a

GAO

United States General Accounting Office

Report to Congressional Requesters

May 2003 TAX 

ADMINISTRATION

Workforce Planning 

Needs Further 

Development for IRS’s 

Taxpayer Education 

and Communication 

Unit

GAO-03-711
Although it has existed for more than 2 and a half years, TEC does not have a 

strategic workforce plan that includes certain critical elements. (See figure 

below.) For example, it has not identified gaps between the number, skills, 

and locations of its current workforce and the workforce it will need in the 

future, and the strategies to fill gaps. Such a workforce plan for TEC could 

be developed by IRS, the Small Business and Self-Employed Division, and/or 

TEC. Small Business and Self-Employed Division officials said that TEC 

does not have a strategic workforce plan because they focused on creating 

the division and units such as TEC to begin addressing taxpayer needs, and 

because they first wanted to gain some experience with TEC as a new unit. 

IRS and the Small Business and Self-Employed Division are creating a 

process for developing a workforce plan for TEC that in broad terms would 

incorporate the critical elements common to workforce planning. However, 

it is not yet clear whether the workforce plan for TEC will be developed and 

implemented consistent with these critical elements. For example, IRS and 

the Small Business and Self-Employed Division have not analyzed the skills 

that the TEC workforce will need to meet its program goals or outlined the 

process and data to be used to do these analyses. 

A Simplified Model of Critical Elements to Include in the Workforce Planning Process 

Involvement

of management

and employees

Workforce gap

analysis

Workforce strategies

to fill the gaps

Evaluation of 

and revisions

to strategies

Source: GAO.

Set strategic

direction

Strategic workforce planning helps 

ensure that agencies have the right 

people with the right skills in the 

right positions to carry out the 

agency mission both in the present 

and future. 

The Internal Revenue Service’s 

(IRS) Taxpayer Education and 

Communication (TEC) unit within 

its Small Business and SelfEmployed Division assists some 45 

million small business and selfemployed taxpayers. Given the 

number of taxpayers it is to assist 

and changes in its priorities and 

strategies, GAO was asked to 

determine whether TEC has a 

workforce plan that conforms to 

critical elements for what should 

be in a plan and how it should be 

developed and implemented. 

GAO recommends that the IRS 

Commissioner ensure that the TEC 

workforce plan is developed in 

conformance with the critical 

elements of what a plan is to 

include and how a plan is to be 

developed and implemented. 

The Commissioner provided 

comments that neither explicitly 

agreed nor disagreed with GAO’s 

recommendation, but said IRS had 

an integrated strategy that 

addressed issues raised in the 

report. GAO believes the strategy is 

useful but did not provide sufficient 

detail to ensure the TEC workforce 

plan would conform to the critical 

elements. 

www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-03-711.

To view the full report, including the scope 

and methodology, click on the link above. 

For more information, contact Michael 

Brostek at (202) 512-9110 or 

brostekm@gao.gov. 

Highlights of GAO-03-711, a report to 

Congressional Requesters 

May 2003

TAX ADMINISTRATION

Workforce Planning Needs Further 

Development for IRS’s Taxpayer 

Education and Communication Unit 
Page 1 GAO-03-711 Workforce Planning 

May 30, 2003 

The Honorable Olympia Snowe 

Chair 

Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship 

United States Senate 

The Honorable Christopher H. Bond 

United States Senate 

In all federal agencies, employees are their most important asset in 

accomplishing their missions and achieving their goals. The Government 

Performance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA)1

 calls for agencies and their 

operating divisions to address human capital in the context of 

performance management and requires annual performance plans to 

describe how agencies will use resources to accomplish their strategic 

direction and program goals. As part of human capital management, 

strategic workforce planning helps ensure that organizations have the 

right number of staff with the right skills and competencies in the right 

locations to fulfill their goals both now and in the future given the 

strategies they have adopted to carry out their missions. 

