Telephone Assistance: Adopting Practices Used By Others Would Help IRS
Serve More Taxpayers (Chapter Report, 04/12/95, GAO/GGD-95-86).

Many taxpayers who seek help from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) by
telephone are not getting it.  Although IRS has improved its telephone
assistance program, the agency's telephone management practices have not
kept up with those of the Social Security Administration and four
private firms surveyed by GAO. IRS employees answered about the same
number of calls each year--about 36 million--even though the staff
available to answer calls declined.  IRS answered about one out of two
calls in fiscal year 1989 but only about one out of four calls in fiscal
year 1994. IRS has improved its telephone assistance program,
particularly its ability to route calls among call sites and provide
assistors with taxpayer account information.  However, IRS lags in the
application of modern information technology.  However, GAO believes
that IRS could adopt management practices used by other organizations to
answer more calls with existing resources.  GAO notes that IRS senior
management has not aggressively and consistently pursued the
implementation of commonly used practices.  In part, these attempts
failed because IRS lacked a strategy for working with the National
Treasury Employees Union, which represents most IRS telephone assistance
workers, to introduce systemwide operating practices and standards.

--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------

 REPORTNUM:  GGD-95-86
     TITLE:  Telephone Assistance: Adopting Practices Used By Others 
             Would Help IRS Serve More Taxpayers
      DATE:  04/12/95
   SUBJECT:  Taxpayers
             Telephone communications operations
             Tax administration
             Income taxes
             Tax law
             Tax returns
             Reference service operations
             Information dissemination operations
             Statistical data
             Data transmission operations
IDENTIFIER:  IRS Telephone Assistance Program
             
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Cover
================================================================ COVER


Report to the Chairman, Subcommittee on Oversight, Committee on Ways
and Means, House of Representatives

April 1995

TELEPHONE ASSISTANCE - ADOPTING
PRACTICES USED BY OTHERS WOULD
HELP IRS SERVE MORE TAXPAYERS

GAO/GGD-95-86

IRS' Telephone Assistance Program


Abbreviations
=============================================================== ABBREV

  FTE - Full Time Equivalent
  IRS - Internal Revenue Service
  NTEU - National Treasury Employees Union
  SSA - Social Security Administration

Letter
=============================================================== LETTER


B-259953

April 12, 1995

The Honorable Nancy L.  Johnson
Chairman, Subcommittee on Oversight
Committee on Ways and Means
House of Representatives

Dear Madam Chairman: 

This report was prepared as part of our basic legislative
responsibility for reviewing federal programs and activities. 
Because of the Subcommittee's continuing interest in the quality of
IRS' service to taxpayers, you asked that we issue this report to
you.  The report discusses the increasing difficulty taxpayers have
had in getting through to IRS' telephone assistors to get help with
their tax problems and recommends some steps that would help IRS
answer more taxpayers' calls. 

We are sending copies of this report to other congressional
committees, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Commissioner of
Internal Revenue, the Director of Management and Budget, and other
interested parties.  Copies will be made available to others on
request. 

The major contributors to this report are listed in appendix IV. 
Please contact me on (202) 512-9110 if you or your staff have any
questions concerning this report. 

Sincerely yours,

Lynda D.  Willis
Associate Director, Tax Policy
 and Administration Issues


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
============================================================ Chapter 0


   PURPOSE
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:1

People in the United States commonly do business by telephone and
have come to expect prompt access to telephone assistors and timely
resolution of their questions.  Yet, as GAO has reported for several
years, for millions of taxpayers, calling the Internal Revenue
Service (IRS) for answers to their questions has become an
increasingly frustrating task as more and more calls have gone
unanswered.  GAO examined IRS' telephone assistance program to (1)
determine the extent and nature of the accessibility problem, (2)
compare IRS' practices with those of other organizations that provide
telephone assistance to identify ways IRS might improve access with
existing staff resources, and (3) identify the reasons IRS has been
unable to answer more calls. 


   BACKGROUND
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:2

Taxpayers often need assistance in understanding tax laws, preparing
returns, finding the proper tax form, and checking on refunds due
them.  To help them, IRS operates a telephone assistance program. 
According to IRS, its call sites have more contact with taxpayers
than any other IRS function.  In fiscal year 1994, IRS telephone
assistors answered about 36 million calls.  This report does not deal
with Tele-Tax, an automated service that provides tax information on
a recording and answered about 34 million calls.  IRS' Customer
Service Vision for providing taxpayer service in the year 2001
depends on increased use of the telephone and anticipates that no
taxpayer who calls IRS will get a busy signal.  Successful IRS
telephone assistance operations are critical to the achievement of
IRS' customer service goals. 


   RESULTS IN BRIEF
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:3

Many taxpayers who seek help through IRS' telephone assistance
program are not getting it.  Even with increased productivity, IRS
has not kept pace with the significant growth in the number of calls
received over fiscal years 1989-1994.  IRS' assistors answered about
the same number of calls each year (about 36 million) even though the
staff available to answer calls declined.  IRS answered about one out
of two calls in fiscal year 1989 but only one out of four calls in
fiscal year 1994. 

IRS has improved its telephone assistance program, particularly its
capability to route calls among call sites and provide assistors with
taxpayers' account information.  However, IRS' telephone management
practices, including the ability to apply modern information
technology, have not kept up with those commonly used to enhance call
answering by the five organizations GAO contacted--the Social
Security Administration (SSA) and four private sector companies. 

It is unlikely that IRS could answer all taxpayers' calls with
current staff and technology resources.  However, GAO believes IRS
could apply additional management practices used by other
organizations to answer more calls with existing resources. 

IRS does not use several of the practices the other organizations GAO
contacted commonly used, and some of those IRS does use are not as
rigorous or advanced as the practices these organizations employed. 
For example, in fiscal year 1995, for the first time, IRS is
providing all taxpayers access to telephone assistors for a total of
10 hours a day.  In contrast, SSA offers access to assistors 12 hours
a day, and all of the companies GAO contacted routinely provide
access to a customer service representative 24 hours a day. 

IRS has fallen behind the other telephone assistance programs in some
areas primarily because IRS' senior management has not aggressively
and consistently pursued the implementation of commonly used
practices.  In part, these attempts failed because IRS did not have a
strategy for working with the National Treasury Employees Union
(NTEU), which represents most IRS telephone assistance employees, to
implement systemwide operating practices and standards. 

IRS and NTEU have recently reached an agreement to work together to
implement IRS' future Customer Service Vision.  GAO believes IRS
could use this framework now to put in place telephone assistance
program practices used by others to optimize the number of taxpayers'
calls it can answer. 

IRS has a model for the type of aggressive management attention GAO
believes is necessary.  IRS created the model in its successful
effort to improve the accuracy of the answers it provides to
taxpayers' tax law questions.  IRS could use this model as the basis
for identifying and applying appropriate telephone management
practices to increase the number of taxpayers' calls IRS answers. 


   PRINCIPAL FINDINGS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:4


      TAXPAYERS FIND IT
      INCREASINGLY DIFFICULT TO
      REACH IRS ASSISTORS
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:4.1

Over fiscal years 1989-1994, the percentage of taxpayers' calls that
IRS' assistors answered ranged from 50 percent in fiscal year 1989 to
23 percent in fiscal year 1994.  With the exception of fiscal year
1991, the percentage of calls answered decreased each year. 
Taxpayers call IRS for assistance more during the tax filing season
than at other times during the year.  However, they had difficulty
reaching IRS assistors regardless of the time of year.  For example,
the percentage of calls answered during various periods of fiscal
year 1994 were:  39 percent during October-December, 21 percent
during the January-April tax filing season, and 21 percent during
May-September. 

Because a taxpayer may immediately redial when a call is not
answered, IRS measures accessibility by estimating the number of
taxpayers seeking help rather than counting the number of calls
received.  According to IRS' estimates, about 80 percent of the
taxpayers who called in fiscal year 1989 were assisted.  The
percentage was considerably lower in fiscal year 1994, when only 54
percent were assisted. 


      IRS DOES NOT USE SOME
      MANAGEMENT PRACTICES
      COMMONLY USED BY OTHER
      ORGANIZATIONS THAT PROVIDE
      TELEPHONE ASSISTANCE
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:4.2

SSA and the private sector companies GAO contacted used a variety of
management practices to enhance customers' access to their telephone
representatives.  They had established specific program goals
designed to result in employees answering as many calls as possible. 
To work toward meeting these goals, they used systemwide operating
standards, such as a standard number of hours for their
representatives to be on the telephone, and standard performance
measures, and they offered extended hours of service. 

Officials of the private companies GAO contacted said that these
practices were very important in managing a successful telephone
assistance program and have helped to improve service to their
customers.  First, they said that establishing program goals helped
to ensure good quality service and provided an incentive to answer
more calls.  Second, officials said that standard performance
measures were a key to providing consistency among sites, both in
terms of following procedures and reporting, and in routing calls. 
Finally, they said that standard call site hours of operation and
access beyond the normal work day provided service on a consistent
and convenient basis for customers. 

IRS does not use some of the management practices commonly used by
the other organizations GAO contacted.  In those cases where IRS did
use a practice similar to those GAO found in other organizations, the
practice was not applied with the same emphasis on customers' needs. 
For example, IRS has had specific goals for answering more calls for
the past 2 years, but these goals are based on the resources IRS has
available, not on taxpayers' demand for service.  In addition, IRS
has not determined how long its assistors should be on the telephone
during a work period and has not established or enforced uniform
methods for measuring and reporting call site performance.  The lack
of such standards makes it difficult for IRS' National Office to
measure and compare call site operations, a fundamental requirement
for effective systemwide management. 

SSA and the private sector companies GAO contacted also used
technology to make their telephone operations more accessible to
callers.  Today's telecommunications equipment gives these
organizations the capability to provide longer hours and easier
access to telephone representatives.  SSA, for example, has linked
its call sites together and from one location can quickly route calls
to other locations.  Of the private companies GAO contacted, three
offered 24-hour service; centrally monitored and managed their
nationwide call traffic with real-time data; and, with some
exceptions, had nationwide access to customer account information. 
Officials of these organizations said that their technology
improvements were important in providing quality customer service and
answering calls quickly.  They also said that technology improvements
were generally less expensive than hiring more staff. 

IRS recently completed two long-term efforts to improve its
capability to route calls among call sites and provide telephone
assistors greater access to taxpayer account information.  These are
important advances, although they still leave IRS behind the other
organizations GAO contacted in some important respects.  For example,
although routing capability was improved, IRS still lacks the
technology to centrally monitor all calls as they are received and to
immediately route calls to anywhere within the 27 call sites.  IRS
does not plan to have the technology to centrally monitor and manage
its nationwide telephone system until fiscal year 1997. 


      MANAGEMENT ACTION NEEDED TO
      ANSWER MORE CALLS AND LAY
      GROUNDWORK FOR THE FUTURE
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:4.3

IRS is aware of the management practices used by the five
organizations GAO contacted to increase their ability to answer
calls, but exactly why IRS has not implemented such practices is
unclear.  Several factors may have contributed to this situation. 
The telephone assistance program has not previously been operated
centrally.  The transition to stronger central control, already
underway in IRS, requires a cultural change to bring the program into
a unified system, a difficult process for any organization. 

Also, some managers and call site supervisors--not senior
managers--said there was a general concern that putting pressure on
assistors to answer more calls could jeopardize accuracy.  The few
attempts IRS made to institute such practices were not supported by
some IRS field managers, and IRS' senior management did not follow
through to see that the practices were implemented.  One of the
concerns IRS field managers cited was how to deal with NTEU and
whether that should be done locally or at the National Office level. 
GAO believes that IRS could use a recent agreement with NTEU as the
framework for working with NTEU to implement the needed practices on
a nationwide basis. 

IRS' ability to answer calls with its assistors has also been
constrained by funding limitations.  Currently, IRS' budget contains
funds to answer only 52 percent of the taxpayers who call.  Clearly,
additional funding would enable IRS to answer more calls.  GAO
believes that IRS could also answer more calls by taking aggressive
actions to better manage its existing human and technology resources. 


