transformation continues to be a work in progress.[Footnote 8]

Though many of the SB/SE projects include the word "reengineering" in 
their titles, SB/SE managers agreed that process improvement projects 
was a better description, given the scope of the changes these projects 
were making. As described in GAO's Business Process Reengineering 
Assessment Guide, reengineering entails fundamentally rethinking how an 
organization's work should be done while process improvement efforts 
focus on functional or incremental improvements.[Footnote 9] SB/SE 
managers explained that they purposefully avoided technology-driven 
changes of the sort under development in the IRS-wide business systems 
modernization effort. They said that their goal was to make shorter 
term, more SB/SE-focused changes in the meantime, while the more 
sweeping changes, and their longer planning and implementation 
horizons, were still years away from completion. In this report, we 
refer to the 15 SB/SE efforts under way as of November 2003 as "process 
improvement projects.":

We have reported on declining enforcement trends, finding in 2002 that 
there were large and pervasive declines in six of eight major 
compliance and collection programs we reviewed, with the only 
exceptions in returns processing and in the automated underreporter 
program. In addition to these declines, we reported on the large and 
growing gap between collection workload and collection work completed 
and the resultant increase in the number of cases where IRS has had to 
defer collection action on delinquent accounts.[Footnote 10] In 2003, 
we reported on the declining percentage of individual income tax 
returns that IRS was able to examine each year, with this rate falling 
from .92 percent to .57 percent between 1993 and 2002.[Footnote 11] We 
also reported on enforcement productivity measured by cases closed per 
full-time equivalent employees, finding that IRS's telephone and field 
collection productivity declined by about 25 percent from 1996-2001 and 
productivity in IRS's three audit programs--individual, corporate, and 
other audit--declined by 31 to 48 percent.[Footnote 12]

Improving productivity by changing processes is a strategy SB/SE is 
using to address these declining trends. As of November 2003, SB/SE had 
15 ongoing process improvement projects under way, most of them in 
three broad enforcement areas--audit, collection, and compliance 
support. Audit projects entail changes to field and office examination 
processes.[Footnote 13] Collection projects include changes to 
automated collection programs, field collections, and other 
programs.[Footnote 14] Compliance support is the term SB/SE uses to 
describe processing functions related to audit and collection such as 
updating IRS information systems for the results of enforcement work 
and preparing examination closing letters and liens on taxpayer 
property. Compliance support projects include changes to technical 
services and case processing.

We selected four SB/SE process improvement projects to review in detail 
for this report. Field Examination Reengineering includes changes to 
preaudit processes to better identify specific issues on tax returns 
for auditors to focus on, among other changes intended to improve 
examination efficiency and reduce taxpayer burden. The Compliance 
Support Case Processing Redesign project seeks to centralize data entry 
into online information systems that monitor the status of active audit 
and collection cases and their results from many different locations 
with widely variable workload to just a few with more consistent, 
predictable workload. The Collection Taxpayer Delinquent Account 
Support Project involves the development of two computer models to 
improve setting priorities for collections cases to assign to 
collections staff. The Collection Field Function Consultative 
Initiative seeks to improve timeliness on collections cases through 
regular managerial involvement as cases are being worked. Brief 
descriptions of all of SB/SE's projects can be found in appendix IV.

SB/SE Process Improvement Projects Included Most Key Steps but 
Productivity Measurement Could Be Improved:

SB/SE process improvement project teams completed most of the steps we 
identified as key to SB/SE's process improvement project planning, but 
none of the projects we reviewed completed all of the key steps. 
Guidance on project planning steps, such as our 20-step framework, 
could help ensure that key steps are followed more consistently. Also, 
SB/SE enforcement productivity data presented problems in that the data 
available to SB/SE managers to assess the productivity of their 
enforcement activities, identify processes that need improvement, and 
assess the success of their process improvement efforts are only 
partially adjusted for complexity and quality of cases worked.

Enforcement Process Improvement Projects Included Many Key Steps but 
SB/SE Lacked a Planning Framework:

The planning for each of the four projects we reviewed included most of 
the key steps in our process improvement framework, but none of the 
projects included all of the steps. Figure 2 presents our findings, 
organized by project stages, for each of the four projects we studied. 
A full circle means a step was fully completed in project planning and 
a partial circle means that only part of a step was completed. Our 
basis for each "no" or "partial" finding is explained in appendix III. 
Following figure 2, we discuss our findings in more detail with 
selected examples from the four projects we reviewed.

Figure 2: Key Steps Included in Selected SB/SE Process Improvement 
Projects:

[See PDF for image]

[A] SB/SE has not completed the implementation plan for this step in 
the project.

[B] SB/SE has not completed the monitoring and evaluation plan for this 
project.

N/A means a step was not applicable.

[End of figure]

The four SB/SE projects we reviewed largely included the productivity 
baseline definition and process mapping steps under the "Decision to 
Change" stage, where SB/SE had to determine whether any of its 
processes should be improved. The Field Examination Reengineering 
project team and both collection project teams had baseline data 
showing that the time needed to complete casework was rising and all 
four project teams had extensive flowcharts mapping the details of 
current processes. By helping managers understand the strengths and 
weaknesses of current processes, such information contributes to more 
informed decisions about which processes to change.

However, SB/SE did not as consistently include the complexity and 
quality of work being done in productivity baselines, compare 
productivity data to external benchmarks, identify root causes of 
productivity declines, or measure the gap between current and desired 
productivity. Weaknesses in these steps leave SB/SE managers without 
information that could be useful when making decisions about which 
processes to change. For example, on three of the four projects, 
productivity data were not adjusted for case complexity and only 
partially adjusted for quality. This could cause productivity trends to 
be misinterpreted, leaving SB/SE at risk of trying to redesign 
processes that are already working well or missing opportunities to fix 
processes with potential for improvement. Because GAO's Business 
Process Reengineering Assessment Guide and our roundtable participants 
stressed the importance of complete productivity data and because this 
was a recurring issue we identified in our assessment of the four SB/SE 
projects, we discuss the importance of adjusting for case complexity 
and quality when measuring productivity in more detail in the next 
section of this report.[Footnote 15]

Another example of not consistently following our key steps in the 
"Decision to Change" stage is found in the Field Examination 
Reengineering project. The project team sought the advice of many 
large, noted organizations to benchmark its productivity. However, the 
work did not lead to measuring how SB/SE's productivity compared to 
others' because the team did not believe that operations in other 
organizations were comparable. Without this benchmarking, the team did 
not know whether and by how much it could improve productivity by 
updating operations based on the experiences of other large 
organizations. Both GAO's Business Process Reengineering Assessment 
Guide and our roundtable participants stressed that although processes 
may seem unique to government, they likely have counterparts at a 
process level in the private sector. Moreover, GAO's Guide says that 
looking at dissimilar organizations can actually lead to the most 
fruitful improvements because it stimulates thinking about new 
approaches.

During the "Target Process Development" stage, the projects we reviewed 
consistently included the steps that prepare for implementation. 
Planning on all four of the projects we studied included obtaining 
executive support, assessing barriers to implementing changed 
processes, and assessing resource needs and availability. The 
Compliance Support Case Processing Redesign team, for example, 
originally identified the need for a computer programming change to 
implement part of their process redesign. When the programming change 
could not be made immediately, they continued with a manual process in 
order to keep the project moving forward.

