Tax-Administration: IRS Needs to Improve Certain Measures of Service Center Quality.
Abstract
IRS appears to have improved the quality of correspondence it sends taxpayers to tell them about adjustments to their accounts. Over the last 2 years, IRS statistics show that the percentage of its letters with critical errors decreased from 38 percent to 14 percent. IRS plans to begin monitoring other types of service center correspondence in 1991. IRS progress in improving the accuracy with which it processes tax returns is less clear. The data IRS uses to monitor its progress in improving processing quality show a decrease in error rates from 23 percent in 1988 to 18 percent in 1990. This error rate is not a valid indicator of IRS' processing quality, however, because it (1) includes errors made by taxpayers and (2) counts as errors things that are not errors. IRS' progress in improving the quality of its processing performance is further clouded by the fact that service centers have been making the same type of processing errors year after year. IRS has begun studying ways to reduce some of those recurring errors in the hopes of having solutions in place for the 1991 filing season. Reports on those projects has not been finalized as of January 1991.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 01, 1991
- Accession Number
- ADA263336
Entities
Organizations
- United States Government Accountability Office