   RECOMMENDATIONS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:5

GAO recommends that the Commissioner of Internal Revenue direct the
Chief, Taxpayer Services, in coordination with other appropriate IRS
officials, to lead an aggressive effort to (1) identify and define
the appropriate telephone assistance program operating practices for
IRS that would allow it to optimize the number of calls it can answer
within current budget constraints and (2) work with the leadership of
NTEU to reach agreement on implementing these operating practices on
a nationwide basis.  Those practices should include, although not
necessarily be limited to, the following: 

  challenging program goals for increasing the number of calls
     answered that are based, at least in part, on taxpayers' needs;

  standards for the amount of time assistors should be available to
     answer taxpayers' calls;

  hours of operation that offer taxpayers greater opportunity to
     reach IRS assistors; and

  uniform reporting definitions for the number of calls answered and
     other performance measures. 

These and other recommendations appear on page 48. 


   AGENCY COMMENTS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:6

In a February 24, 1995, memorandum, the Assistant Commissioner for
Taxpayer Services provided comments on a draft of this report.  GAO
also met twice with senior officials of IRS' Taxpayer Services
Division to discuss a draft of the report. 

The Assistant Commissioner agreed that the GAO recommendations would
help to improve IRS' process, but she believes that IRS has already
taken action to make changes consistent with industry best practices. 
The Assistant Commissioner recognized that IRS can make additional
improvements to its processes, but she said that its Customer Service
Vision is IRS' long-term plan for answering more taxpayers' calls. 

GAO agrees that IRS has made progress in implementing industry best
practices, but GAO believes IRS is still behind in implementing many
practices commonly used by the organizations GAO contacted.  GAO's
recommendations could help IRS answer more calls with existing
resources in the short term and put IRS in a better position to
implement its long-term Customer Service Vision. 

The Assistant Commissioner's comments and GAO's evaluation of these
comments are discussed in chapter 4 of the report.  The complete text
of IRS' comments is included in appendix I. 


INTRODUCTION
============================================================ Chapter 1

Taxpayers often need assistance in understanding tax laws, preparing
returns, and getting adjustments made to their tax accounts. 
Historically, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has considered
telephone assistance to be the most efficient method to help
taxpayers.  IRS has three toll-free telephone programs that taxpayers
can use to seek assistance, deal with delinquent taxes, and obtain
forms and publications.\1 Of these programs, Taxpayer Services has
operated the largest one--the telephone assistance program--for
almost three decades.  According to IRS, the program is a principal
means for promoting the public's confidence in IRS and voluntary
compliance with tax laws.  However, in recent years, IRS has been
increasingly unable to answer all of the calls it receives. 


--------------------
\1 The toll-free telephone assistance program includes Tele-Tax, an
automated service that provides basic tax information on a recording,
but this report deals only with calls made to IRS' assistors.  Other
IRS telephone services include the Automated Collection Service,
which deals with both incoming and outgoing calls for taxpayers who
owe delinquent taxes, and the Centralized Inventory Distribution
Sites, which handles telephone requests for tax forms. 


   IRS' TAXPAYER SERVICE TELEPHONE
   ASSISTANCE PROGRAM
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 1:1

Taxpayers seek assistance from IRS by calling with questions or
problems that arise in three basic areas--tax law, filing procedures,
and account status.  Tax law inquiries involve technical tax
information related to specific laws and regulations.  Procedural
inquiries involve routine issues like where to file a tax return or
how to get a particular form or publication.  Account inquiries
concern tax bills, notices, and other correspondence relating to a
specific taxpayer. 

Assistors at 27 IRS call sites answer taxpayers' calls year round.\2
According to IRS officials, assistors at the call sites have access
to IRS' 10 service center databases, which contain taxpayer account
information.  In fiscal year 1994, these call sites received almost
156 million calls.  IRS also operates Tele-Tax, an automated system
in which taxpayers can listen to selected topic tapes 24 hours a day
and inquire about the status of their refunds Monday to Friday from
7:00 a.m.  to 11:30 p.m.  In fiscal year 1994, Tele-Tax answered
about 34 million calls.  Organizationally, each call site is located
within an IRS district office.  Call sites manage their day-to-day
operations, although they receive program direction from one of seven
regional offices.  The regional offices report directly to the
National Office. 

The goal of the telephone assistance program is to provide
consistently prompt and accurate service to taxpayers.  According to
IRS, consistently prompt service means that all taxpayers have the
same opportunity to receive assistance and be connected to an
assistor within a reasonable period of time, regardless of geographic
location, day of week, or time of day.  IRS is working to develop a
specific standard for "reasonable period of time" as it acquires more
modern equipment.  According to IRS, accurate service means that
taxpayers should receive complete, concise, and correct answers to
their telephone inquiries.  IRS officials said that these are
continuing goals that do not change from year to year. 

In fiscal year 1994, IRS call sites had 5,786 technical employees
assigned to its telephone assistance program during its peak staffing
period.  IRS reported that 3,450 were permanent assistors and 2,336
were part-time or seasonal assistors.  Assistors are either taxpayer
service representatives, who are entry-level employees and answer
basic types of questions, or taxpayer service specialists, who are
more experienced and answer more complex inquiries.  In addition to
responding to taxpayer inquiries while on the telephone, assistors
have other responsibilities that take them off the telephone, such as
researching answers to taxpayers' questions, attending training, team
building meetings, award ceremonies, blood drives, and union
meetings. 

At the time of our review, each of the call sites uses one of eight
different telephone systems to answer its incoming calls.  IRS is
replacing older systems at some of its call sites with new equipment. 
As of November 1994, IRS had installed new equipment at 19 sites. 
Among other things, the new equipment allows taxpayers to use menus
to route calls to assistors, access Tele- Tax, and to remain in queue
or on-hold if all assistors are busy, and to leave messages if they
do not care to wait for an answer.  According to IRS officials, these
features will help to increase the number of calls that IRS can
answer.  Installing this equipment is part of IRS' Customer Service
Vision to improve service to taxpayers. 

IRS' Customer Service Vision calls for consolidating its 3 telephone
services and related service and compliance activities that now
operate at 70 locations into 23 customer service sites.  The customer
service sites are to provide one-stop service to taxpayers seeking
answers to any tax-related question.  IRS plans for the customer
service sites to provide extended service hours and to eventually
employ about 22,000 staff drawn from the 3 existing telephone
assistance programs and from other activities that do not now involve
intensive telephone work.  This would be about 7,000 fewer staff than
are currently handling all the work planned for consolidation.  In an
effort to smooth this transition, IRS and the National Treasury
Employees Union (NTEU), which represents IRS' nonmanagement
employees, formed a partnership to share pertinent information and
ensure direct involvement of union representatives in decisions
affecting IRS employees. 

Since 1987, we have issued several reports and testified several
times on taxpayers' problems with the accuracy of answers received
from IRS' assistors and the accessibility to IRS' telephone
assistance program.  Our reports showed that IRS has made significant
progress in improving the accuracy of the answers assistors provide
to tax-law questions.  For example, in 1989, we reported that IRS was
providing taxpayers with accurate responses to their questions only
63 percent of the time.  By 1993, following an aggressive IRS effort
to improve, the accuracy of responses had increased to 89 percent
due, in part, to the increased management emphasis. 

In contrast to the improvement in accuracy, taxpayers' ability to
reach IRS' assistors has not improved over the years.  For example,
in our report on the 1990 tax filing season, we said that taxpayers
called IRS about 51 million times and IRS answered about 17.4 million
of those calls, a 34 percent answer rate.  We noted that IRS had
answered about 58 percent of taxpayers' calls during the 1989 tax
filing season.  IRS attributed the reduced accessibility for the 1990
tax filing season to funding cutbacks and a higher-than-expected
demand for telephone service.  As we continued to report on
taxpayers' ability to reach IRS' assistors during ensuing filing
seasons, the percentage of calls answered declined each year,
reaching a low of 21 percent during the 1994 filing season. 


--------------------
\2 When we initiated our review, IRS had 32 call sites.  Five sites
were subsequently closed in 1994. 


   OBJECTIVES, SCOPE, AND
   METHODOLOGY
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 1:2

Because of the continuing decline in taxpayers' ability to contact an
IRS assistor, we reviewed IRS' telephone assistance program to

  determine the nature and extent of the accessibility problem,

  compare IRS' practices with other organizations that provide
     telephone assistance to identify practices IRS might use to
     answer more calls with existing staff resources, and

  identify reasons why IRS has been unable to answer more taxpayers'
     calls. 

To accomplish each of the objectives, we visited IRS' National
Office; the Central and Southeast Regions; and the Atlanta,
Baltimore, Dallas, Indianapolis, Nashville, and Seattle District
Office call sites.  We judgmentally selected these locations to
reflect the diverse operations at IRS' call sites.  Factors we
considered when making our selection included accessibility rates,
call volumes, staff hours, productivity rates, types of equipment,
and geographic locations.  Each of the sites we visited had been
named a Customer Service Site under IRS' Customer Service Vision
plan.  IRS' National Office officials agreed that the sites we
selected and fiscal year 1993 data from the sites would generally
reflect the operations of the Taxpayer Services telephone assistance
program. 

To determine how Taxpayer Services uses its assistors and technology
to answer calls, we interviewed officials from the Taxpayer Services,
Research, and Technical Management Divisions; the Telephone Routing
Interactive System Project Office; the Business Transition Office;
and NTEU.  We also met with IRS officials responsible for overseeing
daily call site operations, including call site managers, system
analysts, and quality review analysts.  We also obtained and reviewed
pertinent IRS documents relating to accessibility trends, management
procedures, and telephone equipment for the telephone assistance
program. 

We sent questionnaires to Taxpayer Services Division Chiefs, who
manage the call sites, at 31 of the 32 IRS toll-free call sites in
operation at the time.  (We excluded the Puerto Rico call site
because it was considered international and had very few calls). 
Among other things, the questionnaires were used to ascertain current
call site hours of operation and types of assistor performance
standards used.  Appendix II contains the results of the
questionnaires. 

At each of the six call sites we visited, we analyzed 2 weeks of data
on operations during the period September 1992 through October 1993
to evaluate call site operations.  During this time period, we
identified and selected 2 separate weeks for each call site in which
the call site used relatively the same number of staff hours but had
variances in the number of calls it answered during those weeks.  We
collected numerous management information reports from each site's
call system, analyzing items such as the average time assistors were
on the telephones and access rates by hour. 

In addition, we compared IRS with other organizations that rely
heavily on the telephone as a means of providing service to their
customers.  Specifically, we interviewed officials at a credit card
company, an airline company, a power company, an insurance company,
and the Social Security Administration (SSA).  We also visited all of
the organizations except the credit card company.  We selected
organizations well-known for providing customer service via
telephone.  Overall, our discussions with officials from these
organizations focused on how they operated their telephone assistance
programs, both in managing their employees and in using their
technology, to maximize accessibility.  Specifically, we obtained
information from each of these organizations about their overall
management approach and objectives for their telephone assistance
programs; the business environment in which they operated; and the
goals, management practices, operating standards, and performance
measurement techniques they used in managing their programs. 

To identify reasons IRS has been unable to answer more calls, we
analyzed all the information we had collected for our first two
objectives, giving particular attention to differences in the
management approach taken by the organizations we visited and the
environment in which they operated, as compared with IRS.  We also
reviewed earlier GAO and IRS studies and related material dealing
with IRS' efforts to improve the accuracy of its assistors' answers
to tax law questions and compared the management actions IRS took in
dealing with that issue to actions it has taken to improve
accessibility to the telephone assistance program.  Finally, we
discussed the issues identified in our analysis of all of this
information with IRS and NTEU officials. 

The organizations we contacted have objectives similar to IRS for
their telephone assistance programs, although the private sector
companies operate in a different environment.  The private sector
companies use the telephone not only to provide service, but to make
sales and earn revenue, which in turn provides them with an added
incentive to maximize their programs.  IRS also uses its telephone
assistance program to provide service and collect revenue.  Each
year, IRS provides service to thousands of taxpayers by answering
their tax law questions, but it also collects a great deal of revenue
in connection with taxpayer calls about their accounts.  For example,
IRS completed about 2.6 million new installment agreements in fiscal
year 1994 to collect delinquent taxes from individual taxpayers. 
These agreements totalled $9.4 billion, many of which were arranged
by Taxpayer Services assistors over the telephone. 

Another similarity between IRS and the five organizations we
contacted is that all received large numbers of calls.  In fiscal
year 1993, IRS received over 130 million calls.  The largest number
of calls made to 1 of the 5 organizations we contacted was to SSA,
which received about 80 million calls in 1993.  The smallest number
of calls was made to the power company, which received about 4
million calls in 1993.  There are similarities also between the
nature of the calls made to the organizations we contacted and the
calls made to IRS.  The calls to the five organizations dealt with a
variety of issues, but most of them were about customer account
information, which makes up over half of IRS' call workload. 