However, SB/SE less consistently included key steps in this stage 
related to designing the new process. For example, in the Collection 
Taxpayer Delinquent Account Support project, SB/SE did not consider 
alternatives to achieving the project's goal of identifying the best 
cases to assign to collections staff. Because options were not 
considered, the team ran the risk of missing a more effective approach 
than the one they took. Another team did not design the new process 
based on analysis of a gap between current and desired productivity. It 
is important at this stage for projects to include fact-based 
performance analysis to assess how to change processes that are in 
greatest need of improvement in terms of cost, quality, and timeliness. 
By analyzing the gap between an existing process's performance and 
where that performance should be, projects can target those processes 
that are most in need of improvement, analyze alternatives, and develop 
and justify implementation plans. Using these steps can increase the 
likelihood of determining the best new process.

During the "Implementation" stage, three of the four projects we 
reviewed had completed implementation plans and all three included key 
implementation steps. These steps focus on the challenge of turning 
project concepts into a workable program. For example, in the 
Collection Taxpayer Delinquent Account Support project, the team 
clearly defined who was responsible for updating the existing computer 
programs to select cases for priority collection action and who was 
responsible for evaluating the implemented process. We also found that 
three of the four teams conducted pilot tests and used their results to 
modify the new processes prior to implementation--steps important for 
ensuring that process problems are worked out prior to project 
implementation.

SB/SE was less consistent, however, in establishing employee 
performance expectations for the new processes. In the Field 
Examination Reengineering project, SB/SE plans to implement changes to 
audit planning steps in order to streamline audits and reduce demands 
on taxpayers for additional information. SB/SE's plan includes 
monitoring the deployment of the new process using measures such as the 
percent of personnel trained. However, SB/SE's plan does not specify 
performance expectations for employees or how it will measure whether 
its auditors are using the new techniques properly.

Two projects had completed plans for outcome assessments at the time of 
our review. One of these, the Collection Taxpayer Delinquent Account 
Support project, included an evaluation plan using available data to 
develop measures of how accurately the new models were working. The 
other two projects were in the process of developing evaluation plans-
-an important step to ensure that the correct data are available and 
collected once the change is implemented.

Three of four initiatives incorporated change management principles 
throughout their initiatives. In the fourth, we agreed with SB/SE 
managers that change management key steps were not a factor because the 
changes to the method of prioritizing collection cases did not affect 
collections staff. These are key steps because successful process 
improvement depends on overcoming a natural resistance to change and 
giving staff the training to implement the changes. The three project 
teams where change management was a factor consistently completed all 
of the key steps in the "Change Management" stage.

In the course of our discussions with SB/SE managers about the steps 
that their projects did and did not include, we learned that SB/SE does 
not have its own guidance or framework that describes the steps to be 
followed in planning process improvement projects. SB/SE managers said 
that projects had been planned and carried out without such a 
framework. Contractors provided substantial assistance in designing SB/
SE's process improvement projects, and managers told us that they 
relied in large part on the contractor staffs' expertise and experience 
in planning the projects.

A framework laying out the steps to be followed is an important 
internal control for projects such as these because it provides top 
managers assurance that the steps that the organization has determined 
to be important are either taken on each project or that project 
managers have explained why they should be omitted. GAO's Business 
Process Reengineering Assessment Guide notes that an established 
framework is important for projects in that it defines in detail the 
activities the project team needs to complete and alerts the team to 
key issues that it must address.[Footnote 16] Without a process 
improvement framework and a consistent set of steps to follow, IRS runs 
the risk of future projects also missing key steps. This, in turn, 
exacerbates the risk of projects not addressing appropriate process 
problems, developing a less than optimal target process, ineffectively 
implementing the project, inaccurately assessing project outcomes, or 
mismanaging the change to the new process. A framework such as the one 
we developed for this report is an important internal control tool for 
SB/SE managers to guard against these risks. The internal control is 
needed whether process improvement is planned by SB/SE staff or 
contractors. Such a framework may also prove useful in other IRS units 
besides SB/SE. As with the 20-step framework we used to assess SB/SE's 
approach, however, any such guidelines should allow for appropriate 
managerial discretion in cases where certain steps are not relevant.

IRS Enforcement Productivity Data Only Partially Adjusted for 
Complexity and Quality:

The data available to SB/SE managers to assess the productivity of 
their enforcement activities, identify processes that need improvement, 
and assess the success of their process improvement efforts are only 
partially adjusted for complexity and quality of cases worked. 
Productivity measures the efficiency with which resources are used to 
produce outputs. Specific productivity measures take the form of ratios 
of outputs to inputs such as cases closed or dollars collected per 
staff year. The accurate measurement of enforcement productivity 
requires data about the quantity of outputs produced and inputs used 
that are accurate and consistent over time and that link the outputs 
directly to the inputs used to produce them.[Footnote 17] The accurate 
measurement of productivity also requires good data on the relative 
complexity or difficulty of the cases and the quality of the work done 
by IRS staff. Case complexity can vary with the type of tax (employment 
vs. income), the type of taxpayer (individual vs. business) and the 
type and sources of income and expenses. A measure of productivity like 
cases closed per staff year that shows an increase may not indicate a 
real gain in efficiency if the mix of cases worked has shifted to less 
difficult cases or the quality of the work has declined. This problem 
of adjusting for quality and complexity is not unique to SB/SE process 
improvement projects--the data available to process improvement project 
managers are the same data used throughout SB/SE to measure 
productivity and otherwise manage enforcement operations.

SB/SE managers used data on the number of cases completed and the time 
it takes to complete them to measure output. Such data were usually 
only partially adjusted for quality and only once were they adjusted 
for complexity. Opportunities to make more such adjustments were 
missed.

An example of a complete adjustment for complexity is the Compliance 
Support Case Processing Redesign team's use of a proxy for complexity. 
The project illustrates both the shortcomings of SB/SE's productivity 
data and the feasibility of some adjustments using other currently 
available information. The team wanted to measure the work needed to 
enter examination and collection case data into the information system, 
holding complexity constant, but direct measures of complexity were not 
available. While developing their new process, the team knew that more 
complex cases were to be assigned to higher-grade clerks.[Footnote 18] 
The team used the grade of the clerk to adjust output for complexity. 
Although not a direct measure of relative complexity, the grade level 
of the clerks provided managers a means to adjust for complexity and 
better identify performance increases that were due to changes in 
productivity by holding complexity constant. Such an adjustment 
increases the credibility of the team's estimate that IRS would save up 
to 385 positions from the proposed redesign.

