Tax Administration: IRS' 1999 Tax Filing Season
GGD-00-37
Published: Dec 15, 1999. Publicly Released: Dec 15, 1999.
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Highlights
Pursuant to a congressional request, the GAO discussed the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) performance during the 1999 tax filing season, focusing on: (1) telephone service; (2) availability of walk-in services; (3) other taxpayer service efforts; (4) Earned Income Credit (EIC) noncompliance; (5) electronic filing; (6) implementation of recent tax law changes; and (7) implementation of a new return and remittance processing system.
Recommendations
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Internal Revenue Service | The Commissioner of the Internal Revenue should direct the appropriate officials to analyze the effect of not achieving the planned sample size for monitoring the accuracy of responses to tax law calls and use the results of that analysis to design the sample used in future monitoring. |
According to IRS, it completed an analysis of the effect of not achieving the planned sample size for monitoring the accuracy of tax law changes and, based on that analysis, started the process to fill 20 additional positions at its Centralized Quality Review site. With that additional staff, IRS says that it will be able to meet the desired plan for monitoring tax law and other telephone calls.
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| Internal Revenue Service | The Commissioner of Internal Revenue should direct the appropriate officials to implement a program for assessing the performance of IRS' walk-in sites. As part of that program, require that quality reviews be done, provide sufficient guidance to ensure that the reviews are done consistently and address appropriate issues, and require that data on the results of quality reviews and wait-time monitoring (whether done automatically or manually) be reported to a central location for analysis. |
According to IRS, and as confirmed during GAO's review of the 2000 tax filing season, it has implemented a quality review program to measure the quality and timeliness of service at walk-in sites and its statisticians have determined the number of offices and visits needed to ensure that it has a valid sample size. After quality reviews are completed, results are to be incorporated into the walk-in national database for analysis. Also, wait time monitoring results are now reported monthly to headquarters for analysis.
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| Internal Revenue Service | The Commissioner of Internal Revenue should direct the appropriate officials to, if IRS does not rely on Form 8862 for recertification purposes, discontinue its use. |
IRS has decided to continue using Form 8862, at least for the foreseeable future.
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| Internal Revenue Service | The Commissioner of Internal Revenue should direct the appropriate officials to, if IRS continues using Form 8862 for recertification purposes, redesign the form to include reference to the documentation listed on Form 886-H and any other documentation that IRS thinks is necessary for recertification so that taxpayers who are required to recertify know as early as possible what documentation is required for recertification. |
IRS has made no change to Form 8862, and no change seems forthcoming.
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| Internal Revenue Service | The Commissioner of Internal Revenue should direct the appropriate officials to ensure that all service centers implement the recertification procedures according to national guidelines to avoid possible disparate treatment of taxpayers. |
According to IRS, guidelines were developed and issued to each service center and reviews have been/are being conducted to assess conformance to those guidelines. However, GAO's continuing work in the area indicates that IRS' 10 service centers may still be doing certain things inconsistently.
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| Internal Revenue Service | The Commissioner of Internal Revenue should direct the appropriate officials to analyze the results of the refund timeliness tests to determine, among other things, why about 15 percent of the refunds took longer than 40 days to issue and what the test results showed for returns that were filed error-free. |
According to IRS, it did a preliminary analysis of the data on 1999 refunds that took longer than 40 days to issue and decided, based on that analysis, that a more detailed review would not produce data that would result in better service to taxpayers. Instead, IRS has revised its methodology for measuring refund timeliness that changes the starting point for the measure. Instead of using the date the taxpayer signed the return, which IRS felt did not always reflect when the return was mailed, IRS will now be using the date it receives the return as the starting point. That change could, by itself, reduce the extent to which IRS exceeds the 40-day refund issuance goal.
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