The greatest similarity between IRS and the five organizations we
contacted, however, is the basic requirement to answer the telephone. 
No service is provided, no sale can be made, and no tax revenue can
be collected unless the telephone is answered.  Because of the
similarities between IRS' telephone assistance program and the
assistance programs in the five organizations we contacted, we
believe that the telephone management practices we found common among
the organizations would also be useful to IRS. 

We did our work from August 1993 to September 1994 in accordance with
generally accepted government auditing standards.  We met twice with
senior officials of IRS' Taxpayer Services Division to discuss a
draft of this report and incorporated their comments where
appropriate.  We also obtained written comments on a draft of this
report from the Assistant Commissioner for Taxpayer Services.  The
Assistant Commissioner's comments and our evaluation of them are
presented on pages 48 to 52 and are reprinted in appendix I. 


TAXPAYERS HAVE AN INCREASINGLY
DIFFICULT TIME REACHING IRS
ASSISTORS
============================================================ Chapter 2

Despite IRS' goal of providing consistently prompt service to
taxpayers, over the past several years, more and more taxpayers'
calls have gone unanswered.  Taxpayers have difficulty reaching IRS
year-round.  Their ability to reach assistors varies depending on the
time of year, the day of the week, the time of day, and the call site
that the taxpayer calls.  Taxpayers' difficulty reaching IRS results
in millions of busy signals, lengthy on-hold times waiting for
assistors, and millions of abandoned calls. 


   TAXPAYERS' ACCESS CONTINUES TO
   BE A PROBLEM
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 2:1

Accessibility, or taxpayers' ability to reach IRS assistors, has
declined over the past several years.\3 The number of calls IRS has
answered has remained relatively constant, although the number of
assistors available to answer taxpayers' calls has declined. 
However, the number of calls IRS has received has increased.  In
fiscal year 1989, taxpayers had a 1 out of 2 chance of reaching an
assistor; however, in fiscal year 1994, taxpayers had only a 1 out of
4 chance of getting through. 

IRS is aware of the decline in the percentage of calls answered.  For
example, in fiscal year 1989, IRS estimated that 46 million taxpayers
called for assistance and about 37 million of those calls were
answered.  Thus, IRS assisted about 80 percent of the estimated
number of taxpayers who called for assistance. 

For fiscal year 1994, IRS estimated that 67 million taxpayers called
for assistance; about 36 million of those calls were answered, an
assistance rate of only 54 percent.\4 Figure 2.1 shows the general
decline in taxpayer accessibility since fiscal year 1989. 

   Figure 2.1:  Decline in
   Accessibility for Fiscal Years
   1989 through 1994

   (See figure in printed
   edition.)

Source:  IRS' Telephone Data Reports. 

Taxpayers' ability to reach IRS assistors is not just a filing season
problem, it exists year-round.  This access pattern has been a
problem for taxpayers for several years.  As shown in figure 2.2, for
fiscal year 1994, access for the filing season (January through
April) was 21 percent, while access for the October through December
and May through September periods was 39 and 21 percent,
respectively.\5 Other years have shown similar problems. 

   Figure 2.2:  Access Rates by
   Period for Fiscal Years 1989
   Through 1994

   (See figure in printed
   edition.)

Source:  IRS' Telephone Data Reports. 

It is generally easier to reach an assistor at the end of the week,
since call sites receive most of their calls on Monday and Tuesday.\6
National Office officials told us that for many years, the sites have
typically received most of their calls on Mondays and Tuesdays,
causing access rates to be lower these days.  Our work at the call
site level generally showed this to be true.  For example, figure 2.3
shows that during a week we analyzed for the Baltimore call site,
access rates on Monday and Tuesday were 22 percent and 19 percent,
respectively.  That same week the access rate was much higher at the
end of the week, reaching 70 percent on Friday.  Access rates were
lower at the beginning of the week during 8 of the 12 weeks we
analyzed. 

   Figure 2.3:  Baltimore Call
   Site Access Rates by Day of
   Week

   (See figure in printed
   edition.)

Note:  These data show the week ending 5/10/93. 

Source:  IRS data (local Telephone Data Reports). 

The best time of day to call and reach an assistor appeared to vary
from call site to call site.  Some taxpayers had an easier time
reaching assistors early in the day, while others had an easier time
at the end of the day.  For example, Atlanta's lowest access rate was
during the first hour of operation, Nashville's lowest rate was
during lunch time, and Seattle's lowest rate was at the end of the
day.  We found no clear trends in Indianapolis and Dallas, and
Baltimore could not provide time-of-day data for our analysis. 

Taxpayers' ability to reach an assistor also varied depending on the
taxpayer's location.  IRS has been trying to equalize taxpayers'
ability to reach its assistors, but taxpayers' chances of getting
through varied by call site.  For example, in fiscal year 1994, a
caller served by IRS' call site in Jacksonville, Florida, had a
17-percent chance of having a call get through; a caller served by
the Des Moines, Iowa, call site had a 34-percent chance of getting
through.  The nationwide access rate for fiscal year 1994 was 23
percent.  (See app.  III for access rates for each call site during
fiscal year 1994.)


--------------------
\3 We compute accessibility by dividing the number of calls answered
by the total number of calls received.  We defined calls received as
the sum of (1) calls answered, (2) busy signals, and (3) calls
abandoned by the taxpayer before an assistor got on the line. 

\4 IRS computes its "level of service" by estimating how many
taxpayers will call for assistance.  IRS' telephone equipment counts
the number of calls it answered and IRS then divides the number of
calls answered by the estimate of the number of taxpayers calling for
assistance.  Thus, in our example, 36 million calls answered is
divided by an estimated 67 million taxpayers calling for help (36
divided by 67 = 54 percent).  Because of weaknesses in both the
counting calls method (described in footnote 2) and the level of
service method, Treasury, IRS, and GAO are working to develop a
better way of measuring taxpayer demand. 

\5 For planning and reporting purposes, IRS' telephone program
separates the year into 3 periods:  Period I (October through
December), Period II (January through April), and Period III (May
through September). 

\6 Private organizations we contacted also typically received more
calls on Mondays, even though they also provided weekend service. 


   LOW ACCESSIBILITY RESULTS IN
   MANY BUSY SIGNALS, LONG WAIT
   TIMES, AND MANY ABANDONED CALLS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 2:2

When taxpayers call IRS, either their calls are answered or they
receive a busy signal.  If their calls are answered, they may be
placed on hold to wait for an assistor to become available.  At this
stage, many callers hang up before receiving an answer to their
questions.  The consequences of low accessibility rates are reflected
in the number of busy signals taxpayers receive, the amount of time
they are on hold, and the number of taxpayers who abandon their
calls.  Also, IRS reports show that some taxpayers may never call
back. 

The number of busy signals has greatly increased over the past few
years.  In 1989, 47 percent, or about 34 million, of the more than 73
million calls to IRS received busy signals when taxpayers tried to
call.  By fiscal year 1994 busy signals increased to 73 percent of
all calls, as shown in figure 2.4.  IRS believes that when calls to
sites are heavy, taxpayers redial to make numerous call attempts
before reaching an assistor, which accounts for many of the busy
signals.  However, some taxpayers who attempt to reach IRS but only
receive busy signals may give up and may not try to call back.  For
example, for the week ending April 16, 1994, an IRS report shows that
at least 1 million taxpayers called at least once, did not reach an
assistor, and never called back that week. 

   Figure 2.4:  Fiscal Year 1994
   Taxpayer Calls to IRS Assistors

   (See figure in printed
   edition.)

Source:  IRS' Telephone Data Reports. 

Some callers who got through faced long periods on hold waiting for
an assistor.\7 Taxpayers are put on hold for a variety of reasons. 
For example, some "gates" may be receiving more calls than others,
and these wait times can become lengthy.\8 During 1 day at the
Seattle call site, average taxpayer on-hold time for one gate reached
34 minutes.  The average on-hold time for the same gate for the week
was about 14 minutes.  In Nashville, average on-hold time reached 20
minutes for one gate.  For the week it was about 14 minutes.  At the
Baltimore call site, on-hold time for one gate reached 21 minutes for
1 of the days we reviewed.  For the week it was about 11 minutes. 
The other sites we visited did not have this information available. 

In November 1993, IRS issued guidelines for on-hold time standards
for call sites with new equipment, but in September 1994 it began
trying to redefine the standards.  In January 1995, these guidelines
were still being redefined. 

Many taxpayers who do get into the system never have their questions
answered.  Due to the lengthy on-hold times, many taxpayers abandon
their calls before reaching an assistor.  The number of abandoned
calls has increased from fiscal year 1989 to 1994, rising from 2.8
million to 6 million calls.  In addition, some taxpayers who reach an
assistor may be told to call back if assistors are too busy to
research their questions. 


--------------------
\7 Three of the private sector companies we visited had specific
goals for limiting waiting time to 30 seconds or less.  Officials
said that they strive to always meet these goals, but occasionally
they do not meet them. 

\8 When taxpayers call IRS, they can use a menu to direct their call
to a gate.  A gate is one or more telephone workstations staffed with
assistor(s) with expertise in a specific tax subject matter.  For
example, if a taxpayer calls with a pension question, his or her call
will wait at the pension gate for the next available assistor to
answer the call. 


ADOPTING PRACTICES COMMONLY USED
BY OTHER ORGANIZATIONS WOULD
ENABLE IRS TO ANSWER MORE CALLS
============================================================ Chapter 3

The cornerstone of good telephone service is providing customers easy
access to telephone representatives.  While SSA has had its own
difficulties in improving its telephone assistance, SSA and private
sector companies we contacted have implemented management practices
and acquired modern information technology specifically aimed at
increasing their customers' ability to reach them and providing their
representatives with access to customer account information more
easily and quickly.  SSA and private sector company officials told us
that these management practices and technology improvements have
contributed to their ability to provide quality telephone assistance
to their customers, including allowing their customers to reach them
beyond normal working hours.  Although IRS has been able to answer
about 36 million calls over the last several years with declining
resources, it has not used the management practices and has not yet
acquired information technology commonly used by the organizations we
contacted to make it easier for taxpayers to reach assistors.  IRS
has made recent improvements in using its existing technology, but it
has not always used its existing technology to its full potential. 


   SSA AND PRIVATE SECTOR
   TOLL-FREE PROGRAMS ARE MANAGED
   TO MAXIMIZE CALLS ANSWERED
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 3:1

We contacted SSA and four private sector companies that rely heavily
on the telephone as a means of providing service to their customers. 
To maximize the number of calls answered, their toll-free programs
commonly established

  challenging program goals for answering as many calls as possible
     based on customers' needs;

  standards for the number of hours employees were expected to be on
     the telephones and the number of calls to be answered;

  standard hours of operation, often extending beyond a 9-hour work
     day;

  nationwide standards and uniform ways to measure operations and
     performance; and

  nationwide call routing and easy access to customer information. 

SSA and three of the four companies we contacted set goals to answer
every call on the caller's first attempt.  SSA has not been able to
reach this goal, although it has increased the percentage of calls
answered since establishing the goal.  The private sector company
officials told us they have been able to answer many calls in 20 to
50 seconds.  To provide this level of service during peak periods,
both SSA and the companies we contacted used extra employees to
answer calls.  To keep employees informed about demand, some
companies posted statistics during the work shift, such as how long
customers are waiting on hold.  Officials told us that setting goals
was also important in helping to ensure callers would not receive
busy signals.  They said that keeping employees informed of call site
performance also helped to increase productivity. 

All of the four private sector companies we contacted had established
a performance standard for the number of hours employees were
expected to be on the telephone.  Three companies also had
established a standard for an approximate number of calls to be
answered during a work shift.  For example, the power company we
visited expected its employees to be on the phones 7-1/2 hours of an
8-hour work day and to answer 85 to 105 calls each day.  Managers at
the airline company we visited said that their representatives were
expected to be on the phones 7 hours and 40 minutes of an 8-1/2 hour
day and to handle about 80 to 100 calls a day.  Private company
officials told us these performance standards, when monitored and
enforced, can help to increase the number of calls answered, ensure
better customer service, and improve call site operations. 