SB/SE has systems in place that measure quality against current 
standards but do not account adequately for changes in standards of 
quality. The Exam Quality Measurement System (EQMS) and the Collection 
Quality Measurement System (CQMS) use samples of audit and collection 
cases, respectively, to determine if IRS standards were followed and 
compute scores that summarize the quality of the case.[Footnote 19] 
Generally, the scoring is done on a numerical scale. For example, EQMS 
uses quality scores that range on a scale from 0 to 100. To SB/SE's 
credit, most of the projects that we reviewed used EQMS and CQMS scores 
in an attempt to control for quality changes. Unfortunately, these 
scores may not adequately reflect changes in standards of quality. For 
example, the IRS Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998 placed additional 
documentation requirements for certain collection actions on SB/SE 
collections staff, such as certifications that they had verified that 
taxes were past due and that sanctions were appropriate given the 
taxpayers' circumstances. SB/SE has changed the standards used in EQMS 
and CQMS to reflect the new requirements but has not changed its 
quality scale to account for the new, higher level of quality implied 
by the new standards. As a result, two exams with the same quality 
scores, one done before passage of the act and one after, may not have 
the same level of quality. If the way that SB/SE computes its quality 
scores does not adequately reflect such changes in quality standards, 
an increase in staff time needed to complete the additional requirement 
may be misinterpreted as a decline in productivity.

Opportunities exist to improve SB/SE's enforcement productivity data. 
Statistical methods that are widely used in both the public and private 
sectors can be used to adjust SB/SE productivity measures for quality 
and complexity. In particular, by using these methods, managers can 
distinguish productivity changes that represent real efficiency gains 
or losses from those that are due to changes in quality standards. 
These methods could be implemented using data currently available at 
SB/SE. The cost of implementation would be chiefly the staff time 
required to adapt the statistical models to SB/SE. Although the 
computations are complex, the methods can be implemented using existing 
software.[Footnote 20] We currently have under way a separate study 
that illustrates how these methods can be used to create better 
productivity measures at IRS. We plan to report the results of that 
study later in 2004.

We recognize that better incorporating the complexity and quality of 
enforcement cases in enforcement productivity data could entail costs 
to SB/SE. Collecting additional data on complexity and quality may 
require long-term planning and investment of additional resources. 
However, as discussed in the previous paragraph, there are options 
available now to mitigate such costs. Existing statistical methods 
could be used in the short term, with currently available data on case 
complexity and quality to improve productivity measurement. In 
addition, IRS's ongoing business systems modernization effort may 
provide additional opportunities for collecting data.

Our roundtable participants stressed the benefits of productivity 
analysis. They said that an inadequate understanding of productivity 
makes it harder to distinguish processes with a potential for 
improvement from those without such potential. GAO's Business Process 
Reengineering Assessment Guide also highlighted the importance of being 
able to identify processes that are in greatest need of 
improvement.[Footnote 21]

Conclusions:

SB/SE deserves recognition for embracing process improvement and for 
including so many key steps in planning the projects. To the extent 
that IRS succeeds in improving enforcement productivity through these 
projects, resources will be made available for providing additional 
services to taxpayers and addressing the declines in tax enforcement 
programs.

While the SB/SE projects we reviewed included most of the key steps in 
our framework, putting guidance in place for future projects to follow 
would help ensure that all key steps are included and improve project 
planning. The 20-step framework that we developed for this report is an 
example of such guidance.

More complete productivity data--input and output measures adjusted for 
the complexity and quality of cases worked--would give SB/SE managers a 
more informed basis for decisions on how to improve processes. We 
recognize that better productivity will mean additional costs for SB/SE 
and that, therefore, SB/SE will have to weigh these costs against the 
benefits of better data. GAO currently has under way a separate study, 
illustrating how data on complexity and quality could be combined with 
output and input data to create better productivity measures. This may 
prove useful to SB/SE managers as they evaluate the current state of 
their productivity measures. We will report the results of that review 
later in 2004.

Recommendations for Executive Action:

We recommend that the Commissioner of Internal Revenue ensure that SB/
SE take the following two actions:

* Put in place a framework to guide planning of future SB/SE process 
improvement projects. The framework that GAO developed for this report 
is an example of such a framework.

* Invest in enforcement productivity data that better adjust for 
complexity and quality, taking into consideration the costs and 
benefits of doing so.

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:

The Commissioner of Internal Revenue provided written comments on a 
draft of this report in a January 14, 2004, letter, which is reprinted 
in appendix V. The Commissioner agreed with our recommendation that IRS 
develop a framework to guide future improvement projects. He notes that 
SB/SE used outside experts to help direct the projects we discuss in 
our report, and how the expertise gained from SB/SE's projects puts the 
organization in a position to create a framework for future projects.

In regard to our second recommendation, the Commissioner agreed in 
principle with the value of adding to current enforcement productivity 
data, but also expressed concerns about cost and feasibility. His 
letter also discusses initiatives in progress to improve program 
management and monitoring in the short term, as well as his intent to 
explore the use of statistical methods to improve enforcement program 
productivity measurement and to ensure that they are included in 
modernization projects. The careful consideration of costs and benefits 
and steps to improve measures in the long term are at the heart of our 
recommendation and we encourage his ongoing commitment to these 
efforts.

The Commissioner's letter also notes that employee performance goals--
one of the steps in our framework--must not violate legal restrictions 
on the use of certain enforcement data to evaluate employee 
performance. We agree and clarified language in our report to make it 
clear that our framework step concerns employee performance 
expectations, not using enforcement data to evaluate employees or 
otherwise imposing production goals or quotas.

In addition to commenting on our recommendations, IRS provided 
supplemental data on the results of some reengineering projects. 
Reviewing project results was not part of the scope of our review and 
time did not permit us to verify the supplemental data provided by IRS 
on project results.

We conducted our work from September 2002 through November 2003 in 
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.

As agreed with your offices, unless you publicly announce its contents 
earlier, we plan no further distribution of this report until 30 days 
after its date. At that time, we will send copies of this report to the 
Secretary of the Treasury, The Commissioner of Internal Revenue, and 
other interested parties. This report is available at no charge on 
GAO's Web site at [Hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov].

If you or your staffs have any questions, please contact me at (202) 
512-9110 or David Lewis, Assistant Director, at (202) 512-7176. We can 
also be reached by e-mail at [Hyperlink, whitej@gao.gov]  
or [Hyperlink, lewisd@gao.gov] lewisd@gao.gov, respectively. Key 
contributors to this assignment were Tara Carter, Kevin Daly, Leon 
Green, Landis Lindsey, and Amy Rosewarne.

Signed by:

James R. White: 
Director, Tax Issues Strategic Issues Team:

[End of section]

Appendixes: 

Appendix I: Process Improvement Project Framework:

The 20-step process improvement we identified is broken out into four 
broad stages, from deciding to make changes to assessing the results of 
the changes. A fifth stage deals with managing the changes being made 
and takes place throughout the latter part of the project. Figure 3 
places the stages in their chronological order, with the change 
management stage shown taking place simultaneously with other stages.

Figure 3: 20-Step Process Improvement Framework:

[See PDF for image]

[End of figure]

Within each of the stages of this framework are specific key steps that 
we developed based on GAO guidance and what we learned from managers in 
other organizations about the steps they took to ensure that they were 
embarking on the right projects, designing and implementing the 
projects appropriately, and accurately assessing their projects' 
results. The sections below describe the nature and purpose of the key 
steps that fall under the different stages. We recognize that some 
steps may not be appropriate for some projects and that managers need 
to apply judgment in using this or any other process improvement 
framework. Development of this framework is described in appendix II.