Certain critical elements are common in workforce plans and planning 

processes across leading private and public organizations: (1) involving 

top management and employees in developing and implementing a 

workforce plan, (2) analyzing gaps between the workforce that exists 

currently and that will be needed in the future, (3) devising strategies (e.g., 

hiring or training) to fill workforce gaps, and (4) evaluating the strategies 

to ensure that they yield the workforce needed and to make revisions as 

necessary. 

In an August 2002 report,2

 the Treasury Inspector General for Tax 

Administration (TIGTA) voiced specific concerns that the Internal 

Revenue Service’s (IRS) workforce planning documents do not focus on 

 1

 Pub. L. No. 103-62. 

2

 Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, Expansion of the Workforce 

Planning Process Would Increase Opportunities to Identify and Address Staffing Risks, 

Reference Number: 2002-10-154 (Washington, D.C.: August 2002). 

United States General Accounting Office

Washington, DC 20548 
Page 2 GAO-03-711 Workforce Planning 

long-term planning. IRS has assumed overall responsibility for developing 

an IRS-wide workforce plan, which its divisions and units are to support 

and can supplement with more detailed plans. 

Within IRS, the Taxpayer Education and Communication (TEC) unit in the 

Small Business and Self-Employed Division (SB/SE)3

 were both created in 

October 2000 during IRS’s reorganization. TEC is to serve about 45 million 

small businesses and self-employed taxpayers primarily through efforts to 

better educate them about their tax obligations. Although the other two 

units in SB/SE combined many organizations and functions that had 

existed prior to IRS’s reorganization, TEC was a new unit with new or 

expanded responsibilities. TEC was to have over 1,200 staff by fiscal year 

2002 in 15 major field locations and an annual budget of over $60 million. 

Since its inception, TEC has (1) not reached its staffing level (it had 718 

staff as of March 2003), (2) reduced the number of major field locations to 

7, and (3) added priorities and strategies for providing education and 

outreach to SB/SE taxpayers. 

Because TEC serves many taxpayers and has had the above changes, you 

asked us to determine whether TEC has a workforce plan that conforms to 

the critical elements for what should be in a plan and how the plan should 

be developed and implemented. To do so, we interviewed IRS officials and 

reviewed IRS workforce planning documents, reviewed guidance by 

central management agencies such as the Office of Personnel Management 

(OPM) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on the critical 

elements of workforce planning, and reviewed our reports on human 

capital management. We did not evaluate the adequacy of TEC’s program 

goals (or operational priorities).4

Although TEC has existed for more than 2 and a half years, IRS has not 

ensured that TEC has a strategic workforce plan that includes the critical 

elements of a plan, such as identifying any gaps between the number, 

skills, and locations of the current workforce and the workforce needed in 

the future, and strategies to fill these gaps. Without a strategic workforce 

 3

 SB/SE’s three operating units are TEC, Customer Account Services, and Compliance. 

4

 IRS’s system includes an alignment of unit, division, and IRS strategic goals. TEC has 

operational priorities that are commonly thought of as program goals. For clarity, we refer 

to TEC’s operational priorities as program goals that are to link to and support SB/SE’s 

program goals. 

Results in Brief 
Page 3 GAO-03-711 Workforce Planning 

plan, TEC has less assurance that it has the necessary workforce to meet 

its current program goals and to manage changes in its programs and 

goals. SB/SE officials said that TEC does not have a strategic workforce 

plan because they focused on creating TEC to address SB/SE taxpayers’ 

needs, and because they first wanted to have some experience with TEC 

as a new unit. 

IRS and SB/SE are creating a process for developing a workforce plan for 

TEC that in broad terms would incorporate the critical elements common 

to workforce planning by leading private and public organizations. 

However, it is not yet clear whether the workforce plan for TEC will be 

developed and implemented consistent with these critical elements. For 

example, IRS and SB/SE have not analyzed the skills that the TEC 

workforce will need to meet its program goals or outlined the process and 

data to be used for these analyses. In developing and implementing a 

strategic workforce plan for TEC, IRS and SB/SE will have to meet 

challenges, such as gathering reliable data on the skills that the current 

workforce has and the future workforce that TEC will need. 