All of the organizations we contacted offered standard hours of
service that extended beyond a 9-hour work day to provide consistent
and convenient service to their customers.  Officials of the
organizations told us this also helped distribute incoming calls and
even out demand throughout the day.  SSA provided 12 hours of
service, Monday through Friday, from 7 a.m.  to 7 p.m.  and automated
service after hours and on weekends.  The private sector companies
all provided access to customer service representatives 24 hours a
day, 7 days a week. 

All of the organizations we contacted had provided their managers
sufficient authority to establish and enforce systemwide practices
and measures for their call sites.  Officials told us this was
essential to provide consistent, quality service to all of their
customers, regardless of location.  For example, the airline and the
insurance companies we visited controlled their nationwide operations
from one location and had standard performance measures, such as the
amount of time representatives were expected to be on the telephone. 

Also, officials of all the organizations we contacted said they had
invested in telecommunication technology to help customers reach
telephone representatives more easily.  They said that, in general,
technology improvements were less expensive than hiring more staff. 
Telecommunication technology is used to route calls to available
representatives in other time zones, thereby extending hours of
operations.  To increase calls answered, the organizations used
actual and instant data, referred to as real-time data, to route
calls to available representatives and provided them with account
information.  For example, an official of the airline company we
visited said it routed calls among its 14 call sites using data that
showed where calls were coming from and how many calls each site was
answering.  Routing calls among its call sites allowed the airline to
offer 24-hour service. 


   IRS DOES NOT USE SOME
   MANAGEMENT PRACTICES COMMONLY
   USED BY OTHER ORGANIZATIONS
   THAT PROVIDE TELEPHONE
   ASSISTANCE
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 3:2

IRS does not use some of the management practices commonly used by
the organizations we contacted.  In those cases where IRS did use a
practice similar to those we found in the other organizations, IRS
did not apply it with the same emphasis on customers' needs.  For
example, IRS has had specific goals for answering more calls for the
past 2 years, but these goals were based on the resources IRS had
available, not on taxpayers' demand for service.  Also, IRS' goal for
answering calls does not provide National Office program and call
site managers with an incentive to answer more calls.  IRS has not
determined how long its assistors should be on the telephones during
a work period.  It does not offer standard service hours and before
this year had offered only limited assistance beyond a 9-hour work
day.  IRS has, in fiscal year 1995, for the first time, provided
access to its assistors for 10 hours per work day during the filing
season.  Although this is an improvement, IRS still provides fewer
hours of service than SSA and the private sector companies we
contacted.  Additionally, call sites were inconsistent in how they
measured the number of calls they answered and reported how assistors
spent their work day.  These inconsistencies make it difficult for
the National Office to measure and compare call site operations. 


      LACK OF CHALLENGING GOALS
      HAS LIMITED IRS' INCENTIVE
      TO ANSWER MORE CALLS
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 3:2.1

IRS has had a general program goal of providing "consistently prompt"
telephone assistance for many years.  For the past 2 years, IRS had
specific goals for answering more calls, but these goals were based
on the resources IRS had available, not on taxpayers' demand for
service.  For example, the fiscal year 1995 goal calls for slightly
less than a 2-percent increase in calls answered over 1994, but the
goal is not based on taxpayer demand for assistance.  This is a
positive step, but IRS should be moving toward customer-driven goals. 
IRS officials agree that they want to move more to meeting the needs
of customers. 

The five organizations we contacted based their goals primarily on
their customers' needs.  As discussed later, IRS' Taxpayer Services
Division has requested additional resources but has been unable to
obtain them because of higher priorities within IRS and Treasury.  We
recognize that IRS' resources are limited and that obtaining
increases, even temporarily, may be more difficult for IRS than for
private sector companies.  However, we believe that continuing to set
goals that do not take into account customers' needs tends to limit
the incentive for improvement and may hinder adopting management
practices designed to maximize the number of calls answered with the
resources available.  The process IRS uses to set goals is discussed
below. 

Each year, IRS' National Office calculates the number of calls that
could be answered nationwide on the basis of the prior year's
productivity and currently available funding.  The number is then
divided among the regions, and the regions assign or "schedule" the
number of calls each district office call site is expected to answer. 
The number of calls scheduled for each call site thus becomes the
call site's goal for the number of calls to answer. 

National Office officials, who do not directly control call site
actions, said they have told the regions that scheduled calls should
be the minimum, not the maximum, number of calls answered.  However,
these officials said that the call sites do not have the resources to
answer every call. 

Each call site's performance is measured against the number of
scheduled calls, but once the goal is met, managers can take
assistors off the telephones for other activities, such as training. 
National Office officials told us that the time assistors spend in
training is important.  They are concerned that if assistors do not
have adequate time for training, the quality of the site's
performance--particularly the accuracy of assistors' answers to tax
law questions--could be reduced. 

Although IRS has generally met its total "scheduled" call goal, the
number of scheduled calls has been much lower than the number of
calls taxpayers have made.  For example, IRS' goal for fiscal year
1994 was to answer 35 million calls.  It answered 36 million calls. 
However, the calls answered represented only 23 percent of the nearly
156 million calls received that year.  Thus, the scheduled call goal
is not customer-related but is based on IRS' resources and other
internal concerns.  Figure 3.1 shows the number of calls IRS has
received and the minimum number of calls the National Office has
scheduled the sites to answer since fiscal year 1989. 

   Figure 3.1:  Comparison of
   Total Calls Received and Calls
   Scheduled for Fiscal Years 1989
   through 1994

   (See figure in printed
   edition.)

Source:  IRS Telephone Data Reports. 


      IRS LACKS UNIFORM STANDARDS
      FOR TELEPHONE ASSISTORS
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 3:2.2

Unlike the organizations we contacted, IRS' National Office has not
established nationwide standards for how long assistors are expected
to be on the telephone.  While some IRS call sites have independently
established standards, the standards are inconsistent and not
monitored or enforced at the local or national level.  Private sector
company officials told us that a standard for the time
representatives were expected to be on the telephone (called a
sign-on standard) helped to increase the number of calls answered
because representatives were on the telephone for a set number of
hours. 

Four of the six IRS call sites we visited had standards for the time
assistors were expected to be on the telephone.  These standards
ranged from 6 to 7 hours, but many assistors did not meet the
standards, as shown in table 3.1.  During the 2 weeks we analyzed,
the number of assistors meeting the standards ranged from 31 percent
to 72 percent at the four locations. 



                          Table 3.1
           
           Call Sites Visited With Sign-On Standard
             and Percent of Assistors Meeting the
               Standard During 2-Week Analysis

                                                   Estimated
                                                   number of
                                      Percent     additional
                                    assistors          calls
                       Sign-on        meeting    answered if
Call site             standard       standard   standard met
---------------  -------------  -------------  -------------
Atlanta            6-1/2 hours            42%        193,277
Dallas                 7 hours             32        101,967
Nashville              7 hours             31        100,234
Seattle                6 hours             72         46,451
------------------------------------------------------------
Note:  At the time of our visit, Seattle call site managers expected
their assistors to be signed on for 6-1/2 hours each day.  However,
assistors were instructed to remain signed on during breaks.  Breaks
account for 30 minutes each day.  Therefore, we and Seattle call site
officials agreed that we would report and analyze their call site
based on a 6-hour standard, since it would represent time working. 

Source:  IRS data. 

If the four IRS call sites enforced the standards they have, they
could answer many more calls than they now do.  For example, as shown
in table 3.1, if the 4 sites we visited that did have standards had
enforced those standards, they could have answered an estimated
442,000 more calls during the 2-week period we analyzed.  And, if IRS
had standards comparable to those commonly used by the organizations
we contacted and required assistors to meet those standards, we
believe they could answer substantially more calls. 

If IRS decides to institute uniform standards and hold assistors
accountable to those standards, it will have to make various
trade-offs in deciding how much time assistors should spend answering
telephone calls.  The work its assistors do is different in important
ways from that of the private sector organizations we contacted.  For
example, IRS assistors spend some time researching and writing
letters to taxpayers whose questions have been received over the
telephone but, for various reasons, were not answered during the
call.  Clearly, this is useful work, but IRS concedes that the time
spent doing it serves fewer taxpayers than the same amount of time
spent on the telephones.  Also, because assistors answer tax
questions from taxpayers, it is reasonable that assistors receive
periodic training to enable them to accurately answer questions.  If,
as we believe it should, IRS decides to establish a sign-on standard,
to develop a meaningful one IRS will have to take these kinds of
issues into account when it analyzes the work assistors do.  IRS'
plan for implementing its Customer Service Vision includes analyzing
how assistors should spend their time. 

Information about the amount of time IRS' assistors now actually
spend on the telephone illustrates potential benefits of a sign-on
standard.  IRS officials agreed that they need to determine the
amount of time assistors should be on the telephones, but they said
it would have to be negotiated with the union.  The president of NTEU
told us he was not opposed to establishing a sign-on standard but
wanted to research it further. 

At the six sites we visited, assistors were on the telephones an
average of 5 hours and 28 minutes per day out of an 8-hour day, for
the 2 weeks we analyzed, as shown in table 3.2. 



                          Table 3.2
           
            Average Daily Time Assistors Spent on
             the Telephone at Six Sites During 2
                        Weeks Analyzed

                               2-week average time on
Call site                      telephone
-----------------------------  -----------------------------
Atlanta                        5 hours 43 minutes

Baltimore                      5 hours 1 minute

Dallas                         5 hours 43 minutes

Indianapolis                   5 hours 18 minutes

Nashville                      5 hours 37 minutes

Seattle                        5 hours 30 minutes

Average                        5 hours 28 minutes
------------------------------------------------------------
Source:  IRS data. 

Assistors are involved in numerous activities that take them away
from the telephone.  As shown in figure 3.2, assistors at the six
sites we visited spent 68 percent of their time on the telephone. 
Assistors spent the other 32 percent of their time on various
activities, such as researching answers to taxpayers' questions that
have to be written up for an IRS response by letter, reading tax
materials, attending training, taking breaks, and attending meetings. 

We asked officials at the organizations we contacted about their
representatives' activities when not on the telephone.  SSA has a set
time of the day during nontelephone hours for meetings and training. 
Officials at the airline company we contacted told us that
representatives spent the time away from the telephone on such things
as keeping abreast of frequent flier programs.  At the other private
sector companies we contacted, representatives spent time attending
group meetings, taking training, and taking breaks.  The four private
companies' emphasis on answering as many calls as possible is
illustrated by the fact that, on average, their representatives were
expected to be on the telephones an average of 91 percent of the
time. 

   Figure 3.2:  How IRS Assistors
   Spent Their Time

   (See figure in printed
   edition.)

Note:  Other activities include the time assistors spend in
researching cases and attending training sessions.  It also includes
meetings, such as team building, mini-training sessions, award
ceremonies, special emphasis programs, Equal Employment Opportunity
events, blood drives, and union meetings. 

Source:  IRS data. 


      IRS RECENTLY ESTABLISHED A
      NATIONWIDE STANDARD FOR CALL
      SITES' HOURS OF OPERATIONS
      AND FOR PROVIDING ADDITIONAL
      SERVICE HOURS
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 3:2.3

IRS call sites' hours of service were not uniform and varied by the
day of week.  At the time of our review, the 31 call sites we
surveyed had 19 different hours of operation, ranging from 7:30 a.m. 
to 4:45 p.m.  and 9:30 a.m.  to 5:00 p.m.  Several call sites changed
their hours once or twice throughout the week, and one call site had
four different hours of operation in the same week.  As a result,
taxpayers in different parts of the country received different hours
and amounts of service. 

Additionally, only 4 of the 31 sites offered 9 or more hours of
service each day throughout the year.  Other sites that provided
additional hours to answer more calls said their service was
generally limited to extra hours during the week of April 15th and
some Saturdays during the filing season.  IRS reports showed that
assistors were able to answer about 1 million additional calls by
providing this limited amount of service beyond normal operating
hours. 

IRS recently took action that has resulted in providing uniform hours
and additional hours of service for taxpayers nationwide, although
individual call site hours still vary somewhat.  IRS' National Office
decided that its telephone assistance program needed to provide
taxpayers more hours of service than currently offered.  At the time
of our review, call sites provided an average of about 8 hours of
service each day.  Starting in January 1995, by routing calls among
some call sites and extending the hours of others, IRS enabled
taxpayers nationwide to call IRS from 7:30 a.m.  to 5:30 p.m., which
provides an additional 2 hours of service each day for taxpayers. 
Although IRS is providing taxpayers more hours of service, the other
organizations we contacted provided hours of service ranging from 12
to 24 hours per day. 


