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The Internal Revenue Service, halfway through a decade of restructuring, still provides poor customer service and fails to enforce tax laws, said the IRS Oversight Board in its annual report.

"The IRS must work harder and smarter," the board said.

The report was scheduled to be submitted Wednesday afternoon to the House Treasury-Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee, when newly installed IRS Commissioner Mark Everson made his first appearance before a committee as commissioner.

While the report says understaffing and underfunding is partly to blame - the workload of the IRS has increased 16 percent over the past decade while the number of its employees dropped by 16 percent - the agency also is not moving as quickly to reform itself as it could.

The report called for a 2 percent increase in staffing at the IRS in each of the next five years. The board also recommended that the IRS, Congress and the Bush administration work together to:

• Crack down on noncompliance with tax laws, which has risen in the past decade as IRS resources have declined.
• Boost customer service efforts.
• Make a commitment to modernize IRS computer systems.
• Develop a comprehensive human resources initiative.
• Reach a consensus on long-term customer service and compliance goals.
• Simplify the tax code.

COMMENTS

• Decisions are being made by high level appointees who have no idea of what is going on in the daily interactions with the taxpayers, lawyers and accountants. Commissioners come and go, but the federal employee is left behind to clean up. With every new commisioner there are new policies and emphasis. Consistency does not appear to be followed. It appears that those who cannot do the exam of returns or collect amounts due are given more emphasis and importance (and higher grades) than the revenue agent and officers. look at the level of staff in each area compared to line revenue agents and officers. doing the exam is not as important as doing the administrative paperwork and forms; therefore move the paper. The equipment, ie. computers, are outdated even before they are issued. With the current state of the service, i can not honestly recommend anyone comming to work at the irs. If this was industry, there would be boards on the window and we would be closed for business. GovExec.com reader Posted May 15, 2003 7:59 PM
• The last five years of creative changes have increased the time it takes to do quality work, demoralized the staff, complicated internal processes, reduced us to an organization led by committees that make decisions by voting rather than by leaders with authority, and made every day a new opportunity to mess this place up even more. The old commissioner and Booze-Allen get most of the credit. The new commissioner will have a staff anxiously awaiting his arrival and ready to help him save us, God willing. GovExec.com reader Posted May 8, 2003 8:34 AM