Given the uncertainty about how the strategic workforce plan for TEC will 

be developed, we recommend that the IRS Commissioner ensure that the 

TEC workforce plan is developed in conformance with the critical 

elements for what a plan is to include and how it is to be developed and 

implemented. 

In a letter dated May 28, 2003, the Commissioner of the IRS provided 

comments that neither explicitly agreed nor disagreed with GAO’s 

recommendation. However, the Commissioner said he believed IRS had a 

set of integrated strategies that address the issues raised in our report. 

Although the steps the Commissioner listed as the integrated strategies are 

useful, we did not see sufficient detail in the material IRS provided on 

these steps during our review to be assured that the TEC workforce plan 

would be sufficiently developed and implemented in accordance with the 

critical elements. (See p. 13 for a discussion of agency comments, which 

are reprinted in app. I.) 

SB/SE was formed to address various issues affecting small business and 

self-employed taxpayers, such as filing tax returns and paying taxes. 

SB/SE’s strategic goals include increasing compliance and also reducing 

burden among SB/SE taxpayers. As part of SB/SE, TEC is to use various 

strategies, including providing education, outreach, assistance, and other 

services, to support SB/SE taxpayers in understanding and complying with 

Background 
Page 4 GAO-03-711 Workforce Planning 

tax laws. IRS created TEC in response to concerns that IRS should better 

balance such services with its enforcement efforts. 

In serving taxpayers, TEC is to partner with government agencies, small 

business groups, tax practitioner groups, and other stakeholders that 

could advance its education and outreach efforts. To meet an overall goal 

of increasing voluntary compliance, TEC’s four program goals or priorities 

are to combat abusive tax schemes, reduce taxpayer burden, promote 

electronic filing, and negotiate agreements with SB/SE taxpayers on 

specific ways to voluntarily comply with tax laws. 

Recent events underscore the importance of human capital management 

and strategic workforce planning. For example, we designated strategic 

human capital management as a governmentwide, high-risk area in 

January 2001, and it was also placed at the top of the President’s 

Management Agenda in August 2001. In addition, OMB and OPM have 

made efforts to improve human capital management and strategic 

workforce planning.5

The goal of strategic workforce planning is to ensure that the right people 

with the right skills are in the right place at the right time. Agency 

approaches to workforce planning can vary with their particular needs and 

missions. Nevertheless, looking across existing successful public and 

private organizations, certain critical elements recur as part of a 

workforce plan and workforce planning process. Although fluid, this 

process starts with setting a strategic direction that includes program 

goals and strategies to achieve those goals and flows through the critical 

elements to evaluating the workforce plan. Figure 1 uses a simple model to 

show these critical elements and their relationships to the agency’s overall 

strategic direction and goals. 

 5

 Based on an OMB standard on strategic human capital management, OPM issued its 

Human Capital Assessment and Accountability Framework in October 2002, which lists 

six “Human Capital Standards for Success,” including one on workforce planning. 

Critical Elements in 

Workforce Planning 
Page 5 GAO-03-711 Workforce Planning 

Figure 1: A Simplified Model of Critical Elements to Include in the Workforce 

Planning Process 

Note: Workforce planning is a continual process that involves interaction among the critical elements 

and may reshape how the workforce accomplishes its work and achieves the agency’s mission in the 

future. 

Before developing a workforce plan, an agency first needs to set a 

strategic direction and program goals. Setting a strategic direction and 

program goals is part of the general performance management principles 

that Congress expects agencies to follow under GPRA. A workforce plan 

should be developed and implemented to help fulfill the strategic direction 

Involvement

of management

and employees

Workforce gap

analysis

Workforce strategies

to fill the gaps

Evaluation of 

and revisions

to strategies

Source: GAO.

Set strategic

direction
Page 6 GAO-03-711 Workforce Planning 

and program goals.6 The critical elements of what this plan should include 

and how it should be developed follow. 

