Tax Administration

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO assessed the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) performance during the 1990 tax return filing season, focusing on the: (1) accuracy and accessibility of its toll-free telephone assistance program; (2) availability of tax materials at its distribution centers and walk-in offices; and (3) processing of returns and related refunds.

GAO found that: (1) walk-in sites usually had tax materials on hand; (2) distribution centers generally did a good job filling mail and phone orders; (3) delivery of mail-ordered items took longer than IRS told people to expect; (4) more taxpayers received busy signals in 1990 when they tried to order materials or ask tax law questions by phone than in 1989; (5) the IRS test to evaluate distribution center performance was not valid; (6) IRS Integrated Test Call Survey System results showed that the accuracy of IRS responses to taxpayer questions improved from 63 percent in 1989 to 77 percent in 1990; (7) IRS attributed improved accuracy to increased managerial emphasis, a more stable and experienced work force, and development of guides to help assistors probe for all the facts needed about a taxpayer's situation; (8) IRS processed returns faster, paid less interest on delayed funds, and needed to correct fewer errors in 1990; (9) service center inventory levels were generally lower than in past years; and (10) IRS assigned the 10 most persistent problem areas to individual offices for additional analysis.

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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