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Morning News

IRS Increases Emphasis on Customer Service

Aired March 29, 2000 - 10:22 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: We're going to shift our focus now -- taxes: The deadline for filing coming up fast. Procrastinators, though, will get a couple of extra days this year, two, in fact. April 15th falls on a Saturday. That means you have until the 17th, which is Monday. How about that?

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: You can thank the calendar for that little breather. But do you ever wonder what happens to your returns once you mail them in?

Our Jeff Flock does, and he knows.

HEMMER: Yes.

KAGAN: He is live from an IRS processing center in Ogden, Utah, with a behind-the-scenes look.

Jeff, good morning.

JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Well, they haven't granted us access to your specific returns, Daryn and Bill, but if we do get that we'll pass that information along to you. No, we're this day trying to open up the process, the way you file taxes and what happens to it.

We have been all over this facility in Ogden, Utah, today with some unparalleled access, live access, everywhere from this room where we are right now, which is the room they have what they call "Tingle tables," where your tax returns are first sorted, on to places where they pore through your envelope to make sure they haven't thrown anything away, and we are focusing this hour on just how well the IRS does its job.

First some perspective for you: How enormous a tack is it? Well, here are some number for you to chew on. Last year, 984 million refunds processed by the IRS. They collected a total of $1.9 trillion and refunded a total of $185 billion.

And to ask some hard questions -- and to answer some hard questions about how well they are doing their job, Rich Creamer, who is the director of the IRS Ogden office, which is the biggest processing center in the country.

You've got an enormous task. How are you doing? RICH CREAMER, DIRECTOR, OGDEN PROCESSING: I feel we're doing well this year.

FLOCK: You've got a change in focus, don't you?

CREAMER: Yes, we do. Our mission has changed to a great extent. Previously, we were focused on efficiency, in collecting the revenue at low cost. What we're really focusing on now is service and fairness. We feel that if we can educate taxpayers to their responsibility, the vast, vast majority of them will comply. And, frankly, if we haven't administered the tax system fairly, we haven't been successful. So that's become our new focus.

FLOCK: As you know, you're not popular with a lot of people -- probably nobody likes to pay taxes. But beyond that, there were criticisms about how well you dealt with the taxpaying public. What's steps have you taken to improve that?

CREAMER: Well, as you know, we have a national reorganization going on, where we're trying to focus on an individual customer basis, specialize our employees so that they can better serve these taxpayers in their individual needs. We're also trying to upgrade our technology and to improve our training.

FLOCK: Now you talk about how much it costs or how efficiently you do your job. Let's take a look at the numbers on how efficiently you collect $100 worth of revenue. I am told that in 1998 it cost 43 cents for the government to collect $100 worth of revenue, which is better than five years, when it was about 60 cents. So you're making some inroads there, but things like electronic filing are obviously something you're looking to improve it.

CREAMER: Absolutely. With electronic filing, errors are reduced and processing speeds up incredibly. And we're able to get more accurate refunds to taxpayers more quickly.

FLOCK: The last thing I want to ask you before we get away, and that is some people have charged that your increased focus on customer service has perhaps taken people away from doing things like audit, doing the hard things you have to do to collect the money you need.

CREAMER: Again, our focus is on service because we believe that by educating taxpayers the vast majority will comply. However, we do have resources and we do have the tools necessary for enforcement where we have to resort to that.

FLOCK: You've got enough people doing audits?

CREAMER: We believe that we have sufficient staff, and we're going to do what we can with that staff.

FLOCK: Rich Creamer, I appreciate you taking the hard questions this morning at the Ogden processing center, which is the nation's busiest. We will be here throughout this day with unparalleled access behind the scenes, showing you what happens when you send that return in -- and it's getting busy. I'm Jeff Flock, CNN, reporting live from Ogden, Utah.

HEMMER: All right, good deal. Thank you, Jeff.

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