• Involvement of management and employees: Involving various staff 

(from the top to the bottom) cuts across the other critical 

elements. Involving staff in all phases of workforce planning can 

help improve the quality of the plan because staff are directly 

involved with the daily operations. Further, vetting proposed 

workforce strategies to management and those most affected by 

those decisions can build support for the plan and facilitate 

obtaining the resources needed to implement the plan and meet 

program goals. Establishing a communication strategy that 

involves various staff can create shared expectations and a clear 

reporting process about the workforce plan. 

• Workforce gap analysis: Analyzing whether gaps exist between the 

current and future workforce needed to meet program goals is 

critical to ensure proper staffing. The workforce plan should assess 

these gaps, to the extent practical, in a fact-based manner. The 

absence of fact-based analyses can undermine an agency’s efforts 

to identify and respond to current and emerging challenges.7

 Thus, 

the characteristics of the future workforce should be based on the 

specific skills and numbers of staff that will be needed to handle 

the expected workload. The analysis of the current workforce 

should identify how many staff members have those skills and how 

many are likely to remain with the agency over time given 

expected losses due to retirement and other attrition. The 

workforce gap analyses can help justify budget and staffing 

requests by connecting the program goals and strategies with the 

budget and staff resources needed to accomplish them. 

• Workforce strategies to fill the gaps: Developing strategies to 

address any identified workforce gaps creates the road map to 

move from the current to the future workforce needed to achieve 

 6

 See U.S. General Accounting Office, A Model of Strategic Human Capital Management, 

GAO-02-373SP (Washington, D.C.: March 2002), and Highlights of a GAO Forum: Mergers 

and Transformation: Lessons Learned for a Department of Homeland Security and 

Other Federal Agencies, GAO-03-293SP (Washington, D.C.: November 2002). 

7

 See U.S. General Accounting Office, High-Risk Series: Strategic Human Capital 

Management, GAO-03-120 (Washington, D.C.: January 2003). 
Page 7 GAO-03-711 Workforce Planning 

the program goals. Strategies can involve how the workforce is 

acquired, developed and trained, deployed, compensated, 

motivated, and retained. Agencies need to know their flexibilities 

and authorities when developing the strategies, and to 

communicate the strategies to all affected parties.8

• Evaluation of and revisions to strategies: Evaluating the results of 

the workforce strategies and making any needed revisions helps to 

ensure that the strategies work as intended. A key step is 

developing performance measures as indicators of success in 

attaining human capital goals and program goals, both short- and 

long-term. Periodic measurement and evaluation provides data for 

identifying shortfalls and opportunities to revise workforce plans 

as necessary.9

 For example, an evaluation may indicate whether 

the workforce plan adequately considered barriers to achieving the 

goals, such as insufficient resources to hire and train the full 

complement of staff identified as necessary by the workforce gap 

analysis. 

Across the critical elements of a workforce plan, data collection and 

analysis provide fundamental building blocks. Having reliable data is 

particularly important to doing the workforce gap analysis. Early 

development of the data provides a baseline by which agencies can 

identify current workforce problems. Regular updating of the data enables 

agencies to plan for improvements, manage changes in the programs and 

workforce, and track the effects of changes on achieving program goals. 

IRS issued an Internal Revenue Manual (IRM) section for internal review 

and comment in March 2003, and IRS expects to finalize it in June 2003. 

The section outlines a strategic workforce planning system and model, and 

discusses the roles and responsibilities of IRS and its divisions in this 

system. 

 8

 See U.S. General Accounting Office, Results-Oriented Cultures: Using Balanced 

Expectations to Manage Senior Executive Performance, GAO-02-966 (Washington, D.C: 

Sept. 27, 2002). 

9

 Strategic workforce plans are similar to an agency’s strategic plans under GPRA in that 

both types of plans include strategies for achieving annual and long-term goals and are 

linked to the strategic goals. See U.S. General Accounting Office, Managing for Results; 

Strengthening Regulatory Agencies Performance Management Practices, GAO/GGD-00-10

(Washington, D.C.: Oct. 28, 1999).

