Tax Administration

IRS Can Improve Its Collection Procedures for Taxpayers Living Overseas Gao ID: GGD-87-14 December 12, 1986

GAO: (1) evaluated Internal Revenue Service (IRS) collection policies and procedures as they relate to taxpayers using Army Post Office (APO) and Fleet Post Office (FPO) addresses; and (2) identified alternatives for needed improvements in the APO/FPO collection process.

GAO found that: (1) IRS domestic offices, which are responsible for handling APO/FPO collection cases, are not in the best position to deal effectively with overseas taxpayers; (2) telephone and personal contact, which are two essential tools for dealing with delinquent taxpayers, are generally not available to domestic offices to resolve overseas collection cases; and (3) the IRS Foreign Operation District, which has collection responsibility for overseas taxpayers other than those with APO/FPO addresses, has offices overseas and is experienced in dealing, through both telephone and personal contact, with U.S. taxpayers living in foreign countries.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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