      IRS CALL SITES DO NOT
      CONSISTENTLY REPORT
      PERFORMANCE
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 3:2.4

Inconsistencies among call sites as to how they define and report
performance data make it difficult for the National Office to measure
site performance and oversee the telephone assistance program.  For
example, the Nashville call site counted calls received after normal
business hours as calls answered, while the Atlanta call site did
not. 

Call site officials told us that problems in calculating calls
answered began in 1992 when IRS began installing its new
telecommunication system.  The reports from the new system did not
provide a total calls answered figure as the previous system did. 
Call site officials said that this, coupled with the fact that IRS'
National Office had not issued clear and complete guidance, left
system analysts at individual call sites to determine what should be
recorded as an answered call.  For example, the reports listed voice
messages left by taxpayers, which were new ways taxpayers could
attempt to reach IRS.  The call sites were not consistent in whether
they counted voice messages in computing calls answered.  That is,
some sites included voice messages in computing calls answered while
others did not.  As of February 1995, IRS' National Office still had
not issued additional guidance on what types of calls should be
counted as calls answered. 

The sites with new telephone equipment also used different terms and
definitions for their management information reports, making it
difficult, if not impossible, for the National Office to compare
sites to determine how they were performing.  For example, in
Nashville, "idle" time included the time assistors spent working on
cases that they could not complete before hanging up with the
taxpayer; in Seattle, idle time accounted for breaks, personal time,
training, and counseling.  Baltimore assistors were discouraged from
using idle time, and other sites did not use the term.\9

Call sites also differed in how they calculated and reported "talk
time"--the length of time assistors spend on the telephone talking to
a taxpayer--per call.  Call site managers' responses to our
questionnaires showed that sites' average talk time ranged from 2
minutes to 11 minutes.  Our six-site analysis showed that some sites
have assistors gather information and complete case work after
hanging up with the taxpayer.  Other call sites require assistors to
perform all the work while taxpayers are on-line, making talk time
longer. 

Call sites also have different instructions as to when and how
assistors should sign on and off the telephone systems.  For example,
assistors in the Atlanta call site were required to sign off each
time they were off the telephone.  However, in the Seattle call site,
assistors only signed off for activities that would take them away
from the telephone for more than 20 minutes, such as lunch and
training. 

National Office officials told us that they were aware of these
inconsistencies but had difficulty in ensuring uniformity because
each site operated differently.  IRS has formed a task team to study
some of these issues, as well as to determine best practices for IRS'
new telecommunications system. 


--------------------
\9 These three sites--Nashville, Seattle, and Baltimore--all had the
new automated call distributor equipment installed. 


   IRS IS BEHIND ORGANIZATIONS WE
   CONTACTED IN ACQUIRING AND
   USING TECHNOLOGY
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 3:3

All of the organizations we contacted had modern information
technology that provided better routing capability than IRS.  For
example, the airline company we visited had a national network center
in which it could view nationwide traffic and route calls on the
basis of real-time data to various call sites.  Calls were also
routed on the basis of time zones and availability of representatives
at these sites. 

IRS has the capability to route calls among its call sites, but its
current technology does not allow it to route calls instantly to any
call site as the other organizations can.  Acquiring more
sophisticated technology would allow IRS to better route calls to
serve more taxpayers and extend service hours nationwide.  Improved
call routing could also result if IRS used its existing routing
technology more effectively. 

Over the years, IRS has made use of technology to improve its service
to taxpayers.  In the early 1980s, IRS improved customer service when
it developed Tele-Tax, an automated system in which taxpayers can
call and listen to selected tax topic tapes 24 hours a day and
inquire about the status of their refunds from 7:00 a.m.  to 11:30
p.m.  More recently, IRS has been working to improve customer service
by overcoming the lack of nationwide access to taxpayers' account
information.  This has been a major barrier to routing calls among
its call sites.  Specifically, in February 1995, IRS provided its
assistors the ability to access taxpayers' accounts regardless of
where the taxpayers filed their returns.  Thus, IRS can now route
calls to any call site and an assistor will be able to retrieve any
taxpayer's account file, which will increase taxpayers' chances of
being served.  However, because this change is so new, it is not yet
clear how many more calls are being answered as a result of the
increased account access. 


      IRS LACKS TECHNOLOGY FOR
      CALL ROUTING
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 3:3.1

To better respond to customer calls, IRS needs the capability to
route calls anywhere in the country using real-time information, but
it does not currently have the technology to do this.  With better
routing technology, IRS could determine demand patterns more
precisely, such as how demand changes during the day, and better
route calls to increase taxpayers' ability to reach assistors.  For
example, IRS could see heavy demand in Atlanta in the early morning
hours and quickly know which other call site could take more of
Atlanta's calls. 

In contrast to IRS, we found that SSA had established an integrated
network for its 800-number service.  SSA has a central command center
at its headquarters in Baltimore in which call traffic is constantly
monitored and adjustments made in call routing on the basis of
real-time data.  During peak periods staff are added to provide
additional call answering capability. 

While SSA has the benefit of modern, systemwide routing capability,
IRS has to route calls from one location to another using cumbersome
and time-consuming procedures.  Because IRS does not have real-time
data, IRS has to route individual call site traffic on the basis of
trends in demand over a 3-week period.  For example, if the Atlanta
call site had a higher percentage of busy signals over a 3-week
period than other sites every Monday, the National Office would seek
to route all or a percentage of Atlanta's Monday calls to a less busy
site.  To illustrate, in March 1994, calls that the Atlanta call site
received from 10 percent of all area codes on Mondays and Tuesdays
were routed to four other call sites, on the basis of trend data. 
Atlanta's traffic would continue to be routed in this manner until
the trend indicated a need for change. 

Without real-time data IRS' routing procedures are cumbersome and
routing changes may not be done quickly enough to take full advantage
of times other call sites could answer calls.  For example, if a call
site suddenly experiences an increase in demand, it must first pass
the rerouting request to its region.  The region then notifies
National Office staff, who in turn verify the change with the call
site.  On the basis of the 3-week trend data, the National Office
sends the calls to other call sites not thought to be as busy. 
National office staff manually log the change and enter the change
into a terminal.  After this process, the change can be operational
within 15 minutes to 1 hour later.  However, by the time routing
changes are made, the increase in calls could have subsided, and many
taxpayers who called would have received busy signals or abandoned
their calls. 

National Office officials have not evaluated the 3-week trend data or
individual requests for rerouting to determine if taxpayers have less
difficulty getting through.  However, they believe that by routing
the calls to other sites better able to handle calls, the routing
plan has reduced the number of busy signals taxpayers receive at some
sites.  We tested the results of IRS' 3-week trend data plan for the
period March through May 1994 and found that IRS answered 1.6 percent
more taxpayer calls than during the comparable period in 1993. 

For the 1995 filing season, the National Office also has begun to
track daily calling patterns to help refine the 3-week trend data. 
The National Office will be using the 3-week trend data and the daily
data to identify routing changes needed to increase access.  However,
Taxpayer Services National Office officials are uncertain that using
the daily data will increase access, but they believe that it will. 


      IRS HAS NOT MADE THE BEST
      USE OF ITS EXISTING
      TECHNOLOGY
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 3:3.2

IRS has missed opportunities to improve routing because it has
underutilized the routing features of its new call system, and it has
not used its 800 carrier to better route traffic.  The capability for
real-time call routing is part of IRS' Customer Service Vision, but
this technology is not expected until fiscal year 1997. 

IRS' new automated call distributors, now installed at 19 sites, can
send calls to other call sites by type of call and to the site where
assistors are available.  The equipment can route tax law questions
to selected call sites, and then by monitoring traffic to those
sites, it can select the one that can answer the call the quickest. 
If this feature was active at all sites, IRS could answer more calls
by taking advantage of the time assistors are available at other
sites to take calls. 

IRS hoped to have this feature operating in 10 of the 19 call sites
by the end of December 1993.  However, by February 1994 only three
call sites were using the feature, and IRS was having problems making
it work.  Some of the problems included calls lost when they were
sent to other call sites, poor voice quality, limited number of calls
sent, and inaccurate reporting of calls that were routed to other
sites.  National Office officials told us that they suspended work on
this feature because they did not have enough staff to follow up on
the problems and resolve them, and filing season performance was a
higher priority.  In January 1995, officials told us that this
feature was now working in 12 of the 19 sites that have the new
equipment. 

IRS' 800 carrier may be able to route calls for IRS and enable it to
answer more calls.  According to an IRS Technical Management Division
manager, instead of IRS routing calls, its 800 carrier could
centrally route calls through its equipment and send calls to
predetermined IRS call sites.  Accessibility could be increased by
using IRS' 800 carrier to poll the existing network for the next
available assistor within the taxpayer's service center.  In February
1995, Taxpayer Services officials told us that they will be meeting
soon with their 800 carrier to explore different ways calls could be
routed to increase taxpayer accessibility. 


      IRS IS WORKING TO IMPROVE
      ACCESS TO NATIONWIDE ACCOUNT
      INFORMATION
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 3:3.3

IRS has been working to increase assistors' access to nationwide
taxpayer account information.  Previously, IRS' ability to serve
taxpayers was hampered because all assistors did not have access to
every taxpayer's account.  Call sites typically had access to
accounts at only one or two service centers.  For example, a taxpayer
calling from Florida with a question requiring account information
might not have gotten an answer while on-line if the call had been
routed to Baltimore, because Baltimore assistors did not have access
to account information for taxpayers who filed their returns with the
Atlanta Service Center.  In such cases, assistors typically wrote
down the taxpayer's question and mailed the question to a call site
that had access to the taxpayer's account.  However, resolving these
questions required more than double the resources compared to
resolving inquiries on-line, and taxpayers may have waited several
weeks before receiving answers.  According to IRS, more than half the
calls it answers involve questions taxpayers have about their
accounts. 

IRS has now overcome this problem.  In 1994, IRS began to address the
data access problem by piloting a new system to give five call sites
access to taxpayer accounts at three different service centers. 
Implementation of the new system was slowed by problems in connecting
with different service centers.  Over the years, IRS' Service Centers
have developed different methods of controlling access to their
databases, including different passwords for gaining access.  IRS
believed that dealing with multiple passwords to allow assistors
access to data at more service centers was an administrative burden
as well as a potential threat to the security of taxpayer data. 

In September 1994, Taxpayer Services officials told us that IRS had
resolved its security and password management concerns and was
proceeding to implement the pilot access system.  And, according to
National Office officials, assistors gained the ability to access
nationwide data in early 1995.  However, National Office officials
said that some limits remain on the changes assistors can make to an
account.  For example, an assistor cannot directly access a
taxpayer's account to stop a collection action.  However, the
officials said that by March 1995, they plan to expand the changes
assistors can make to taxpayers' accounts. 


   IRS' CUSTOMER SERVICE VISION
   CALLS FOR INCREASED USE OF
   TELEPHONE ASSISTANCE
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 3:4

IRS officials said they were aware of the common practices used by
other organizations that provide telephone assistance and were aware
that they were behind those organizations in adopting such practices. 
IRS has a plan, called the Customer Service Vision, to improve
service to taxpayers and increase the number of calls it answers. 

IRS' Customer Service Vision concept calls for changes in many
activities not previously thought of as customer-related.  For
example, IRS plans to reduce the number of repetitive notices and
bills a taxpayer receives.  Such changes, together with many others,
are expected to reduce the number of contacts taxpayers have with IRS
and to make it easier for those contacts to be by telephone, instead
of in writing.  The concept also calls for changes in traditional
service activities, such as the telephone assistance program.  IRS
plans to have the Vision fully operational by the year 2001. 

The Vision calls for a telephone assistance system that is integrated
nationwide, in which an assistor located anywhere in the country will
answer calls from anywhere else in the country.  Such a system would
match those that other telephone assistance organizations' customers
enjoy today and should provide the American taxpayer with better
service.  For example, IRS envisions a system that would provide
access to an assistor 16 to 20 hours a day with 100-percent access to
either an assistor or one of a variety of ways in which taxpayers can
guide themselves through an automated menu to get answers.  Thus,
improved access to the telephone assistance program is crucial to
achieving IRS' goals for its Customer Service Vision. 