Decision to Change:

Organizations that base the decision to redesign processes on accurate 
productivity data and a clear understanding of current processes 
increase the likelihood that a project will avoid misdiagnosing a 
problem or designing a less than optimal outcome target. Six key steps 
are important to accomplishing this.

Identify Productivity Baseline:

Baseline data are information on the current process that provide the 
metrics against which to compare improvements and use in benchmarking. 
Productivity measures the efficiency with which an organization uses 
resources, or inputs, to produce outputs. Specific productivity 
measures generally take the form of a ratio of outputs to inputs. By 
establishing a baseline using such measures, a process improvement can 
be measured in terms of real efficiency gains. For example, the 
baseline could be used to measure the effect of a successful process 
improvement as additional output produced by the organization with the 
same or fewer inputs.

Include Complexity and Quality in Productivity Measures:

Productivity measures may give misleading information if they do not 
account for the relative complexity and quality of outputs and inputs. 
A measure of productivity like cases closed per staff year that shows 
an increase may not indicate a real gain in efficiency if the mix of 
cases has shifted to less difficult cases or the quality of the work 
has declined. Besides accounting for complexity and quality, the 
organization must also choose the appropriate indicators of its outputs 
and inputs and measure them accurately. Organizations like IRS that are 
service providers have outputs that often consist of complex, 
interrelated activities that, in many cases, may require multiple 
indicators of outputs to accurately measure productivity. The specific 
data needed depend on the characteristics of particular IRS processes. 
For example, the number and type of output indicators appropriate for 
services that have direct contact with taxpayers, such as audits, may 
be larger and more varied (to reflect the full impact of these services 
on taxpayers) than those appropriate for other services with less or no 
direct contact, such as forms processing. However, factors like 
complexity and quality are necessary for accurate productivity 
measurement for any process in IRS, regardless of how the specific 
quantitative measures are defined.

Compare Current Productivity to Internal and External Benchmarks:

A benchmark is a measurement or standard that serves as a point of 
reference by which process performance is measured. During the 
"Decision to Change" stage, benchmarking is the solution-building 
component of process improvement through which an organization compares 
data used to measure existing internal processes with external data on 
similar processes in other organizations, or in other components of the 
same organization, to identify process improvement needs and outcome 
targets. Through benchmarking an organization is able to identify gaps 
between an organization's process performance and that of other 
organizations or other components of the same organization. 
Benchmarking is a key tool for performance improvement because it 
provides "real world" models and reference points for setting ambitious 
improvement goals.

Map Current Process:

Process mapping is a graphical representation depicting the inputs, 
outputs, constraints, responsibilities, and interdependencies of the 
core processes of an organization. Acceptable modeling tools and other 
analysis techniques include flowcharting, tree diagrams, fishbone 
diagrams, and business activity maps. It is important that a process 
map defines what the components of each process are, as well as the 
process's boundaries, dependencies, and interconnections with other 
processes. If initial process mapping is done at a high level, more 
detailed modeling is necessary to identify all of the current process's 
activities and tasks, staff roles and responsibilities, and links and 
dependencies with other processes, customers, and suppliers. 
Performance data (e.g., costs, time, throughput) for all activities and 
tasks should be included on the map, or made available elsewhere. The 
people who actually do the work as well as the process owner should 
validate the mapping. Regulations, policies, laws, and assumptions 
underlying the processes should be identified.

Identify Causes of Weak Performance:

Causal factors are the conditions that initiate the occurrence of an 
undesired activity or state. Causal factors that are within the span of 
control of an organization should be addressed during the Target 
Process Development stage. Causal factors that are beyond the span of 
control of an organization should be isolated when identifying a 
problem. Examples of causal factors are legal requirements, mix of 
inputs, quality of inputs, and staff constraints.

Measure Gap Between Current and Desired Productivity:

An empirical basis for the decision to make a process change is an 
important step leading towards an improvement that is optimal and 
attainable. An empirical basis can be established by using productivity 
data to define the gap between where the organization currently is and 
where it wants to be.

Target Process Development:

After deciding to undergo a process improvement, an organization can 
increase the likelihood of determining the best new process by using 
productivity data, assessing implementation barriers, and developing 
feasible alternatives.

Understand the Best Practices of Others:

Solutions can be adapted from best practices found in other 
organizations. Best practices are processes and procedures that high-
performing organizations use to achieve results. An organization should 
evaluate the pros and cons of each best practice and if possible, apply 
its own productivity standards. Ideally, this form of benchmarking 
should be done with an external organization. Many processes that seem 
unique to the government actually have counterparts in the private 
sector, especially in generic areas such as claims processing, loan 
management, inventory management, etc. Also, it is important to note 
that the other organizations do not have to be particularly similar, or 
even do similar work. For example, Xerox used L.L. Bean to improve 
order fulfillment. Looking at processes in dissimilar organizations can 
actually lead to the most fruitful improvements because it stimulates 
new thinking about traditional approaches to doing work.

Analyze Alternatives:

Alternatives are different process designs that would likely result in 
the same or a similar outcome. An organization's analysis of 
alternative processes should consider benefits, costs, and risks. 
Performance results that each alternative could be expected to achieve 
should be determined. This can be done using methods such as 
prototyping, limited pilot testing, and modeling and/or computer 
simulation. In addition to performance, alternatives can be scored by 
any number of factors including, feasibility, budget, political appeal, 
implementation time, payback time, and risk. The team should explore 
each alternative thoroughly enough to convincingly demonstrate its 
potential to achieve the desired performance goals and fully describe 
the types of technical and organization changes necessary to support 
each goal, and if possible, test key assumptions.

Design New Process to Close Productivity Gap:

The selection of a target process from among alternatives needs an 
empirical basis in the form of some sort of quantitative analysis. The 
decision to improve and forming the target process should be linked by 
an analysis of productivity data that shows how the new process can 
close the gap between the productivity baseline and the desired 
outcome.

Obtain Executive Support:

Executive support should come in the form of an executive steering 
committee--a group headed by the organization's leader to support and 
oversee the process improvement effort from start to finish. Executive 
involvement is important because they are in a position to build 
credible support among customers and stakeholders, mobilize the talent 
and resources for a reengineering project, and authorize the actions 
necessary to change agencywide operations. An executive steering 
committee's roles include defining the scope of the improvement 
project, allotting resources, ensuring that project goals align with 
the agency's strategic goals and objectives, integrating the project 
with other improvement efforts, monitoring the project's progress, and 
approving the reengineering team's recommendations. While carrying out 
these responsibilities the steering committee must also keep 
stakeholders apprised of the reengineering team's efforts.

Assess Barriers to Implementing Changed Process:

Implementation barriers are obstacles that the organization will need 
to overcome to implement a new process. Examples of implementation 
barriers include political issues, entrenched workplace attitudes or 
values, an insufficient number of employees with the skills required 
for the redesigned roles, collective bargaining agreements, 
incompatible organization or physical infrastructure, current laws and 
regulations, and funding constraints. The impact of these barriers and 
the costs of addressing them (such as staff training, hiring, and 
relocation) need to be factored into the process selection decision. If 
the reengineering team determines that the risks and costs of 
implementing a preferred new process appear too great, they may need to 
pursue one of the less ideal, but more feasible alternatives.