Status of Workforce 

Planning at IRS 
Page 8 GAO-03-711 Workforce Planning 

For example, IRS is to be responsible for developing the strategic 

workforce plan across IRS and for analyzing current and future workforce 

needs. The divisions are to be responsible for providing requested data to 

IRS’s workforce planning office and for translating the IRS-wide plan into 

their operations. Thus, a strategic workforce plan for a unit within a 

division could be developed by IRS, the division, or the unit. If developed 

by the division or unit, the workforce plan is to be consistent with IRSwide strategic and workforce plans. 

Our objective was to determine whether TEC has a workforce plan that 

conforms to the critical elements for what should be in a plan and how it 

should be developed and implemented. To meet this objective, we 

• reviewed human capital literature--including OPM’s Human Capital 

Assessment and Accountability Framework--as well as workforce 

planning models at OPM, OMB, and IRS, among others; 

• reviewed TIGTA and GAO reports on human capital and workforce 

planning; 

• reviewed IRS and SB/SE documents on their strategic program plans, 

the plan that guided TEC’s creation and initial staffing, and the annual 

TEC staffing plan as well as IRS’s draft IRM section on strategic 

planning and workforce analyses (section 6.251) as of March 2003; and 

• interviewed SB/SE and TEC officials on their goals, strategies, and 

staffing plans as well as IRS and SB/SE Workforce Council officials to 

determine their purposes, activities, time lines, and challenges. 

We conducted our work at IRS and SB/SE headquarters from February 

2003 through April 2003 in accordance with generally accepted 

government auditing standards. We did not attempt to analyze the 

adequacy of any analyses done to develop a workforce plan for TEC or the 

program goals and strategies. The Commissioner of IRS provided 

comments on a draft of this report, which are discussed in the “Agency 

Comments and Our Evaluation” section and are reprinted in appendix I. 

Objective, Scope, and 

Methodology 
Page 9 GAO-03-711 Workforce Planning 

Since its inception in October 2000, TEC has operated with short-term 

staffing plans that do not meet the critical elements of what a strategic 

workforce plan should include and how it should be developed. IRS and 

SB/SE are taking steps to develop a strategic workforce plan that will 

include TEC. However, questions remain about how the critical elements 

will be developed and implemented for TEC. 

TEC does not have a strategic workforce plan that includes the critical 

elements, such as analyses of the workforce gaps and strategies. Without 

such a workforce plan, TEC has less assurance that it has the necessary 

workforce to meet its current program goals and to manage changes in its 

programs and goals. IRS and SB/SE officials said that TEC does not have a 

strategic workforce plan because of the effort in creating the division and 

its units such as TEC to meet SB/SE taxpayer needs. These officials said 

this effort has been a significant undertaking, which delayed the 

workforce planning. SB/SE officials also said that they needed to have 

some experience with TEC as a new unit and some data on its new TEC 

workforce before developing a strategic workforce plan for TEC. 

Since its inception, TEC has operated under two types of staffing plans 

that did not use the critical elements of a workforce plan. One plan was 

developed prior to TEC’s creation in October 2000 to guide the hiring and 

allocation of 1,209 full-time positions for TEC.10 The other plan annually 

allocates the number of TEC staff to its various locations, functions (e.g., 

partnership outreach or marketing service) and four priorities (e.g., 

combat abusive tax schemes and promote electronic filing). Although both 

plans reflect analyses of the number of TEC staff by location, these plans 

did not address what a TEC workforce plan should include under the 

critical elements. For example, the plans did not identify any gaps in the 

workforce needed, any strategies to fill the gaps, or any measures for 

evaluation purposes. 

 10 For various reasons such as budget and recruitment difficulties, and program goal 

changes, TEC has not filled all these authorized positions and had 718 staff on board as of 

March 2003. TEC also has received 13 additional positions by assuming responsibility in 

November 2001 for promoting electronic filing. 