IRS' Vision is based primarily on increased use of the telephone--
both in handling incoming taxpayer calls and in having IRS employees
use the telephone to call taxpayers--to deal with taxpayers'
problems.  IRS recognized that its current capability for answering
taxpayers' calls is not sufficient to support the Vision. 
Accordingly, IRS plans major changes in the management of its human
and technology resources in an effort to be able to accomplish the
goal of providing better service to taxpayers through use of the
telephone. 

A key factor in IRS' plans to provide better telephone service is to
establish 23 Customer Service Sites to handle all contacts with
taxpayers that do not require a face-to-face meeting.  Work currently
done at the 27 taxpayer service call sites, 23 automated collection
sites, and 3 forms distribution sites, plus a great deal of
correspondence and compliance work now done at the 10 existing
service centers, is to be consolidated at the 23 Customer Service
sites. 

IRS plans to increase taxpayers' access and provide better service by
managing its work load--that is, the incoming calls--as a "corporate
asset," meaning the work load is to be managed on a nationwide basis
instead of the current regional or call site basis.  To implement
this concept, IRS plans to obtain the technology needed by fiscal
year 1997 to develop a central command center to prioritize and
distribute work among all sites and employees.  As calls come in, the
command center will identify which employees are on duty, where they
are located, and what expertise they have.  One of the Vision's
primary goals is to have a qualified employee available at all times
to answer calls from anywhere in the country. 

Successful implementation of IRS' Customer Service Vision depends on
substantially improved telephone service.  Consequently, the problems
discussed in this report must be resolved before IRS' Customer
Service Vision can be achieved. 


   CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 3:5

The number of taxpayer assistance calls IRS answered over the past
several years has remained relatively constant despite declining
resources.  However, the number of calls taxpayers make to IRS has
increased significantly.  As a result, there has been a large and
growing gap between the number of calls IRS receives and the number
it answers.  This gap exists not just during the tax filing season
but throughout the year. 

We believe more taxpayers could get through to IRS assistors if IRS
adopted some of the management practices commonly used by the
organizations we contacted to operate their telephone assistance
programs.  These practices include establishing challenging
programwide goals for answering calls based on customers' needs;
operating standards, such as the number of hours employees are
expected to be on the telephone; and uniform methods for measuring
assistor and call site performance.  The organizations we contacted
also used modern information technology to facilitate programwide
call routing and to provide easy access to customer information. 
Officials of the organizations we contacted believed the use of these
practices enabled them to provide quality service to their customers. 

Adopting these practices would not enable IRS to answer every call it
receives; however, it should enable IRS to answer more calls than it
now does without an increase in staff and set the stage for
implementation of IRS' Customer Service Vision.  Achieving this
Vision is critical to IRS' ability to serve more taxpayers in the
future.  However, IRS' ability to answer more calls in the short term
and to implement its longer term Vision will be hampered unless it
can address the fundamental reasons that contributed to its falling
behind other organizations in using practices that those
organizations believe contribute to their ability to provide quality
telephone assistance to their customers.  These problems and our
recommendations for solving them are discussed in the next chapter. 


MANAGEMENT ACTION IS NEEDED TO
ANSWER MORE CALLS AND LAY THE
GROUNDWORK FOR IRS' CUSTOMER
SERVICE VISION
============================================================ Chapter 4

The management practices that were being commonly used in the
telephone assistance programs at the five organizations we
contacted--setting challenging goals, establishing systemwide
operating standards and uniform performance measures, and applying
modern information technology--are not new or innovative in any way. 
These practices are, in fact, quite basic and are commonly used in
managing all types of activities, in both the private and public
sectors. 

These practices are not a panacea for all of IRS' problems in
answering taxpayers' calls, but the organizations we contacted used
them because the officials responsible for the telephone assistance
programs in those organizations believed the practices helped staff
to answer customers' calls and provide high-quality service.  Also,
as discussed below, IRS has effectively used most of these management
practices in increasing the accuracy of assistors' answers to tax law
questions.  Why, then, has IRS not applied these practices to the
problem of improving taxpayers' access to its telephone assistance
program? 

We believe there are two primary reasons.  First, IRS' senior
management has not aggressively pursued putting in place the
practices that we found to be commonly used by the five organizations
to enable them to answer as many calls as possible.  We are not
certain why this is the case, but concerns about decreasing the
accuracy of assistors' answers to tax law questions by
overemphasizing answering calls and lack of support for changes by
some field managers seem to have been contributing factors.  The few
attempts IRS has made to institute such practices were not supported
by IRS managers in the field, and IRS' senior management did not
follow through to see that they were implemented. 

Second, and closely related to the first reason, is the fact that IRS
lacked a strategy for negotiating call site operating practices and
standards with NTEU on a nationwide basis.  When efforts to establish
uniform hours for call site operations were made, a concern of IRS
field managers was how--or whether--to deal with NTEU, but there was
no strategy to rely on for direction.  And, although IRS and NTEU
have developed a formal partnership to deal with the many changes IRS
is undergoing, IRS still does not have a plan of action for ensuring
that nationwide call site operating practices are dealt with in an
organized, coordinated, and coherent way, rather than piecemeal.  For
example, IRS established uniform hours of operations for call sites
nationwide and then worked with NTEU at the local level to reach
agreement on how the call sites would operate to provide the
necessary hours of access to the telephone system.  IRS could adopt
this same approach in implementing other call site operating
practices and standards. 

Both of these reasons have hampered IRS' ability to establish and
operate an integrated nationwide telephone assistance program that
provides seamless service to taxpayers anywhere in the country.  They
also lessen the chances that the longer term solutions of the
Customer Service Vision will be successfully implemented.  Unless
these problems are resolved, IRS will have more difficulty achieving
its customer service goals for the future. 

Funding limitations for additional telephone assistors--although not
a reason for the lack of management practices or the absence of a
strategy for negotiating with NTEU--have affected the number of calls
IRS has been able to answer.  IRS officials told us that they believe
improvements in the use of technology and changes in cumbersome IRS
processes planned as part of IRS' Customer Service Vision will, in
the long run, allow them to answer most taxpayers' calls.  Treasury
is also seeking a modest increase in funding for taxpayer assistors
in its fiscal year 1996 budget request to Congress.  If funded, this
request would, however, result in IRS having almost 200 fewer
assistors than it had for fiscal year 1994. 


   IRS' TOP MANAGEMENT HAS NOT
   AGGRESSIVELY PURSUED COMMON
   MANAGEMENT PRACTICES TO DEAL
   WITH THE ACCESSIBILITY PROBLEM
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 4:1

IRS has made some recent efforts to put in place the kinds of
practices we found common in other organizations that provide
telephone assistance to their customers.  However, IRS' senior
management has reacted to expressions of concern from us and
congressional committees about the accessibility problem by
emphasizing the longer term solutions promised by various aspects of
its Customer Service Vision rather than emphasizing ways to increase
the number of calls answered during the several years of transition
to the Vision.  While the efforts undertaken are worthwhile, IRS'
National Office has not aggressively pursued putting in place the
kinds of management practices commonly used by the organizations we
contacted that provide telephone assistance, nor has it acquired and
used effectively the kind of modern technology used by these
organizations. 

Control over IRS telephone assistance program is shared among three
organizational levels--the National Office, regional offices, and
district offices.  At the National Office level, the Assistant
Commissioner for Taxpayer Services is charged with setting policy for
and overseeing the telephone assistance program. 

According to the Assistant Commissioner for Taxpayer Services, that
position includes sufficient authority--as policymaker--to establish
and enforce uniform operating standards and consistent performance
measurement techniques.  The Assistant Commissioner said that lack of
authority was not a problem but that the size and complexity of the
Taxpayer Services system, including the telephone assistance program,
sometimes made it difficult to effectively exercise and enforce the
authority available.  In this connection, the Assistant Commissioner
noted a recent action to assign a senior executive in each IRS region
to provide a stronger linkage between the Assistant Commissioner's
office and the call sites.  This step may improve the chances for
establishing nationwide standards and measurements for IRS' telephone
assistance program, but previous efforts have not been successful. 

For example, during fiscal year 1994, the National Office proposed
that all call sites adopt uniform hours of operation.  IRS made this
proposal to better balance service between the call sites.  Calls
received after hours in one time zone would be routed to call sites
in another time zone.  To illustrate, if all call sites closed at
5:00 p.m., taxpayers' calls originating in the Eastern Time Zone
after 5:00 p.m.  would be answered by sites in the Central Time Zone
that were still open.  However, this routing could not occur if the
Central Time Zone sites closed at 4:00 p.m., as some sites did during
fiscal year 1994. 

The National Office did not establish uniform hours because too few
sites offered enough hours to accommodate demand.  However, IRS'
National Office was unable to establish a nationwide standard that
would have increased taxpayers' access to its telephone assistance
program because it was dependent on the call sites to conform their
hours of operation with other call sites, and they chose not to do
so.  IRS continued to work toward establishing a standard for hours
of call site operation because IRS officials believe such a standard
is vital to creating a nationwide telephone assistance system.  As
discussed in chapter 3, IRS' solution for the 1995 tax filing season
was to provide uniform hours of service and to offer service for 10
hours each work day. 

IRS still does not, however, use most of the management practices
that other telephone service organizations we contacted commonly use
to enhance their ability to answer as many calls as possible.  As
discussed in chapter 3, the organizations we contacted exercised
sufficient authority over their telephone operations to provide
service to as many callers as possible.  For example, they
established (1) challenging goals for the number of calls to be
answered based on customers' needs, (2) standards for the number of
hours employees were expected to spend answering calls and the hours
of service that would be provided, and (3) uniform measures of call
sites' performance.  Although IRS has established goals for the
number of calls to be answered, it has not established other
operating standards or uniform performance measures even though it
operates call sites throughout the country. 


   IRS' EXPERIENCE IN IMPROVING
   ACCURACY ILLUSTRATES BENEFITS
   OF STRONG CENTRAL AUTHORITY IN
   BUILDING NATIONWIDE PROGRAM
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 4:2

As part of the telephone assistance program, IRS assistors answer tax
law questions called in by taxpayers.  IRS struggled for several
years with a serious problem in the accuracy of these answers. 
Finally, in 1990, IRS' top management focused its attention on the
accuracy problem, with the result that accuracy increased from 63
percent in 1989 to 89 percent in 1993.  IRS' effort to improve
accuracy provides a model of effective use of central authority for
dealing with a problem, not by detailed control of local operations,
but by establishing goals, setting standards for operations and
measurement, and holding line managers accountable for results. 

IRS' effort to improve accuracy was characterized by strong central
leadership, nationwide standards for achieving improvement and
measuring it, and accountability for results at all managerial
levels.  The crucial actions IRS took are outlined below. 

  The Commissioner of Internal Revenue made improving accuracy a
     nationwide goal and vigorously supported actions to achieve that
     goal. 

  IRS developed a standard method to be used by all call sites for
     guiding assistors in answering taxpayers' calls.  The method
     required assistors to ask taxpayers a series of questions to
     make certain that the assistor fully understood the taxpayers'
     questions. 

  IRS developed a standard method for measuring whether a question
     was answered accurately.  For scoring purposes, this method took
     into account whether the assistor took the time to make certain
     that he or she understood the taxpayer's question before trying
     to answer it. 

  IRS included an element for improving accuracy in the performance
     contracts of its senior executives at all three IRS
     organizational levels.  For example, District Directors, the
     executives directly responsible for the individual call sites,
     had specific accuracy goals in their performance expectations. 

As noted above, these steps produced major improvement in the
accuracy of IRS' assistors' answers to tax law questions.  Notably,
this effort involved aggressive exercise of National Office authority
to set and monitor goals, standards, and performance and to provide
support.  It did not, however, include any significant organizational
change or entail National Office management of day-to-day call site
operations.  We believe a similar approach could contribute to
assistors' ability to answer more taxpayers' calls. 


   IRS AND NTEU CAN BUILD ON NEW
   PARTNERSHIP TO IMPROVE TAXPAYER
   ASSISTANCE PROGRAM
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 4:3

Unlike the private sector organizations\10 that we contacted, many
employees of IRS' telephone assistance program are covered by a
negotiated union agreement.  Under the terms of this agreement with
NTEU, various practices that affect IRS' telephone assistance program
must be negotiated between the two parties.  According to both IRS'
National Office officials and an NTEU representative, it is IRS'
responsibility to establish policy, but the union has the right to
negotiate how policy will be implemented at the local bargaining unit
level.  For example, IRS sets the hours for call sites to operate,
but the scheduled hours for individual assistors to work are subject
to negotiation at the local level. 