Assess Resource Needs and Availability:

Prior to taking on a process improvement project, GAO guidance and the 
other organizations we consulted stress the importance of ensuring the 
availability of staff and other resources necessary to complete design 
and implementation of the changed process. Without adequate resources, 
an organization undertaking a change runs the risk of an incompletely 
implemented project.

Implementation:

A carefully designed process improvement project needs a similarly well 
thought-out implementation in order to be successful.

Conduct Pilot Tests:

Pilot tests are trial runs of the redesigned process. Pilot testing is 
a tool used to move the organization successfully to full 
implementation. Pilot testing allows the organization to (1) evaluate 
the soundness of the proposed process in actual practice, (2) identify 
and correct problems with the new design, and (3) refine performance 
measures. Also, successful pilot testing will help strengthen support 
for full-scale implementation from employees and stakeholders.

Adjust Target Process Based on Pilot Results:

Postpilot adjustments are corrective actions taken to correct trouble 
spots prior to full implementation. Trouble spots can be pinpointed 
through the formal evaluation of pilot projects designed to determine 
the efficiency and effectiveness of the new process.

Define Roles and Responsibilities:

Process owners are the individuals with the responsibility for the 
process being improved. Designating process owners is necessary to 
ensure accountability.

Establish Employee Expectations for New Process:

New employee and/or team performance expectations should be established 
to account for changes in roles and career expectations caused by the 
new process. Measurable indicators that are currently being used to 
track and assess employee or team progress should be analyzed to 
determine if adjustments will be required after the new process is 
implemented. In the case of IRS enforcement activities, the agency must 
ensure that the expectations do not violate the legal prohibition on 
using tax enforcement results to evaluate employee performance or 
imposing or suggesting production quotas or goals.[Footnote 22] In 
2002, we reported on IRS's progress towards improving its performance 
management system; these changes were brought on, in part, by this 
requirement.[Footnote 23]

Outcome Assessment:

Careful assessment of the results of a process improvement project is 
important in that it may lead to further changes in the process being 
addressed and may suggest lessons for other projects.

Develop Plans to Monitor and Evaluate New Process:

An evaluation plan is a way to collect and analyze data in order to 
determine how well a process is meeting its performance goals and 
whether further improvements are needed. Good performance measures 
generally include a mix of outcome, output, and efficiency measures. 
Outcome measures assess whether the process has actually achieved the 
intended results, such as an increase in the number of claims 
processed. Efficiency measures evaluate such things as the cost of the 
process and the time it takes to deliver the output of the process (a 
product or service) to the customer. The data needed to conduct outcome 
assessments later on need to be identified during project planning to 
ensure that they are available and collected once implementation 
begins.

Change Management:

Change management focuses on the adjustments that occur in the culture 
of an organization as a result of a redesigned process. Research 
suggests that the failure to adequately address--and often even 
consider--a wide variety of people and cultural issues is at the heart 
of unsuccessful organizational transformations. Similarly for process 
improvement efforts, redesigning a process is not only the technical or 
operational aspect of change, but also overcoming a natural resistance 
to change. Successfully managing change reduces the risk that 
improvement efforts will fail due to a natural resistance to change 
within an organization.

Establish a Change Management Strategy:

An organization needs to establish a change management strategy that 
addresses cultural changes, builds consensus among customers and 
stakeholders, and communicates the planning, testing, and 
implementation of all aspects of the transition to the new process. 
Change management activities focus on (1) defining and instilling new 
values, attitudes, norms, and behaviors within an organization that 
support new ways of doing work and overcome resistance to change, (2) 
building consensus among customers and stakeholders on specific changes 
designed to better meet their needs, and (3) planning, testing, and 
implementing all aspects of the transition from one organization 
structure or process to another. Executive involvement is important for 
successful change management. Executive support helps strengthen upper 
management's support for the project and serves to reinforce the 
organization's commitment to the proposed changes. In a roundtable 
meeting held by GAO to obtain the perspectives of the private sector, 
one organization mentioned that providing continuous feedback to its 
employees is a critical element of a change management program. They 
also described the importance of consistently updating those employees 
who would be directly affected by a change initiative. Keeping 
employees informed of decisions and recognizing their contributions are 
important elements of developing positive employee attitudes toward 
implementing process improvement initiatives. Ongoing communication 
about the goals and progress of the reengineering effort is crucial, 
since negative perceptions could be formed and harden at an early 
stage, making the implementation of the new process more difficult to 
achieve. If change management is delayed it will be difficult to build 
support and momentum among the staff for implementing the new process, 
however good it might be.

Establish a Transition Team:

A transition team is a group of people tasked with managing the 
implementation phase of process improvement projects. A transition team 
should include the project sponsor, the process owner, members of the 
process improvement project team, and key executives, managers, and 
staff from the areas directly affected by changeover from the old 
process to the new. Agency executives and the transition team should 
develop a detailed implementation plan that lays out the road to the 
new process, including a fully executable communication plan. The 
process owners responsible for managing the project will not 
effectively convey the goals and implementation strategy of the project 
if a viable mechanism is not set up by the transition team to keep 
employees and external stakeholders informed.

Develop Workforce Training Plans:

Training and redeploying the workforce is often a major challenge and 
generally requires substantial preparation time. When a process is 
redesigned and new information systems are introduced, many of the 
tasks workers perform are radically changed or redistributed. Some 
positions may be eliminated or cut back, while others are created or 
modified. Workers may need to handle a broader range of 
responsibilities, rely less on direct supervision, and develop new 
skills.

[End of section]

Appendix II: Scope and Methodology:

We began development of a process improvement framework by reviewing 
previously developed GAO guidance related to business process 
reengineering.[Footnote 24] We also reviewed guidance that GAO has 
recently issued on assessment frameworks for other major management 
areas.[Footnote 25]

GAO's Business Process Reengineering Assessment Guide recognizes that 
the steps for planning process improvement need to be adapted for the 
magnitude of the projects and the particular circumstances of an 
organization. To supplement the GAO business process reengineering 
guidance, we held a half-day roundtable meeting with the Private Sector 
Council and two of its member companies, Northrop Grumman (a $25 
billion defense enterprise) and CNF (a $5 billion transportation 
services company).[Footnote 26] We also discussed process improvement 
planning with public sector managers with experience in revamping 
complex processes. Reviewing publicly available information and in 
discussions with SB/SE staff, we found that the tax agencies in the 
states of California, Minnesota, and Florida had gone through 
substantial process improvement efforts in recent years. Similarly, the 
Department of the Interior's Minerals Management Service had carried 
out substantial process improvement projects. We interviewed officials 
from these organizations and reviewed documents that they provided. We 
then used all of this information to adapt GAO's guidance to a 20-step 
framework appropriate to the SB/SE projects.

We judgmentally selected 4 projects to study in detail from the 15 
projects SB/SE had under way. Our goal in selecting projects for 
detailed review was to cover at least one project in each of the three 
main enforcement areas that IRS was revamping--audit, collection, and 
compliance support. We also looked for projects that were sufficiently 
far along that we considered it reasonable to expect to see either 
completed steps or plans for remaining steps for most of the project. 
We selected one project each in the audit and compliance support areas. 
We found that there were 2 projects underway in the collections area 
that were significantly far along, so we selected both of them for our 
detailed review.

