Tax Administration: IRS's 2003 Filing Season Performance Showed Improvements

IRS reinstated that the requirement for Taxpayer Assistance Centers (TACs, or "walk-in sites") to regularly report information to Field Assistance Headquarters on overall percentage of taxpayers waiting more or less than 30 minutes (for those sites equipped with full Q-Matic--the Service's traffic management and reporting system). TACs are required to report this information monthly to area managers, who consolidate it into a quarterly report for headquarters. More importantly, in time for the 2006 tax filing season, Field Assistance management began receiving weekly reports with significantly more detailed information on wait-times--reports pulled directly from the Q-Matic system. These reports included a break-down of wait-time intervals (no-wait, 1-30 minutes, 31-45 minutes, etc.) They also show both the actual number and percentages of taxpayers in the categories tracked by Q-Matic (forms, returns, tax law assistance, and others). Therefore, IRS has fully satisfied the first part of this recommendation. The Commissioner did not agree to disseminate consolidated wait-time information to field managers, noting that routine monitoring of wait-time occrus by local managers for walk-in sites equipped with full Q-Matic. However, at the time of the audit, there were only 140 of 400 walk-in sites equipped with some version of Q-Matic. By the 2006 filing season, IRS had rolled out full Q-matic to 224 of its 400 TACs (or 56 percent of sites). These sites handled 81 percent of all walk-in site traffic during the 2006 filing season. Therefore, for TACs handling the majority of face-to-face interactions, managers now have the information they need about wait-times to help them manage traffic in order to balance timeliness and quality of service. We believe that IRS has, therefore, satisfied the second part of this recommendation.