Tax Administration

In response to a congressional request, GAO examined the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS): (1) computation of the revenue it actually realized as a result of its implementation of a revenue initiative, which added 2,500 to the examination staff; and (2) assumptions in estimating the yield derived from the increased staff.

GAO found that: (1) since 1978, IRS has consistently underestimated the amount of additional taxes that its examination staff would recommend each year; (2) the annual underestimate averaged 28 percent over the period and ranged from about $100 million in 1978 to about $3.8 billion in 1986; (3) it was difficult for IRS to estimate the exact amount of revenue that it would generate by adding a specific number of auditors in 1987, since it did not use all of the staff years Congress authorized; and (4) IRS used data from audits it closed in 1972 instead of current information in developing its estimates. GAO also found that: (1) to support its request for additional staff years, IRS expected to audit 120,000 more returns and assess $829 million in additional taxes, penalties, and interest; (2) IRS calculated that it would generate $847.5 million in assessed taxes, penalties, and interest in 1987 as a result of the additional audit staff; (3) IRS based its calculation on an increase in staff that was more than double what actually occurred; and (4) IRS did not take into account the amount of potential revenue lost because it used experienced staff to train the new staff.

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.

Director: Team: Phone: