Tax Administration: One Stop Service: A New Concept of Assistance for Taxpayers.
Abstract
IRS has a history of customer assistance problems caused by fragmented taxpayer service delivery programs. Taxpayers often have to deal with IRS employees in different functions and at various locations to resolve problems or get questions answered accurately. To deal with this situation, IRS has adopted a new customer assistance initiative known as 'One Stop Service'. Today, One Stop Service is a concept and not yet a reality. One Stop Service has short-and long-term objectives. In the short term, IRS is focusing on improving its telephone service by expanding the authority of its employees and providing more equipment to resolve taxpayer problems with their tax accounts. IRS' long term goal is to resolve 95 percent of all taxpayer inquiries through a single contact with the agency. One Stop Service is new and can be expected to experience some growing pains. For example, IRS telephone sites are implementing One Stop Service at different rates. GAO found several things IRS needs to address as it moves forward. These include (1) ensuring that taxpayers have access to telephone assistance, (2) developing better measures of the level and quality of telephone account assistance, and (3) providing adequate training for account assistors. To accomplish One Stop Service in both the short and long term, IRS needs uniform implementation across field offices to provide taxpayers with consistent service. One Stop Service also demands strong leadership to provide essential staffing and equipment, training, and a basis for measuring success. Finally, One Stop Service will not occur by IRS' September 1998 goal without computer and telecommunications systems that are integral to Tax Systems Modernization. Ultimately, the success of One Stop Service will depend on the secure and easy retrieval of comprehensive account data by assistors across the country, which in turn requires the completion of several major Tax Systems Modernization projects.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 28, 1992
- Accession Number
- ADA290782
Entities
Organizations
- United States Government Accountability Office