Tax Administration

Improved Staffing of IRS' Collection Function Would Increase Productivity Gao ID: GGD-93-97 May 5, 1993

Although the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) delinquent taxpayer workload has continued to grow, productivity has varied greatly at the agency's field offices. As a result of IRS' staffing policies and procedures, some collection field offices lack enough staff to pursue the more highly productive cases while other offices have relatively more staff and are investigating cases with less collection potential. The upshot is that IRS has been unable to maximize its collection of delinquent tax debts or effectively stem the growth of its accounts receivable. If IRS continues to use a staff allocation system that does not consider marginal productivity and uses single-year workload estimates, the agency will not know the complete extent of staffing imbalances. Problems will also persist if IRS continues to rely on overall staff growth and attrition as the primary means of eliminating field office staffing imbalances. IRS has several initiatives under way that may reduce the number of invalid accounts in the delinquent taxpayer inventory, redefine the collection function, and distribute collection functions throughout IRS. All these changes will affect collection staffing needs.

GAO found that: (1) although the IRS delinquent taxpayer workload has continued to expand, IRS has not been able to maximize its collection of delinquent tax debts, curb the growth of its accounts receivables, or balance its allocation of field office staff with its workload; (2) IRS staff and work-load imbalances have resulted in varying amounts of workload per year and occurred at different rates among IRS field offices; (3) IRS has been unable to correct staffing imbalances because its staff allocation system does not consider marginal productivity, uses single-year estimates rather than future economic conditions, and relies on staff growth and attrition to determine proper field office staffing levels; (4) IRS needs to develop a staffing methodology which sets appropriate staffing levels and eliminates staffing imbalances before implementing initiatives to modernize its tax systems; and (5) IRS needs to reconsider its decision to redefine and distribute collection activities among field offices.

Recommendations

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