The mother of all auditors, the Government Accountability Office, had heard some complaints that maybe the IRS wasn’t doing such a bang-up job on the whole Phase two.
After snooping around, the GAO issued a new report that explained that the IRS needs to work on explaining just what it is they do an why they do it.
Web CPA:
The IRS has no documented objectives for the notice phase and no performance measures to indicate how well the phase is performing in resolving debt cases or achieving other desired results…
…However, in almost all cases, for the five business rules the IRS identified as affecting the most taxpayers, the IRS did not have information on the date the rules were established, the rationale for the rule, or data supporting the rationale…
…IRS collection officials also lacked documentation describing the business rules and how they operate. Further, even though IRS officials estimated that the business rules had been established for years, IRS had documentation for an evaluation of only one of the five business rules.
Let’s recap:
• “…no documented objectives…”
• “…did not have information on the date the rules were established, the rationale for the rule, or data supporting the rationale…”
• “…lacked documentation describing the business rules and how they operate.”
• “…documentation for an evaluation of only one of the five business rules.”
Apparently this is one of those cases where the Service says, “Trust us, we have a plan. But don’t ask us to explain it, we wouldn’t want to bore you. Oh, and don’t ask us how well it’s working. We don’t get too hung up on statistics or success rate.”
We’re just talking about tax dollars after all.
IRS Has Trouble Tracking Debt Collection Notices [Web CPA]