TEC Has Not Had a 

Strategic Workforce 

Plan and Questions 

Remain on How This 

Plan Will Be 

Developed and 

Implemented 

TEC Does Not Have a 

Workforce Plan That 

Includes the Critical 

Elements 
Page 10 GAO-03-711 Workforce Planning 

Recognizing the need for workforce planning, both IRS and SB/SE are 

developing strategic workforce plans and a planning process for TEC and 

other IRS entities that broadly reflect the critical elements. However, 

questions remain because of the lack of details on how any workforce plan 

for TEC will address the critical elements. 

IRS and SB/SE each convened workforce planning councils, consisting of 

executives and human capital managers, to oversee the development of a 

strategic workforce plan that would include TEC. IRS started its council in 

the fall 2001 at the direction of the IRS commissioner. SB/SE started its 

council in February 2003 to create a more detailed workforce plan for TEC 

and its other units than would be provided in the IRS-wide plan. 

Our review of IRS and SB/SE documents showed that they both intend to 

use the critical elements of strategic workforce planning. These 

documents include models and discussion that reference the critical 

elements. For example, these models refer to elements such as analyzing 

the gap in the workforce and developing strategies to reduce the 

workforce gap. 

Although IRS and SB/SE are taking steps to develop a strategic workforce 

plan for TEC, these steps have not yet produced enough details to specify 

how the critical elements will be developed and implemented for TEC. IRS 

and SB/SE officials said that they recognize the need to further define how 

the strategic workforce plan will be developed and implemented over 

time. 

For example, the degree to which top management and employees will be 

involved in developing and implementing the workforce plan for TEC is 

not yet clear. The draft IRM section refers to their involvement but does 

not provide details on the extent and nature of their involvement. 

As for identifying any workforce gaps at TEC, it is not clear what analyses 

will be done. As of April 2003, neither IRS nor SB/SE has analyzed the type 

of TEC workforce needed in the future to meet program goals or the skills 

of the current TEC workforce. Both types of analyses are needed to 

determine the gap between the current TEC workforce and the workforce 

needed in the future. Nor is it clear how and when these analyses will be 

done. SB/SE officials said that given resource limitations, they have not 

done the necessary workforce analyses for TEC or developed an 

implementation schedule for when the analyses would be done. 

IRS and SB/SE Are 

Developing a Workforce 

Plan for TEC, but 

Questions Remain 
Page 11 GAO-03-711 Workforce Planning 

As of April 2003, IRS or SB/SE analyses have dealt with other workforce 

issues. While useful, the analyses do not address the TEC workforce gap in 

terms of the skills needed now or in the future to meet program goals, 

particularly newer ones such as promoting electronic filing or negotiating 

voluntary compliance agreements. For example, 

• IRS has analyzed 12 mission-critical positions in terms of potential 

losses (e.g., retirement) from the current number of positions. These 

analyses have not focused on TEC because the analyses, as well as the 

eventual IRS-wide workforce plan, are intended to be done at a high 

level with minimal references to TEC.11

• SB/SE asked officials in TEC and its other units in February 2003 to 

use a checklist to self-assess their current workforce and planning 

capabilities against OPM criteria. SB/SE has not indicated how it will 

verify and use the subjective check marks made by the officials to 

determine workforce gaps in TEC, particularly in skills needed. 

• No analyses have been provided to justify plans for fiscal year 2004 to 

hire 250 additional staff in TEC to combat abusive tax schemes and to 

not hire any additional staff to address three other TEC goals. IRS and 

SB/SE workforce officials had told us that the 250 staff estimate came 

from the budget and finance staff in SB/SE. In a subsequent meeting 

during May 2003, TEC and SB/SE officials said that IRS has decided 

against any staff expansion in TEC due to other budget 

considerations. 

Finishing the analyses of TEC workforce gaps is important for the rest of 

the workforce plan. The other two critical elements involving strategies 

and evaluation cannot be finished until IRS and SB/SE know the specific 

needs of the current and future TEC workforces. 

As IRS and SB/SE officials develop and implement a workforce plan for 

TEC, major challenges are likely to arise. For example, these officials cited 

the challenge of balancing daily operational demands with the capacity to 

forecast workforce needs in terms of staff numbers, skills, and locations. 

