Home Media Center News Releases

Washington, D.C.-- The Internal Revenue Service (IRS), working with its employees . and their union, has created a new position?customer service representative to serve as the linchpin to the most far-reaching changes at the agency in more than 45 years.

The new position, which will involve some 11,000 employees, will be the focal point of a workforce using an advocacy approach to the delivery of customer service.

In this key step, employees will be empowered to provide full and complete service to aid taxpayers in meeting their obligations. It will go a long way toward responding to the desire of Congress and the American people for an IRS that is more efficient, effective and customeroriented.

That desire was expressed in a series of congressional hearings on the work practices of the agency, as well as in the work of a year?long analysis of the agency's structure and processes conducted by the bipartisan National Commission on Restructuring the, IRS.

President Robert M. Tobias of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) said the new position "will benefit every taxpayer in America, translating directly into the kind of significantly improved customer service that taxpayers want and deserve and that employees want to provide." Tobias and IRS Commissioner Charles O. Rossotti made a joint announcement about the new position today. NTEU represents more than 97,000 IRS employees.

Creation of the new position and related steps are central to the focus on customer service, Tobias said. "The goal will be one?stop service, with most taxpayers able to have their questions answered or their tax?related problems handled by dealing with a single person, while they are on the phone or during a walk?in visit," he said.

The NTEU president said he was especially pleased with the "key role" that front?line IRS employees played in development of the new position, which expands the responsibilities of customer service employees, along with their pay and training and the quality of their work lives.

He credited Commissioner Rossotti with "working to lay the foundation on which to build an IRS that is responsive to the needs both of America's taxpayers and the agency's employees."

Creation of the new position was among the key recommendations of a joint NTEU?IRS task force that worked months earlier this year examining issues surrounding the delivery of customer service in the agency. The task force provided a wide range of recommendations designed to help employees reach the goal of providing world class customer service while at the same time addressing important quality?of?worklife issues.

All assessments of the agency have determined that a variety of systemic problems have gotten in the way of efforts to educate and assist taxpayers in meeting their obligations. This step is part of the effort by the IRS to move forward, working with NTEU, to implement restructuring legislation approved earlier this year and a reorganization plan proposed by Commissioner Rossotti.