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Vision-Mission-Goals
At the IRS, we don’t take our mission lightly, because it’s part of our essence — who we are, what we do, how we do it and why — all on behalf of American taxpayers. We are continuously succeeding in this mission because we’ve streamlined our processes in order to more efficiently collect revenues, while also meeting taxpayer needs. And, it’s just one of the important, forward-thinking objectives we’ve developed to keep us aligned with our operational requirements for today and into the future.
Our Vision
In 2009, the IRS is a 21st Century agency with the human capital and technology capabilities to effectively and efficiently collect taxes owed with the least disruption and burden to taxpayers.
The volume and complexity of Internal Revenue Service operations has expanded tremendously during the course of the last half-century. Our future is being shaped by many factors. Our customer base is diverse and ever-changing, as are the economic and social conditions in which we live and conduct business. Therefore, we must be prepared to respond to an increasing and more demanding population, a more global and multi-lingual environment and an increasing number of taxpayers with complex financial holdings and the means and motive to resist the payment of taxes. In addition, we face frequent tax law changes, more numerous and complex tax schemes and, internally, an aging IRS workforce.
Our vision requires us to re-center the agency on a proper balance of service and enforcement that will enable us to meet customer expectations while responding quickly to technological and demographic changes. The most prominent characteristics of our vision involve:
- Delivering services that meet customer needs
- Ensuring that citizens understand their responsibilities to pay taxes honestly
- Applying fair and consistent enforcement to all citizens
- Ensuring that IRS provides a valuable service to Americans and is a desirable place to work
IRS Values
Our core values guide us toward achieving our vision. We expect all of our employees to demonstrate these values throughout their IRS careers.
Integrity We uphold the highest standards of honesty, truthfulness, reliability and honor.
Accountability We constantly measure ourselves against our commitments and we hold ourselves responsible for our actions and the outcomes of our work.
Accuracy We are diligent in ensuring precise and thorough work products.
Respect We value differences in people and ideas and we treat others with fairness, dignity and esteem.
Professionalism We ensure competency and efficiency and we focus on achieving excellence.
Partnering We listen to our stakeholders and work closely with them.
Our Mission
Our aim is to provide America's taxpayers top-quality service by helping them understand and meet their tax responsibilities, and by applying the tax law with integrity and fairness to all.
Through the IRS Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998 (RRA98), Congress gave us a clear mandate: Do a better job of meeting the needs of taxpayers and collecting revenues.
In the United States, Congress passes tax laws and requires taxpayers to comply. The taxpayer's role is to understand and meet his or her tax obligations. Our role at IRS, then, is to help the large majority of compliant taxpayers with the tax law, while ensuring that the minority who are unwilling to comply pay their fair share. While doing this, we must meet the highest standards of service and integrity.
We have devised three strategic goals to help us move closer to attaining our vision, achieving our mission and meeting the public's expectations.
Our Strategic Goals
Goal #1 — Improving Taxpayer Service
Giving people the information they need to understand their tax obligation and participate easily in the tax system is the first step towards achieving our overall objective of full participation in America's self-assessment tax system. We are committed to increasing participation through education and outreach, and IRS routinely solicits information about the needs and characteristics of our taxpayer customers so we can implement programs and products to satisfy those needs.
In fact, we have steadily been improving our customer satisfaction rating since the enactment of the Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998.
Main Taxpayer Service Objectives
- Improve service options for the tax-paying public
- Facilitate participation in the tax system by all sectors of the public
- Simplify the tax process
Goal #2 — Enhancing Enforcement of the Tax Law
When Americans pay their taxes, they must be confident that their neighbors and competitors are paying their fair share as well. Our efforts to minimize the burden for compliant taxpayers are complemented by our enforcement efforts against non-compliant taxpayers.
Noncompliance may not be deliberate and can stem from a wide range of causes, including lack of knowledge, confusion, poor record-keeping, differing legal interpretations, unexpected personal emergencies and temporary cash flow problems. However, some noncompliance is willful, even to the point of criminal tax evasion.
For example, certain taxpayers are investing in tax shelters, trusts and other structured products knowing that the promised tax benefits do not conform to the law. That is why we are engaged in enforcing the law across all sectors, but with particular vigor in the corporate arena and for high-income individuals who participate in abusive tax avoidance transactions. However, we will continue to respond efficiently to taxpayer requests, ensure that our customers receive professional treatment and protect their rights as taxpayers.
Main Enforcement Objectives
- Discourage and deter noncompliance with emphasis on corrosive activity by corporations, high-income individual taxpayers and other contributors to the tax gap
- Ensure that attorneys, accountants and other tax practitioners adhere to professional standards and follow the law
- Detect and deter domestic and offshore-based tax and financial criminal activity
- Deter abuse within tax-exempt and governmental entities, and misuse of such entities, by third parties for tax avoidance or other unintended purposes
Goal #3 — Modernizing the IRS Through Its People, Processes and Technology
To effectively and efficiently meet the Service and Enforcement goals described above, we must strategically manage our resources, associated business processes and technology systems. Although many of our tax administration systems are currently obsolete, and we are actively modernizing each of those areas to remain current with today's fast-paced environment.
Our "modernization" process includes technology projects with which taxpayers are not directly involved, such as replacing our master file system, implementing new accounting systems and building a new technological infrastructure on which all of our future applications will depend. Modernization also includes updating our work processes and preparing our workforce to meet the challenges of the 21st century, such as replenishing a maturing workforce, improving workforce skills and ensuring a continual leadership cadre for the future.
We regularly survey all of our employees on important aspects of the workplace, including their job satisfaction. The results for Question 17 from that survey show that "Job Satisfaction" has been improving steadily over recent years.
Main Modernization Objectives
- Increase the organization's capacity to enable employees' full engagement and maximum productivity
- Modernize information systems to improve service and enforcement
- Ensure the safety and security of people, facilities and information systems
- Modernize business processes and align support systems to maximize resources that are devoted to frontline operations
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