Which practices must be negotiated locally and which can be
negotiated at the national level have not always been clear,
according to IRS officials.  The reason for this is that IRS has not
had a strategy or plan for what issues should be dealt with on a
nationwide basis and which can be dealt with locally.  The presumed
necessity of negotiating at each call site is a factor that has
slowed IRS' efforts to take steps to increase the number of calls it
answers.  We believe that IRS and NTEU can build on their new
partnership arrangement to implement nationwide the kind of
management practices other organizations commonly used that will
increase IRS' ability to answer taxpayers' calls. 


--------------------
\10 Many of SSA's telephone assistance program employees are members
of a union. 


      IRS HAS LACKED A STRATEGY
      FOR NATIONWIDE NEGOTIATION
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 4:3.1

IRS has not had a strategy or plan of action for ensuring that
nationwide call site operating practices are dealt with in an
organized, coordinated, and coherent way.  In making even minor
changes in work force schedules, IRS has had to take into account the
potential need to negotiate with union officials at each call site. 
For example, in 1991 the Taxpayer Services Division considered
routing calls during lunch time to sites in other time zones to
increase service to taxpayers.  Sites where calls were to be routed
would no longer take staggered lunches; all assistors at a site would
go to lunch at the same time.  Taxpayer Services Division asked the
call sites to comment about the feasibility of diverting calls from
their sites during lunch. 

Of the 14 call sites that responded, 8 indicated the change would
require discussion with the union.  IRS did not discuss this issue
with the union because the Taxpayer Services Division never completed
its analysis of how traffic would need to be routed. 

The example discussed in the first section of this chapter about IRS'
unsuccessful efforts to establish standard hours for call site
operations also illustrates IRS' lack of a strategy for identifying
issues that need to be dealt with on the national, rather than the
local, level.  The Taxpayer Services Division asked the call sites to
provide input on the Division's plan to expand standard hours of
service nationwide during the 1994 filing season.  The Division would
have expanded service by routing calls to different sites in other
time zones and extending the hours of some call sites. 

IRS' seven regions commented that expanding the hours could raise
union concerns, especially if two shifts were expected at some call
sites.  One region wrote that changing hours was a costly issue due
to NTEU negotiations.  Another region wrote that changing hours "has
significant labor relations implications," and that if a uniform
agreement could not be reached at the national level, local
negotiations could take a long time.  The plan was not implemented
for the 1994 filing season.  Rather than pursue changing local call
site hours, the Taxpayer Services Division looked at the number of
call sites with later hours, but it found that too few sites were
open late enough to handle rerouted traffic. 

For the 1995 filing season, IRS has begun to offer expanded hours of
service.  The expanded service is being provided by routing calls
among the call sites, together with short increases in the time
several call sites are open.  For example, the three call sites in
the Southeast Region now provide 10 hours of service.  Taxpayer
Services officials at the National Office told us that they had
discussed the need for expanded hours with NTEU's national office
officials.  NTEU decided that the specifics of how the changes were
to be implemented should be worked out with IRS officials at the
local level rather than at the national level.  National Office
officials told us there were no serious problems in getting this
done. 

Taxpayer Services officials at the National Office told us they
expected regional offices to extend hours at the call sites for the
1995 filing season because the National Office was more forceful in
its efforts to change hours than it had been in previous attempts. 
Providing an increase in the hours telephone assistance is available
is a worthwhile accomplishment, and we commend IRS for achieving
this.  However, the time it took illustrates the need for IRS' top
management to assert itself and to develop a way to work toward
agreement on more than one change at a time with NTEU. 


      IRS AND NTEU CAN BUILD ON
      THEIR EXISTING PARTNERSHIP
      TO REACH AGREEMENT ON
      NATIONWIDE ISSUES
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 4:3.2

In May 1994, as a result of a long-term effort, IRS and NTEU agreed
to a partnership arrangement designed to give the union a stronger
role in IRS' organizational and policy issues.  Working in the
context of this partnership, in August 1994, IRS and NTEU signed a
Memorandum of Understanding related to implementing the Customer
Service Vision, including the telephone assistance program. 
Unfortunately, the Memorandum does not deal with the issues discussed
in this report.  The Memorandum could, however, provide a readily
available framework for IRS to use when it begins to work on these
issues on a nationwide basis. 

We believe an effective partnership between IRS and NTEU is critical
to the fulfillment of the Customer Service Vision.  In the past, the
telephone assistance program has been hampered by the need to
negotiate issues on a site-by-site basis that affect the entire
system and, in our opinion, should be dealt with on a nationwide
basis.  The need to negotiate some matters locally will continue, and
local input can and usually should be obtained in connection with
negotiating national issues.  However, we believe that IRS and NTEU
could use the framework established by the August 1994 Memorandum of
Understanding to work toward a situation in which IRS and NTEU can
agree on operating practices and standards for performance
measurement that would enable IRS to operate a telephone assistance
program that provides consistent, high-quality service to as many
taxpayers as possible throughout the country. 


   FUNDING LIMITATION FOR STAFF
   HAS BEEN A PROBLEM
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 4:4

For the past several years, Taxpayer Services has asked IRS and
Treasury to request additional funds to hire more assistors to answer
more taxpayer calls.  These requests have not been included in the
budget that went to Congress; consequently, additional funding has
not been provided.  The additional funds would have allowed IRS to
answer more calls than it now does but not nearly all of the calls it
receives.  While funding for additional staff was not received, IRS
received funds to continue to plan for and buy upgraded telephone
equipment for call sites.  IRS is looking to the Customer Service
Vision and the changes it will bring about to enable IRS to answer
more taxpayers' calls. 

For fiscal year 1994, Taxpayer Services asked for 649 additional Full
Time Equivalents (FTEs) to answer about 4 million more calls in 1994. 
IRS reduced the request to 356 FTEs, but Treasury denied it.  For
fiscal year 1995, Taxpayer Services asked for 236 additional FTEs to
answer about 1 million more calls over the 1994 level.  IRS agreed
with the request, but Treasury denied it.  IRS officials told us that
in both years the requests for additional funds were denied because
other needs, such as efforts to improve compliance, were judged to
have higher priority in preparing Treasury's portion of the
President's budget.  Meanwhile, there were about 156 million calls
for telephone assistance in fiscal year 1994.  IRS expects even more
calls during fiscal year 1995. 

For fiscal year 1996, Treasury included in its budget submission to
Congress a request to fund a 226 FTE increase in taxpayer service
assistors.  Although the increase in assistors, if funded, will aid
in answering more calls, it represents an overall decrease of 193
FTEs when compared to the number of assistors available for fiscal
year 1994.  Currently, IRS' budget contains funds to answer only 52
percent of the taxpayers who call. 

Taxpayer Services officials told us their strategy is to use
resources other than staff in trying to improve taxpayers' access to
the telephone assistance program.  Taxpayer Services officials told
us that they intend to continue setting annual goals for increasing
the number of calls answered, based primarily on the installation of
new telephone equipment.  IRS has purchased and installed automated
telephone switching equipment at 19 call sites during the past 2
years.  IRS has reported productivity improvement of about 10 percent
at the sites with the new equipment, in part because the equipment
frees some assistors from answering and routing calls manually.  IRS
plans similar purchases for the remaining call sites over the next
few years and is working to develop more ways for taxpayers to get
answers to their questions on the telephone automatically, without
speaking to an assistor.  IRS hopes to eventually handle as much as
45 percent of its total call workload in this way. 


   CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 4:5

IRS' telephone assistance program operates in 27 different sites
around the country, but it does not yet operate as a fully integrated
nationwide program.  Operating practices vary among the 27 call
sites.  Each site has a great deal of autonomy to set its own
standards and measures.  This is illustrated by the 19 different
combinations of operating hours among the call sites we surveyed,
although this problem has been corrected.  More importantly, IRS top
management has not exercised its authority to establish and enforce
policies necessary to create an integrated, nationwide telephone
assistance program that can efficiently use the resources available
to answer as many taxpayers' calls as possible.  The lack of uniform
systemwide policies and the tendency for IRS and NTEU to negotiate
call site practices at the local level have resulted in call site
autonomy to a degree that we believe is incompatible with the kind of
sophisticated telephone assistance system IRS envisions for the
future. 

These problems must be overcome if IRS is to improve the service it
provides taxpayers during the transition to its Customer Service
Vision and if IRS is to achieve its vision of improved customer
service.  The Customer Service Vision calls for a telephone
assistance system that is integrated nationwide, in which an assistor
located anywhere in the country will answer calls from anywhere else
in the country.  Such a system would match those that other telephone
assistance organizations' customers enjoy today and should provide
the American taxpayer with better service. 

To improve taxpayers' access to the telephone assistance system, we
believe that IRS could draw upon its experience in improving the
accuracy of assistors' answers to tax law questions.  That effort,
characterized by strong top management support, challenging
nationwide goals, clear-cut performance measures, and accountability
from top to bottom, has resulted in major improvement in accuracy
test scores.  We see no reason why IRS cannot apply the same
management principles to increasing the number of taxpayer calls that
IRS answers. 

IRS' National Office will have to exercise its authority to establish
and enforce the policies necessary to build an effective nationwide
telephone assistance program.  A critical part of this effort will be
to take advantage of its partnership with NTEU to develop a way to
agree on nationwide operating practices and performance measurement
standards that would enable IRS to answer as many calls as possible. 
Answering more calls now and in the future also requires that IRS
make better use of the information technology it has today. 

IRS officials directly responsible for the telephone assistance
program have requested additional funding for staff in recent years,
but those requests have not been approved by senior IRS or Treasury
Department officials because those officials placed higher priority
on other needs.  While it is clear that more funds would enable IRS
to provide more service, we also believe that better management of
existing resources will enable IRS to answer more calls than it now
does.  Consequently, our recommendations are focused on maximizing
service with existing resources. 


   RECOMMENDATIONS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 4:6

We recommend that the Commissioner of Internal Revenue direct the
Chief, Taxpayer Services, in coordination with other appropriate IRS
officials, to lead an aggressive effort to (1) identify and define
the appropriate telephone assistance program operating practices for
IRS that would allow it to optimize the number of calls it can answer
within current budget constraints and (2) work with the leadership of
NTEU to reach agreement on implementing those practices on a
nationwide basis.  Those practices should include, although not be
limited to, the following: 

  challenging program goals for increasing the number of calls
     answered that are based, at least in part, on taxpayers' needs;

  standards for the amount of time assistors should be available to
     answer taxpayers' calls;

  hours of operation that offer taxpayers greater opportunity to
     reach IRS assistors; and

  uniform reporting definitions for the number of calls answered and
     other performance measures. 

We also recommend that the Commissioner of Internal Revenue direct
the Chief, Taxpayer Services, to quickly take the steps necessary to
effectively route taxpayers' calls nationwide using real-time
information.  These steps may include a combination of (1) acquiring
technology for real-time traffic monitoring and management, (2)
utilizing the routing capability of IRS' telecommunications vendor,
and (3) fully implementing the features of IRS' existing call routing
technology. 


   AGENCY COMMENTS AND OUR
   EVALUATION
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 4:7

IRS' Assistant Commissioner for Taxpayer Services provided written
comments on a draft of this report in a February 24, 1995,
memorandum.  The Assistant Commissioner's memorandum is included as
appendix I.  We also met with senior Taxpayer Services officials on
February 16 and 23, 1995, to obtain oral comments from them on the
draft report.  The Assistant Commissioner attended the February 23
meeting.  We have incorporated comments from the meetings and the
Assistant Commissioner's memorandum in this report where appropriate. 
Our evaluation of IRS' comments focuses on the Assistant
Commissioner's memorandum since it and the oral comments provided by
IRS officials were generally consistent. 

We present our evaluation of IRS' comments in two sections.  The
first section addresses what we believe to be the most significant of
IRS' specific comments.  The second section discusses our
interpretation of the overall message of IRS' comments and compares
IRS' and GAO's differing perspectives on the problem of answering
more taxpayers' calls. 


      EVALUATION OF IRS' SPECIFIC
      COMMENTS
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 4:7.1

The Assistant Commissioner's written comments said that our draft
report did not present a balanced view of IRS' telephone assistance
program because it did not recognize many steps IRS had already taken
that were consistent with industry best practices.  The Assistant
Commissioner's memorandum included a list of such practices.  The
Assistant Commissioner also said that our report did not focus on
IRS' new approach to improving service to the public--IRS' Customer
Service Vision--and assess whether IRS was moving far enough soon
enough to accomplish that Vision.  And, the Assistant Commissioner
said that while IRS agreed that our recommendations would help in
improving current processes, she believed the draft report emphasized
systems and procedures that are already being replaced as part of
IRS' effort to achieve its Customer Service Vision. 