For the four projects we selected, we used the documentation previously 
provided to us to identify evidence that SB/SE managers had taken or 
were in the process of taking the key process improvement project steps 
we identified. We then discussed our initial findings with IRS 
officials responsible for the four projects and they provided 
additional evidence, both orally and in writing, concerning the 
elements we had identified as present or not in our initial document 
review. We then revised our initial assessments based on the additional 
evidence that the officials provided. Our assessments also included 
review by a GAO project design specialist, in addition to our usual 
quality control procedures.

We also recognized the need for flexibility in the application of our 
criteria, in that not all of the steps we identified necessarily make 
sense for every project. Where a particular step did not logically 
apply to a particular project, we listed it as "not applicable" in our 
assessment. For instance, the Collection Taxpayer Delinquent Account 
Support project we reviewed in detail did not change processes that 
staff were asked to carry out, so we rated the step about developing a 
training plan as "not applicable." Where a step was not fully completed 
but the project team did a number of elements of the step, we assessed 
that step as "partial" in our matrix. We did not evaluate the success 
so far or the likelihood of success for any of the projects we 
reviewed. We also did not evaluate the effectiveness with which project 
steps were completed. For example, we did not evaluate the quality of 
the pilot tests.

To determine the usefulness of IRS productivity data as a basis for 
determining the direction and eventual success of SB/SE process 
improvement efforts, we reviewed the literature on productivity 
measurement in tax agencies and in the public sector generally. We also 
reviewed studies on productivity measurement in service industries with 
functions similar to IRS.

[End of section]

Appendix III: GAO Assessment of Four Selected SB/SE Process Improvement 
Projects:

The following four figures provide summaries of the evidence we used to 
make specific assessments of four selected SB/SE process improvement 
projects.

Figure 4: Key Steps Included in the Field Examination Reengineering 
Project:

[See PDF for image]

[End of figure]

Figure 5: Key Steps Included in the Compliance Support Case Processing 
Redesign Project:

[See PDF for image]

[A] SB/SE has not completed the implementation plan for this step in 
the project.

[End of figure]

Figure 6: Key Steps Included in the Collection Taxpayer Delinquent 
Account Support Project:

[See PDF for image]

[End of figure]

Figure 7: Key Steps Included in the Collection Field Function 
Consultative Initiative Project:

[See PDF for image]

[A] SB/SE has not completed the monitoring and evaluation plan for the 
new process.

[End of figure]

[End of section]

Appendix IV: Descriptions of SB/SE Process Improvement Projects:

SB/SE management capitalized on the opportunity presented by the IRS 
reorganization that created their operating division and saw declining 
productivity trends as an impetus to change. SB/SE had 15 distinct 
process improvement efforts under way as of November 2003, many with 
multiple subprojects. Table 1 provides descriptive information of the 
15 projects.

Table 1: Major Process Improvement Projects in IRS's Small Business/
Self Employed Operating Division:

Examination: Project: Office Examination & Field Examination; 

Problem identified by IRS: 
27 percent increase in calendar time associated with a field audit; 
75 percent increase in the hours per Office Examination; 

IRS’s process improvement goals: 
Improve examination efficiency, effectiveness, and consistent 
treatment of taxpayers; 
Improve examiner's ability to be flexible; 
Reduce taxpayer burden through more focused audits; 
Increase collaboration between examiner, manager, taxpayer, and 
representative; 

Status: Full implementation in progress; 

Target Completion Date: 
Office Exam: Phase 1 - February 2004; 
Phase 2 - May 2004; 

Field Exam: 
Phase 1 - in progress; 
Field Exam: Phase 2 - February 2004.

Project: Exam Life Cycle; 

Problem identified by IRS: 
SB/SE examination life cycle from date tax return is filed to 
examination closing averages 780 days; 

IRS’s process improvement goals: 
Identify short-term and long-term recommendations to dramatically 
reduce examination life cycle; 

Status: Recommendations pending; 

Target Completion Date: 
Short- term recommendations and preliminary long-term recommendations: 
March 2004; 

Implementation of short-term recommendations and final long- term 
recommendations: April 2004.

Compliance Support: Project: Case Processing; 

Problem identified by IRS: 
Nonprofessional operations disbursed across 86 posts of duty; 

Lack of flexibility in changing staff priorities and duties; 

Inconsistent processes; 

IRS’s process improvement goals: 
Centralize case processing to four SB/SE campuses; 

Implement electronic case closure processing; 

Status: Full implementation pending; 

Target Completion Date: 
Implementation - Between January 2005 and January 2006, with 90 
percent completed by June 2005.

Compliance Support: Project: Technical Services; 

Problem identified by IRS: 
Low-volume, high-complexity programs are handled across all areas, 
limiting development of staff expertise; 
IRS’s process improvement goals: 
Realign workload with staff expertise; 
Reassign work from professionals to paraprofessionals; 
Centralize national and multiarea programs; 
Automate responses to frequently asked questions; 
Develop program knowledge and subject expertise with; 
specialization; 

Status: Full implementation in progress; 

Target Completion Date: 
Implementation complete - April 2004.

Compliance Support: Project: Collection Operations; 

Problem identified by IRS: 
Resource constraints limit ability to accomplish work within 
established time frames; 
Paper-intensive processes; 

IRS’s process improvement goals: 
Identify opportunities for specialization and consolidation of work 
processes; 
Develop and implement automation initiatives that will reduce paper 
processing; 

Status: Recommendations pending; 

Target Completion Date: 
Recommendations due - April 2004.

Collection: Project: Taxpayer Delinquent Accounts Support Project; 

Problem identified by IRS: 
SB/SE can only work on 40 percent of its top priority delinquent tax 
accounts; 
Total dollars of tax accounts continues to rise; 

IRS’s process improvement goals: 
Determine the optimal balance between workload and inventory for 
telephone and field collection; 
Identify characteristics of cases that provide for productive 
disposition; 
Develop and implement models that predict payment characteristics; 

Status: Full implementation complete; 

Target Completion Date: 
Implementation completed - January 2003.

Collection: Project: Collection Field Function; 

Problem identified by IRS: 
Average calendar time to complete a collection case is 354 days; 

IRS’s process improvement goals: 
Decrease calendar time and improve quality; 

Status: Training and implementation partially completed; 

Target Completion Date: 
Final phase of training and implementation - March 2004.

Collection: Project: Tax Delinquent Investigations/Nonfiler 
Initiative; 

Problem identified by IRS: 
Appropriate selection criteria must be developed to identify nonfiler
cases; 

IRS’s process improvement goals: 
Identify characteristics of cases that provide for productive nonfiler 
cases; 

Status: Modeling implementation complete; 

Target Completion Date: 
Implementation due - July 04.

Collection: Project: Automated Collection System Operating Model; 

Problem identified by IRS: 
The volume of phone call from taxpayers to telephone collection 
continues to rise resulting in capacity issues; 

IRS’s process improvement goals: 
Determine optimal balance in telephone collection between IRS-initiated phone calls to taxpayers and taxpayer calls to IRS; 

Status: Site implementation complete; 

Target Completion Date: 
Site implementation complete - December 2003.

