Tax Administration

The Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) employee suggestion program encourages workers to submit ideas for improving operations; cash or other awards are made if the suggestions are adopted. Because IRS does not routinely monitor or document the implementation of approved employee suggestions on an agencywide basis, GAO could not determine the extent to which approved suggestions were being implemented throughout IRS. GAO did, however, test the process in three IRS regional offices and found that almost all approved suggestions were put into effect during a recent 31-month period. A recent IRS study concluded that the employee suggestion program needed several improvements to boost employee participation. The report said that the program suffered from a lack of management support, poor training for those running the program, inadequate publicity, and untimely evaluation of suggestions. IRS is taking steps to address these shortcomings.

GAO found that: (1) IRS did not routinely monitor or document the implementation of employee suggestions throughout IRS; (2) the IRS employee participation rate was about 3 percent compared to the average 5 percent governmentwide and 13 percent in the private sector; (3) the employee suggestion program needed a number of improvements to increase employee participation; and (4) IRS planned to strengthen the suggestion program with timely evaluations, improved coordination and followup, and better feedback.