IRS chief seeks to balance enforcement, service

The Internal Revenue Service must do a better job of balancing its dual missions of providing prompt and courteous service and enforcing the nation's tax laws, IRS Commissioner Mark Everson said Monday.

"I want us to give good service, but I also want us to firmly and fairly enforce the law," Everson said in an address at the National Press Club in Washington.

Everson, who was appointed to his five-year term by President Bush 10 months ago after a stint as deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget, says the reforms instituted at the agency in the 1990s have led to improved customer service. For example, Everson noted the number of busy signals callers received when telephoning the agency has dropped dramatically, and electronic filing of tax returns is up 10 percent from last year.

The agency's focus on customer service amid charges that it was too aggressively pursuing tax cheats led to cutbacks in enforcement. Since the late 1990s, the IRS cut about a quarter of its agents, auditors and investigators who enforce the nation's tax laws. As a result, criminal prosecutions also dropped.

Everson said the number of Americans who believe it is acceptable to cheat on their taxes has increased from 11 percent to 17 percent. He says "reinvigorating enforcement" might help reduce that number. The Bush administration's proposed fiscal 2005 budget would increase the IRS' $10 billion budget by 5 percent and allow it to add more enforcement personnel.

Everson said his top enforcement priorities include cracking down on the use of tax shelters, finding organizations that fraudulently claim they are nonprofits, and tracking illegal off-shore tax schemes by corporations.