One longtime auditor in New York said that when ordered not to pursue an issue “you just write ‘closed per case manager’ to cover yourself.”
The auditor was asked why she did not file an official memo indicating that she disagreed and that she believed it was premature or improper to close the audit.
“Why would I do that?” the auditor replied. “So my manager will give me a bad performance review?” Others gave similar explanations.
IRS officials - including Deborah M. Nolan, Commissioner of the IRS's Large and Mid-Size Business Division - say the complaints are either misinformed or misguided.
Ms. Nolan said agents who believed that an important issue should have been ursued should report the matter to higher-level supervisors or go to the inspector general’s office. She said she was not aware of any such complaints.
Whatever's going on behind the scenes, the Times says the end result is many experienced corporate auditors have set their sets on retiring as quickly as possible. Said one auditor: "A lot of audit experience is about to walk out the door … And then what will happen?”
Agents Say Fast Audits Hurt I.R.S. [NY Times]
1 comment:
I am not surprised that there are no comments -- it is hard to stand up for what is right and point out opportunities for improvement when faced with an arrogant management team who hears nothing but what it wants to hear and manipulates data to say what they want it to say. I have been punished for speaking out - my career ruined - promotions denied. I'm out over 100,000 in lost earnings but at least i can sleep nights. I am attaching Debbie Nolans voice mail response to the article to the management team posted yesterday.
Large and Mid-Size Business Division
VMS: Deborah M. Nolan, Commissioner, LMSB
Topic: Commissioner Nolan Responds to New York Times Article (1/12/07)
Date: January 18, 2007
This is Debbie Nolan with a message to all LMSB managers for sharing with your teams.
Last Friday the New York Times ran an article entitled, “Agents Say Fast Audits Hurt IRS.” I do not believe the article presented a balanced perspective, nor did it appropriately acknowledge the significant progress that we have made. I am very proud of our LMSB team, and I want to thank you for your leadership and the hard efforts of you and your employees for achieving our objectives in a way that allows us to hold our heads up high.
When we rolled out the currency and cycle time initiatives, we also impressed the importance of achieving those objectives by making the right decisions and doing the right thing. Our record speaks for itself. All indications are that our agents are making those wise decisions and managers are challenging the status quo, but supporting our agents in achieving those business objectives in a way that does not compromise compliance and provides for sound tax administration in the long run. We need to use our scarce resources wisely, focusing on material issues of risk and increasing audit coverage to improve compliance. Employees and managers have stepped up to embrace the change.
I spent considerable time with the reporter talking about the professionalism of our employees, the fact that they are our greatest asset, and that they do high quality work often times under very difficult circumstances. But, I also acknowledged that change is difficult and that we are asking our experienced agents, who have been doing what we said was quality work for a long time, to do their jobs differently. But times have changed; we now have new tools to identify and assess risk, limited resources and new approaches. We cannot do business the same way we did five, ten, or twenty years ago and be successful in today’s environment.
But again, I acknowledge that change can be difficult. Some employees and managers have embraced the change more than others, but on a whole, most of our managers and employees have understood what we are trying to accomplish and why.
The article also indicated that I denied hearing employee concerns. I was concerned about that because I actually seek opportunities for feedback and often times have open discussions with employees, managers, and our executive leadership team. I know many of you have done the same.
I ask that you discuss this message at your next scheduled employee or management meeting and use it as an opportunity again to acknowledge the teams for the progress that we have made, and to provide a forum for employees or managers who have concerns to express them and work through some of the issues. Talk about some of the issues and reinforce the environment of inclusion where different views can be discussed so that we can all learn from one another, but also provide a forum so that employees and managers can talk about and hear about what we know is happening in the field – about doing the right thing.
Share how we have been able to redeploy resources from one taxpayer to another who might not have otherwise been audited that presents a higher compliance risk. Let them know how our managers are supporting our teams by extending estimated closing dates for such things as pursuing an issue that came up late in the cycle, making requests for tax accrual workpapers, or pursuing aggressive taxpayers who haven’t been cooperative with us to demonstrate that we do have integrity about our process. Again, let us use the forum as an opportunity to create a dialogue and create shared understanding of what we want to accomplish and how we want to accomplish this.
Again, I don’t want to lose sight of the progress that we have made, and I want to thank you for your pursuit of excellence in LMSB. We have made significant progress over the past years both in achieving business results and in our change initiatives, but it is only through the alignment of our team – employees and managers working together — that we have been able to achieve this success.
I want to thank you again, for your personal leadership and your commitment to the public service of which we can all be proud.
Take care.
/s/ Debbie
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