Collection: Project: Organizational Structure; 

Problem identified by IRS: 
Additional compliance resources are needed for high-risk accounts; 

IRS’s process improvement goals: 
Determine if Taxpayer Education and Communication resources can be 
shifted to compliance with minimal impact on achieving mission; 

Status: Implementation pending; 

Target Completion Date: 
Transition plan to be developed by January 2004; 
Implementation complete by December 2004.

Collection: Project: Installment Agreement; 

Problem identified by IRS: 
Currently, 36 percent of installment agreements and 49 percent of 
installment agreement dollars default within 5 years; 

IRS’s process improvement goals: 
Segment taxpayers with installment agreements based on probability of 
default; 
Develop alternative treatment process to leverage current enforcement 
tools based on taxpayer risk characteristics to reduce default rates 
and increase dollars collected; 
Develop protocols for applying the appropriate agreement structures to 
taxpayer segments; 

Status: Full implementation pending; 

Target Completion Date: 
Final phase of implementation to be completed in September 2004.

Collection: Project: Collection Cycle Time; 

Problem identified by IRS: 
Calendar days (cycle time) to process collection work from beginning 
to end needs to be reduced; 

IRS’s process improvement goals: 
Develop recommendations to decrease cycle time; 

Status: Recommendations pending; 

Target Completion Date: 
Final short-term recommendations - March 2004; 

Final long-term recommendations and implementation of short-term 
recommendations - April 2004.

Collection: Project: Business Master File Tolerance Modeling; 

Problem identified by IRS: 
Tolerance levels for business taxpayers in submissions processing and 
accounts management needs to be set consistently and effectively in 
coordination with compliance levels; 

IRS’s process improvement goals: 
Develop a revenue-sensitive model for setting business taxpayer 
tolerances; 

Status: Implementation in progress; Adjustments pending; 

Target Completion Date: 
Accounts management tolerances in place in August 2003; 
Submission processing phase I - January 2004; 
Additional changes based on a new model - January 2005.

Collection: Project: Workload Driver Model; 

Problem identified by IRS: 
Analysis is needed to identify causes of increased volume of work in SB/
SE; 

IRS’s process improvement goals: 
Identify unknown causes for increased volume or work received in SB/
SE Customer Account Services using data-mining techniques and 
regression analysis and develop improvements to mitigate impact; 

Status: Recommendations pending; 

Target Completion Date: 
Initial recommendations - July 2004. 

Source: IRS.

[End of table]

[End of section]

Appendix V: Comments from the Internal Revenue Service:

DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY 
INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE 
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20224:

COMMISSIONER:

January 14, 2004:

Mr. James R. White 
Director, Tax Issues 
Strategic Issues Team 
United States General Accounting Office 
Washington, D.C. 20548:

Dear Mr. White:

I reviewed your report entitled, "Planning For IRS's Enforcement 
Process Changes Included Many Key Steps But Can Be Improved" (GAO 04-
287), and I appreciate your recognition of our efforts to reengineer 
our processes. As your report states, we are currently involved in 15 
enforcement process improvement projects including a redesign of the 
Office Audit program and various Automated Collection System (ACS) 
projects. We are also developing a strategy around a corporate Small 
Business/Self Employed (SB/SE) ACS inventory that will provide us with 
greater flexibility to work priority inventory. Your report focuses on 
four of our efforts: Field Examination Reengineering, Compliance 
Support Case Processing Redesign, Collection Taxpayer Delinquent 
Account Project, and the Collection Field Function Consultative 
Initiative. We expect that all of these projects will improve our 
overall efficiency and effectiveness as well as allow us to provide 
better customer service and maximize our limited resources.

I agree with your recommendation to formalize a framework for future 
improvement projects. At the standup of our new organization, we 
recognized the need for extensive redesign and process improvements. 
Not only were we looking to implement long-range changes to be made in 
conjunction with our modernization efforts, but for improvements that 
could be made immediately, working within the current enterprise 
structures. To ensure we utilized the best methodologies for our 
reengineering efforts, we engaged the services of a number of private 
firms with extensive experience and recognition as leaders in this 
field. We linked these organizations with key executives in SB/SE to 
transfer expertise. Using "lessons learned" and the knowledge we now 
have from working with these contractors, we are in a position to 
create a framework for future reengineering efforts.

Your second recommendation, to invest in enforcement productivity data 
that better adjusts for complexity and quality, involves taking many of 
our existing measures, or newly created measures, and combining them 
into one comprehensive measurement. While I agree in principle that 
additional enforcement program productivity data may be beneficial, I 
am not certain that existing statistical methods or software can 
readily capture the amount of information and data required for this 
purpose. The type of data and decision analytics software required to 
conduct the type of analysis you are suggesting would be a huge and 
very costly undertaking. However, we will continue to explore the 
recommendation for use of statistical methods and ensure that these 
methods are included in our modernization projects. We recognize the 
need for these methods to combine robust outputs, inputs, quality, and 
complexity to derive productivity indexes to enhance our effectiveness.

There are several initiatives currently in progress that will enhance 
our program management and monitoring over the next fiscal year. For 
example, an effort is underway to evaluate our workload delivery and 
identification methods to enhance efficiencies and effectiveness. In 
addition, in our examination program, we are implementing the use of 
the Examination Operational Automation Database, as a system designed 
to track data from examination adjustments by issue. This data will be 
used to enhance the ability to identify specific areas of noncompliance 
based on examination results.

As we implement new processes, we will continue to look at our current 
measures. Our measures must be consistent with our balanced measures 
approach which considers customer satisfaction and employee 
satisfaction, as well as business results. Your report reflects 
concerns that we do not specify performance goals for employees. 
Specific employee goals are not used to ensure we are not violating the 
legislative mandates in the Taxpayer Bill of Rights and the Internal 
Revenue Service Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998, which placed 
limitations on the types of enforcement data we can use to evaluate 
employees. Instead, we set performance goals for our programs, not 
individual employees. These goals provide specific information that is 
valid down to the Area and certain Territory offices and allows us to 
closely monitor business results.

I would also like to comment on the individual reengineering projects 
reviewed in this audit. Your report recognizes our efforts to put the 
most productive collection work in the hands of our revenue officers. 
The successes with the Taxpayer Delinquent Account Project led to 
additional modeling for Taxpayer Delinquent Investigations inventory. 
As part of this modeling effort we included a research plan that will 
monitor the results of the models, evaluate what the models produce, 
how they perform and enable us to make informed decisions on updates as 
well as refinements to the models. These modeling efforts will allow us 
to identify the most productive work and make the best use of our 
limited field and ACS resources.

