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Washington, D.C.?The head of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) today offered the union's strong support for increased staffing and funding for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), telling Congress that is the only way both taxpayers and the agency alike can "reap the benefits" of the most far?reaching IRS modernization in nearly 50 years.

NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley told a congressional subcommittee reviewing implementation of IRS modernization that NTEU supports the administration's fiscal year ?001 budget request for the IRS which would allow for the hiring of some 2.800 new employees beginning October 1, the start of the fiscal year.

Testifying before the House Subcommittee on Government Management, Information and Technology of the House Committee on Government Reform, Kelley said the only way to meet the improved customer service focus of the 1998 modernization law, while processing a growing number of tax returns and "stabilizing collections and examinations of cases," is to "reverse the severe cuts in IRS staffing levels."

She noted that the number of Revenue Agents has declined 17 percent since 1995, and will fall another four percent during the current fiscal year. Many who remain, she said, have been detailed, along with examination staff, compliance officers and others to help improve customer service and taxpayer education.

NTEU strongly supports a customer service emphasis, she said, but told the subcommittee that it "should not come at the expense of collecting unpaid taxes" and ensuring compliance with the tax laws.

Kelley said that "we need to dedicate more resources to training" employees about complex tax law changes enacted by Congress as well as the dictates of the IRS Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998 (RRA), Increased staffing, funding and training are vital, she said, because "technology alone cannot possibly manage the increasing workload at the IRS." This year, the agency is projected to collect 51.767 trillion in revenues, process 213.1 million tai: returns and issue more than 93 million individual refunds.

She also urged Congress to work with NTEU to "repeal or modify" a section of the 1998 restructuring law that she said creates an unfair "double standard"treating IRS employees more harshly than any other American taxpayer for being even one day late filing their taxes.

RRA Section 1203(b) provides for the mandatory termination of an IRS employee for any one of 10 specific actions, dealing largely with taxpayer rights but including the late filing of federal income taxes.

"No other American taxpayer can be fired solely on the basis of paying their taxes one day late," she said. "It seems incredibly unfair to single out for mandatory termination" IRS employees, Kelley told the subcommittee, emphasizing the adverse impact on employee morale of a double standard.

NTEU, which represents more than 98,000 IRS employees, has for more than two years been working closely with IRS on implementation of RRA, including work by hundreds of union members on joint labor?management teams working out the details of the most far?reaching changes in the IRS since its 1952 reorganization.