The Internal Revenue Service submitted the Taxpayer First Act Report to Congressional leaders this week. As the name suggests, this 253-page document is required by the 2019 Taxpayer First Act—and it’s an essential step in determining how the IRS will improve the service provided to taxpayers.
The Taxpayer First Act Report identifies a wide range of organizational changes that would improve “the taxpayer experience,” from personnel training and educational outreach to enforcement actions. Here is the list of “three integrated sets of recommendations required by law” from the press release:
- A taxpayer experience strategy that focuses on creating a proactive, convenient, seamless, personalized and effective interaction with taxpayers and the tax professional community;
- A comprehensive training strategy, a multi-faceted approach to empowering the workforce and equipping them with the skills and tools they need to advance their careers, provide high-quality service to taxpayers and enhance the taxpayer experience, and
- A recommended organizational design that will increase collaboration, coordinate strategic implementation of large-scale initiatives, enhance innovation, strengthen communications and prioritize taxpayer rights, all with the aim of improving the taxpayer experience.
The report establishes a road map for improving essentially every facet of the how the IRS ensures voluntary taxpayer compliance with tax law, and these scalable changes will understandably take time to develop and implement. While IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig predicts the entire process to take place across 10 years, the agency notes that it will begin working on some changes this year.
Further, the Internal Revenue Service will not be alone in this work: “The IRS will continue conversations with key stakeholders and Congressional committees to secure funding and begin to work toward implementation of these recommendations over the next several years.”
Source: IR-2021-07