To help combat identify theft refund fraud and improper payments, in 2017 the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) implemented provisions of the Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes Act of 2015 (the Act). Consistent with GAO's prior reporting, the Act advanced the deadline for employers filing Form W-2, Wage and Tax Statement (W-2) with the Social Security Administration to January 31, allowing IRS to v

In March 2016, GAO reported that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) had instituted numerous controls over key financial and tax processing systems; however, it had not always effectively implemented other controls intended to properly restrict access to systems and information, among other security measures. In particular, while IRS had improved some of its access controls, weaknesses remained in

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) provided the lowest level of telephone service during fiscal year 2015 compared to prior years, with only 38 percent of callers who wanted to speak with an IRS assistor able to reach one. This lower level of service occurred despite lower demand from callers seeking live assistance, which has fallen by 6 percent since 2010 to about 51 million callers in 2015. Ov

We found: (1) As of March 18, 2011, IRS had processed about 73 million returns and issued about 65 million refunds totaling close to $193 billion. (2) The percentage of e-filed returns continues to grow, which remains important because it significantly reduces IRS's costs and speeds refunds. For fiscal year 2009, IRS reported that it costs 19 cents to process an e-filed return compared to $3.29 f

IRS may be missing opportunities to improve taxpayer service and enhance compliance for the 2010 filing season for the following reasons. (1) IRS lacks a strategy for preventing and resolving errors that cause electronically filed returns to be rejected. Without a strategy that documents, for example, its objectives, the role of external stakeholders, and schedules for specific actions, IRS may b

IRS processed 127 million individual income tax returns, with 91 million filed electronically, as of May 15, 2009. Electronic filing reduces processing costs. IRS also issued 103 million refunds for $276 billion. IRS's Customer Account Data Engine (CADE), its new, partially completed taxpayer account data base, processed 39 million tax returns--important because CADE processes refunds faster. How

The President's fiscal year 2010 budget request for IRS of $12.1 billion is a 5.2 percent increase of $603 million over the fiscal year 2009 appropriation, with increases for enforcement (7.6 percent), operations support (5.6 percent), and BSM (10.3 percent) and a 1.0 percent decrease for taxpayer services. The President's budget documents include legislative proposals aimed at reducing the tax g

IRS improved most filing season services during 2007, continuing a longer-term trend. Tax return processing exceeded last year's performance by most measures. Electronic filing grew at a faster rate than IRS anticipated and continued to generate savings. Access to IRS telephone assistors was comparable to last year, and the accuracy of responses to questions remained at about 90 percent. The perf

Despite initial concerns about this year's filing season being high risk due to increased workload from TETR and other tax system changes, early data suggest that the impact has been minimal because anticipated volume has not materialized. IRS has processed over 63 million returns, most filed electronically. However, one of IRS's key tax return processing systems became operational two months beh

The number of individual taxpayer cases opened by TAS increased substantially in fiscal years 2005 and 2006 and our analysis of TAS and IRS data shows that these increases correlated with increases in IRS enforcement activities both overall and in some specific IRS enforcement programs. For example, changes in the number of tax refunds frozen by IRS coincided with changes in the number of frozen