Question

Assignment Questions:

1a. Who are the IRS's customers and what is the value proposition offered by the IRS?

1b. "Doing business" with the IRS is mandatory. Why should the be concerned about "customer service" when their customers are captive?

1c. Why do people pay their taxes?

1d. What do you think is the compliance rate in the US versus other countries?

2a. Let's talk about the transformation efforts at the IRS. Why did they change?

2b. How will we know when the IRS is performing well?

2c. Why were there so many busy signals?

2d. How would you fix the busy signal problem?

3a. Let's look at precisely what was targeted for change and why.

3b. How, specifically, did Rossotti pursue change? What were the key elements of the change process?

3c. What else could the IRS do to improve customer service?

Answer 1

1a. Internal Revenue Service is a Revenue service department of the Federal Government. It provides assistance to tax payers and resolves any issues related to fraudulent tax filings. The main responsibility of IRS is collection of taxes from the taxpayers and administering the Internal Revenue Code. The customers of IRS are the taxpayers of US and collects taxes from the taxpayers of US. IRS offers value proposition by providing complete assistance to the taxpayers by making the process of tax payment hassle free. They have introduced online filing of tax system in order to ease the life of taxpayers.

1b. Although doing business with the IRS is mandatory as it is compulsory to file the tax by the taxpayers. But the ease of filing taxes would make the process hassle free. Although the customers are captive but the tax collection would be more if the process is easy and smooth. High level of customer service would enhance the amount of tax collection and thus increases the revenue of IRS. High level of customer services and strict supervision reduces the number of fraud tax filing by the taxpayers. Thus customer service is also important in IRS.

1c. People pay their taxes as it is mandated by the Federal Government. All the service class people's tax is deducted at Source and the employer deducts the tax and thus cannot avoid the payment of tax. People who have their business or company need to pay Corporate Tax or VAT to the government. Thus to avoid any default cases lodged against their name, people pay the tax.

1d. The voluntary compliance rate in US is 81.7 percent. After considering the enforcement and late payment cases the net compliance rate in US is 83.7 percent. The overall tax compliance rate in US is very high compared to other developing nations and at par with other developed nations.