Tax Administration

During each of the last several filing seasons, the accuracy of the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) answers to telephone inquiries from the public on tax matters has steadily increased, from 63 percent accuracy in 1989 to 88 percent in 1992. Increased management emphasis and the use of a standard reference guide seemed to be the key reasons for this improvement. However, the problems that some call sites have experienced in hiring and training staff will make it difficult for IRS to sustain these accuracy gains or to substantially improve this year's accuracy rate.

GAO found that: (1) assistors' accuracy rate on a set of test questions improved from 63 percent in 1989 to 88 percent in 1992; (2) the improvements primarily resulted from increased management emphasis on accuracy, through such activities as establishing site accuracy goals in performance contracts, closer monitoring of assistors, managers working more closely with quality assurance staff, increasing use of assistors trained in speciality areas, and using a standard probe and response guide; (3) sustaining the improvements or further improvement will be difficult and costly if IRS does not resolve such staffing and training problems as hiring and retention difficulties because of stressful work and low salaries, and inadequate and costly training; (4) to overcome staffing and training problems, individual call sites have targeted recruiting efforts, conducted testing to determine training needs, offered remedial and refresher training, included managers in training sessions, and hired more permanent and fewer temporary employees; and (5) like some successful firms, IRS has consolidated and centralized some call sites to make operations more efficient and improve service quality.