To address IRS officials' concern that our draft report did not
present a balanced view of actions that had been taken, we added
information provided by IRS to update our discussions of some of the
steps IRS had taken.  However, as discussed below, we are not
convinced that some of the practices cited by IRS are operating in a
way that is consistent with industry best practices.  And, IRS has
not yet put in place many of the practices we found to be commonly
used by the organizations we contacted. 

We agree that the practices and other activities cited in the
Assistant Commissioner's memorandum demonstrate improvement in IRS'
capability to serve taxpayers and progress toward implementing its
Customer Service Vision.  A comparison of the practices and
technology IRS uses in the telephone assistance program today with
the practices and technology it used just a few years ago shows that
IRS has made substantial progress.  However, such a comparison also
shows that IRS remains behind the organizations we contacted in its
use of such practices and technology.  For example, in fiscal year
1995, for the first time, IRS said it is providing taxpayers with 10
hours a day of access to its telephone assistors, compared with the
traditional 8 hours offered for many years.  The added hours of
service give taxpayers a better chance of getting their questions
answered, but SSA provides 12 hours per day of access to an assistor
and the four private companies we contacted routinely provide access
to a customer service representative 24 hours a day. 

A similar comparison of IRS' use of technology to route calls today
compared with a few years ago shows that IRS has made considerable
progress in this area also but remains behind the other organizations
we contacted, even though IRS said it had implemented best practices
identified in other organizations.  From essentially no capability to
route calls a few years ago, IRS now can route calls anywhere in the
country, but it does so using a cumbersome and slow process, thus
limiting the efficiency--and benefit to taxpayers--of a centrally
controlled, real-time routing system.  Again, SSA and three of the
four private companies we contacted have centrally controlled
real-time routing systems that allow them to instantly route calls to
locations where customer service representatives are available. 

Similar comparisons could be made with most of the other items cited
in the Assistant Commissioner's memorandum.  In addition, the items
cited do not include (1) the use of more challenging goals for
answering calls, (2) setting standards for the amount of time
assistors should be on the telephone, and (3) establishing uniform
performance measures for systemwide use because IRS has not yet put
such practices in place. 

The Assistant Commissioner's comment that our draft report did not
include an assessment of IRS' progress toward its Customer Service
Vision is correct, as that was not the purpose of this study.  The
Assistant Commissioner's third point--that our report focused too
much on current practices--also is related to the purpose of our
study in contrast with the thrust of IRS' comments.  That is, IRS'
comments emphasize its plans for and progress toward achieving its
Customer Service Vision. 

The purpose of our study was to identify steps IRS could take that
might enable it to answer more taxpayers' calls with its existing
staff in the period between now and 2001, the current target for
completing the many changes called for by the Vision.  The current
level of service, as well as the many changes that must take place
before the Customer Service Vision is realized, demands that IRS
maximize the number of calls it can answer now while pursuing its
Customer Service Vision.  Thus, we focused on IRS' current practices
rather than its plans, although we recognized that any actions we
recommended needed to be compatible with the Customer Service Vision. 
Accordingly, our study included collecting information about IRS'
goals for its Customer Service Vision and the steps planned for
implementing it.  That information is included in our report, but
IRS' plans for or progress toward implementing its Vision were not
the focus of our work. 


      EVALUATION OF IRS' COMMENTS
      IN TERMS OF DIFFERENCES
      BETWEEN IRS AND GAO IN
      DEALING WITH THE
      ACCESSIBILITY ISSUE
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 4:7.2

The difference between IRS and GAO in dealing with the accessibility
issue is primarily one of timing, based on differing perceptions of
the problem.  IRS sees the solution to the accessibility problem
through the implementation of its Customer Service Vision, a complex
and lengthy process, currently planned for full implementation in
2001.  We believe the problem needs aggressive action immediately. 

Taken as a whole, as we understand them, IRS' comments indicate that
achieving the goals of its Customer Service Vision will solve the
accessibility problem.  Therefore, as noted above, the comments
emphasize the steps taken toward implementing the Vision.  Although
not mentioned in the written comments, a principal goal for the
Vision is, with minor exceptions, to provide access to the telephone
system for 100 percent of the callers.  Thus, if that goal is
achieved the problem would in fact be solved. 

IRS' plan for achieving its Customer Service Vision goal of
100-percent access to the telephone system includes developing and
installing new information technology, moving thousands of IRS'
employees from their current jobs and training them to be telephone
assistors, and shifting much work now done by correspondence to the
telephone.  Achieving the 100-percent goal is also dependent on the
success of yet-to-be-acquired information technology and major
changes in areas of IRS work other than customer service.  The plan
to achieve this and the other Customer Service Vision goals
necessarily spans several years.  The plan assumes incremental
improvement in answering calls each year.  The current target for
full implementation is 2001, 6 years away. 

We applaud IRS' long-range objectives, but, in our view, the
accessibility problem needs immediate and aggressive action.  In
chapter 2, we included information based on IRS' method for
estimating the "level of service" it provides to taxpayers through
the telephone assistance program.  For fiscal year 1994, IRS
estimated that 67 million taxpayers called for assistance and about
36 million of those calls were answered, an assistance rate of 54
percent.  To the extent IRS estimates are accurate, what that means
is that approximately 31 million taxpayers who called for assistance
did not get it because they could not get through to an assistor. 
Because millions of taxpayers who need help are not able to get it,
we believe IRS should do everything feasible to answer more
taxpayers' calls as soon as it can. 

In the long term, IRS proposes to close the gap between calls
received and calls answered by implementing its Customer Service
Vision.  However, this vision is not expected to be fully operational
until 2001.  While we agree that the Customer Service Vision should
help IRS answer more calls, we believe that implementing our
recommendations could help IRS answer more calls in the short run as
well as put IRS in a better position to implement its Vision. 

In our meetings with IRS senior officials, they noted that their
efforts to answer more calls had been constrained by staff
limitations.  In fact, they said that the number of assistors had
declined over the past few years.  The IRS officials pointed out that
funds available for fiscal year 1995 would allow IRS to assist only
52 percent of the taxpayers they expected would call throughout the
year. 

We recognized the issue of funding for assistors in our draft report,
pointing out that although Taxpayer Services had requested additional
funding for fiscal years 1994 and 1995, IRS and Treasury decided not
to include the requests in the President's Budget.  A modest increase
in funding for assistors is included in the President's Budget for
fiscal year 1996.  However, if Congress decides to provide the
increased funding, it will leave IRS with almost 200 fewer assistors
than were available in Fiscal Year 1994. 

IRS officials told us that their long-term strategy was to use
technology--primarily in the form of developing more ways for
taxpayers to get answers for themselves through automated systems--in
lieu of more assistors. 




(See figure in printed edition.)Appendix I
COMMENTS FROM THE INTERNAL REVENUE
SERVICE
============================================================ Chapter 4



(See figure in printed edition.)



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(See figure in printed edition.)




(See figure in printed edition.)Appendix II
RESULTS OF QUESTIONNAIRE
============================================================ Chapter 4



(See figure in printed edition.)



(See figure in printed edition.)



(See figure in printed edition.)



(See figure in printed edition.)



(See figure in printed edition.)



(See figure in printed edition.)



(See figure in printed edition.)



(See figure in printed edition.)



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(See figure in printed edition.)


1994 ACCESSIBILITY RATES BY CALL
SITE
========================================================= Appendix III

                                                      Access
                                                        Rate
                                                      Percen
Call Site                                               tage
----------------------------------------------------  ------
Puerto Rico                                               47
Des Moines                                                34
Richmond                                                  34
Milwaukee                                                 33
Omaha                                                     32
Buffalo                                                   32
Newark\a                                                  32
St. Paul                                                  30
Baltimore                                                 29
St. Louis                                                 29
Oakland                                                   29
Honolulu\a                                                27
Denver                                                    26
Indianapolis                                              26
Detroit                                                   25
Chicago                                                   24
Cincinnati                                                24
Phoenix                                                   23
Cleveland                                                 23
Pittsburgh                                                22
Houston                                                   22
Brooklyn\a                                                21
Dallas                                                    20
Philadelphia                                              20
Boston                                                    20
Nashville                                                 20
Seattle                                                   19
Portland                                                  19
Atlanta                                                   18
El Monte\a                                                18
Jacksonville                                              17
Anchorage\a                                               15
------------------------------------------------------------
\a These call sites were closed in 1994. 

Source:  Telephone Data Report. 


MAJOR CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS REPORT
========================================================== Appendix IV


   GENERAL GOVERNMENT DIVISION,
   WASHINGTON, D.C. 
-------------------------------------------------------- Appendix IV:1

John Lovelady, Assistant Director, Tax Policy and
 Administrative Issues
Robert L.  Giusti, Assignment Manager
Anthony Assia, Senior Evaluator
Monika R.  Gomez, Evaluator
Judy Lanham, Secretary


   ATLANTA REGIONAL OFFICE
-------------------------------------------------------- Appendix IV:2

A.  Carl Harris, Issue Area Manager
Lorelei H.  Hill, Evaluator-in-Charge
Elizabeth M.  Mixon, Site Senior
Sylvia L.  Diaz, Evaluator
Sara Bingham, Reports Analyst


   CINCINNATI REGIONAL OFFICE
-------------------------------------------------------- Appendix IV:3

Cheryl Andrew, Site Senior
Jennifer C.  Jones, Evaluator


   ACCOUNTING AND INFORMATION
   MANAGEMENT DIVISION,
   WASHINGTON, D.C. 
-------------------------------------------------------- Appendix IV:4

Kelly A.  Wolslayer, Senior Evaluator


RELATED GAO PRODUCTS ON TAXPAYERS'
PROBLEMS WITH IRS' TELEPHONE
ASSISTANCE PROGRAM
=========================================================== Appendix 1

Tax Administration:  Accessibility, Timeliness and Accuracy of IRS'
Telephone Assistance Program (GAO/GGD-88-17, Dec.  3, 1987). 

Tax Administration:  Accessibility, Timeliness and Accuracy of IRS'
Telephone Assistance Program (GAO/GGD-89-70, Feb.  2, 1989). 

Tax Administration:  How Precise are IRS Estimates of Taxpayers
Calling for Assistance (GAO/GGD-89-31.  Feb.  21, 1989). 

Tax Administration:  IRS' Telephone Assistance Program
(GAO/T-GGD-89-13, Mar.  15, 1989). 

Status of the 1989 Tax Return Filing Season (GAO/GGD-T-89-12, Mar. 
16, 1989). 

Tax Administration:  Monitoring the Accuracy and Administration of
IRS 1989 Test Call Survey (GAO/GGD-90-36, Jan.  4, 1990). 

Tax Administration:  IRS' 1990 Filing Season Performance Continued
Recent Positive Trends (GAO/GGD-91-23, Dec.  27, 1990). 

Tax Administration:  Better Training Needed for IRS' New Telephone
Assistors (GAO/GGD-91-83, June 12, 1991). 

Tax Administration:  A Generally Successful Filing Season in 1991
(GAO/GGD-91-98, Jun.  28, 1991). 

Tax Administration:  One Stop Service:  A New Concept of Assistance
for Taxpayers (GAO/T-GGD-92-33, Apr.  28, 1992). 

Tax Administration:  IRS' 1992 Filing Season Was Successful but Not
Without Problems (GAO/GGD-92-132, Sep.  15, 1992). 

Tax Administration:  Improvements in IRS' Telephone Assistor Accuracy
(GAO/GGD-92-139FS, Sept.  22, 1992). 

Tax Administration:  Increased Fraud and Poor Taxpayer Access to IRS
Cloud 1993 Filing Season (GAO/GGD-94-65, Dec.  22, 1993). 

Tax Administration:  Better Measures Needed to Assess Progress of
IRS' One-Stop Service (GAO/GGD-94-131, Aug.  29, 1994). 

Tax Administration:  Continuing Problems Affect Otherwise Successful
1994 Filing Season (GAO/GGD-95-5, Oct.  7, 1994). 

Tax Administration:  IRS' Fiscal Year 1996 Budget Request and the
1995 Filing Season (GAO/T-GGD-95-97, Feb.  27, 1995). 