The Collection Field Function (CFf) Consultation Initiative Project 
improved our ability to contact and follow-up with taxpayers at an 
earlier point in the collection process. Groups testing this process 
demonstrated a 6.8 percent greater reduction in the percentage of aged 
inventory from Fiscal Year 2002 to Fiscal Year 2003 than did control 
groups in the same Area. As part of our assessment of this project we 
conducted Customer Satisfaction surveys. Based upon opinions expressed 
in these surveys we believe this effort will improve satisfaction of 
taxpayers as well as enhance CFf productivity. Test groups also 
demonstrated a 13 percent greater improvement in 
dispositions per revenue officer from Fiscal Year 2002 to Fiscal Year 
2003 than did control groups. The initiative also enabled CFf group 
managers to become more engaged with employees and cases earlier in the 
collection process, which will improve work quality by mandating a 
discussion of each case soon after initial contact with the taxpayer. 
An additional benefit of the project has been to identify and institute 
improvements to the automated Entity Case Management Information system 
that will enhance the CFf group manager's ability to monitor in-process 
collection workload through better functionality.

With respect to our efforts in the Field Examination Reengineering 
Project, these process changes are pervasive and will impact every 
examination case and employee. In the pilot sites we realized 
improvements in business results, customer satisfaction, and employee 
satisfaction. Once the process changes are implemented in all Areas, we 
expect to see the same improvements nationally. As part of our annual 
planning process we used these anticipated improvements to develop our 
Fiscal Year examination plan.

Finally, our Case Processing Redesign will help us cope with increasing 
workloads by rapidly consolidating operations and standardizing 
processes. Through the redesign, we will establish consistent quality, 
improve service to the taxpaying public, and save resources. Once the 
redesign is fully implemented, a 300 to 400 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) 
savings is projected. These FTEs will be used to enhance field 
compliance and enforcement activities.

We expect that all of these efforts will have a positive effect on our 
efficiency and effectiveness and will enable us to provide better 
customer service. If you have any questions, please contact me or Tom 
Hull, Director, Compliance, SB/SE at:

(202) 283-2180.

Sincerely,

Signed for: 

Mark W. Everson: 

[End of section]

(440159):

FOOTNOTES

[1] U.S. General Accounting Office, Compliance and Collection: 
Challenges for IRS in Reversing Trends and Implementing New 
Initiatives, GAO-03-732T (Washington, D.C.: May 7, 2003) and U.S. 
General Accounting Office, IRS Modernization: Continued Progress 
Necessary for Improving Service to Taxpayers and Ensuring Compliance, 
GAO-03-796T (Washington, D.C.: May 20, 2003).

[2] P.L. 105-206.

[3] U.S. General Accounting Office, Tax Administration: Impact of 
Compliance and Collection Program Declines on Taxpayers, GAO-02-674 
(Washington, D.C.: May 22, 2002).

[4] U.S. General Accounting Office, Business Process Reengineering 
Assessment Guide, GAO/AIMD-10.1.15 (Washington, D.C.: April 1997).

[5] The Private Sector Council is a nonprofit, nonpartisan public 
service organization created to help the federal government improve its 
efficiency, management, and productivity through cooperative sharing of 
knowledge between the public and private sectors. It is comprised of 
member companies--businesses from across North America in industries 
such as telecommunications, defense, finance, and energy. Corporate 
executives from member companies provide their time and expertise at no 
cost to the government. 

[6] GAO/AIMD-10.1.15. 

[7] GAO/AIMD-10.1.15. 

[8] U.S. General Accounting Office, Major Management Challenges and 
Program Risks: A Governmentwide Perspective, GAO-03-95 (Washington, 
D.C.: January 2003). 

[9] GAO/AIMD-10.1.15. 

[10] GAO-02-674.

[11] U.S. General Accounting Office, Tax Administration: IRS Should 
Continue to Expand Reporting on Its Enforcement Efforts, GAO-03-378 
(Washington, D.C.: Jan. 31, 2003). 

[12] GAO-02-674. 

[13] Field examinations are the most complex audits and are done at the 
taxpayer's location. In an office examination, the taxpayer comes to an 
IRS office with his or her records and meets with an auditor. 

[14] IRS employs a number of means to collect overdue taxes from 
taxpayers who owe them. These include letters, phone calls, office 
appointments, and visits to business locations.

[15] GAO/AIMD-10.1.15. 

[16] GAO/AIMD-10.1.15. 

[17] We did not evaluate the accuracy or consistency of the data that 
IRS used to measure these quantities, or whether the specific outputs 
and inputs that IRS chose for its productivity measures were the most 
appropriate. These evaluations were beyond the scope of our report. 
However, for a discussion of the issues involved in choosing output and 
input indicators for productivity measures, see app. I.

[18] SB/SE staff have general schedule grades, with higher grades 
equating to more education and/or experience and to more complex job 
responsibilities. 

[19] The Internal Revenue Manual describes standards for both the 
collection and examination system. Standards for collection 
requirements include determining if the casework isolated the right 
issues at the right time, the right actions were taken timely and 
efficiently, the right legal procedures were followed, and the case was 
closed correctly. The exam system uses eight standards to define 
quality, each defined by elements representing components that are 
present in a quality examination. Each exam is scored on each of the 
eight standards and the total score is the sum of the scores for each 
standard.

[20] The statistical methods use data on outputs, inputs, quality, and 
complexity to derive a composite productivity index. This index can be 
further analyzed (or "decomposed") to adjust for the effect of factors 
like the IRS Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998. Examples of these 
methods include stochastic frontier and data envelopment analysis. 
These methods have been applied extensively in both the public and 
private sectors. For a survey of studies, see L. Sieford, "Data 
Envelopment Analysis: The Evolution of the State of the Art, 1978-
1995," Journal of Productivity Analysis, 1996, 7, pp. 99-137. For an 
example of an application of these methods to the banking industry, see 
D. Wheelock and P. Wilson, "Technological Progress, Inefficiency, and 
Productivity Change in U.S. Banking, 1984-1993, Journal of Money, 
Credit and Banking, 31(2), May 1999, pp.212-234. For an application to 
public school productivity measurement, see J. Ruggiero and D. 
Vitaliano, "Assessing the Efficiency of Public Schools Using Data 
Envelopment Analysis and Frontier Regression," Contemporary Economic 
Policy, July 1999, 17(3), pp. 321-31.

[21] GAO/AIMD-10.1.15. 

[22] IRS Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998, section 1204, 26 U.S.C. 
§7804 note (2000). 

[23] U.S. General Accounting Office, Performance Management Systems: 
IRS's Systems for Frontline Employees and Managers Align with Strategic 
Goals but Improvements Can Be Made, GAO-02-804 (Washington, D.C.: July 
12, 2002). 

[24] GAO/AIMD-10.1.15. 

[25] U.S. General Accounting Office, Human Capital: A Guide for 
Assessing Strategic Training and Development Efforts in the Federal 
Government, GAO-03-893G (Washington, D.C.: July 2003); U.S. General 
Accounting Office, Homeland Security: Management Challenges Facing 
Federal Leadership, GAO-03-260 (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 20, 2002), p. 
60; U.S. General Accounting Office, Information Technology: A Framework 
for Assessing and Improving Enterprise Architecture Management (Version 
1.1), GAO-03-584G (Washington, D.C.; April 2003). 

[26] The Private Sector Council is a nonprofit, nonpartisan public 
service organization created to help the federal government improve its 
efficiency, management, and productivity through cooperative sharing of 
knowledge between the public and private sectors. It is comprised of 
member companies--businesses from across North America in industries 
such as telecommunications, defense, finance, and energy. Corporate 
executives from member companies provide their time and expertise at no 
cost to the government. 

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