Another challenge is gathering reliable data on the attrition, retirement, 

 11 Most of the analyses combine the tax specialist position with the tax resolution 

representative and tax compliance officer positions. Distinctions are important because the 

skills for these positions vary. Furthermore, the analyses do not break out the tax 

specialists who work in TEC from elsewhere in IRS. 
Page 12 GAO-03-711 Workforce Planning 

and skills of the current workforce to do analyses that are critical to 

workforce planning. IRS and SB/SE officials also pointed to budget 

fluctuations that could limit their strategies to close gaps in the workforce 

needed by TEC over time. For example, the budget may be insufficient to 

replace losses of TEC workforce skills due to retirement. Finally, they said 

that if the workforce plan could adversely affect current TEC employees, 

dealing with employee unions to address the concerns could be a 

challenge. We have reported on these and other challenges that any 

agency faces in doing successful workforce planning.12

As discussed in our previous reports, and echoed by OPM and OMB 

guidance, a strategic workforce plan enables an agency to identify gaps in 

its current and future needs, select strategies to fill the gaps, and evaluate 

the success of the plan to make revisions that may be needed to better 

meet program goals. Such a workforce plan does not yet exist for TEC. 

Without such a plan, TEC is less likely to have the right number of staff 

with the right skills in the right places at the right time to address its 

priorities. Further, it is difficult to justify budget and staffing requests if 

the workforce needs are not known. 

IRS and SB/SE have started taking steps to develop a strategic workforce 

plan for TEC based on the critical elements under OPM and OMB 

guidelines, and our guidelines for what a plan is to include and how it is to 

be developed and implemented. However, IRS and SB/SE have not yet 

identified many details on how the plan for TEC will incorporate the 

elements. Without these details, we cannot be certain that the critical 

elements will be used and contribute to the program goals. 

Given the uncertainty on how the workforce plan for TEC will be 

developed and implemented, we recommend that the Commissioner of 

Internal Revenue ensure that the workforce plan for TEC be developed in 

conformance with the critical elements for what a plan should include and 

how a plan should be developed and implemented. 

 12 See U.S. General Accounting Office, Acquisition Workforce: Status of Agency Efforts to 

Address Future Needs, GAO-03-55 (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 18, 2002). 

Conclusions 

Recommendation for 

Executive Action 
Page 13 GAO-03-711 Workforce Planning 

We requested comments on a draft of this report from IRS. The 

Commissioner of Internal Revenue provided written comments in a letter 

dated May 28, 2003. (See appendix I.) These comments neither explicitly 

agreed nor disagreed with our recommendation to ensure that a workforce 

plan for TEC is developed in conformance with the critical elements of 

what a plan should include and how it should be developed and 

implemented. 

The Commissioner did say that IRS strongly endorses the development of 

a strategic workforce plan and that IRS has made progress on this effort, 

listing eight steps that have been taken. The Commissioner also said that 

the steps were a set of integrated strategies that reflect IRS’s commitment 

to improve its workforce planning efforts and that they addressed the 

issues raised in our report. To the extent that IRS had told us about how 

these steps contributed to a workforce plan for TEC, our report discusses 

them when we describe IRS’s efforts to create such a plan using the 

critical elements. Although we believe that these steps are useful, we 

made our recommendation because we did not see enough details to be 

assured that a workforce plan for TEC would be sufficiently developed 

and implemented in accordance with the critical elements. 

We are encouraged that IRS strongly endorses development of a strategic 

workforce plan. We look forward to seeing a workforce plan for TEC. 

As we agreed with your staff, unless you publicly release the contents of 

this report earlier, we will not distribute it until 30 days after its issue date. 

At that time, we will send copies of this report to the Ranking Minority 

Member of the Senate Committee on Small Business and 

Entrepreneurship. We will also send copies to the Commissioner of 

Internal Revenue and other interested parties. We will make copies 

available to others on request. In addition, the report will be available at 

no charge on the GAO Web site at http://www.gao.gov. 

Agency Comments 

and Our Evaluation 
Page 14 GAO-03-711 Workforce Planning 

This report was prepared under the direction of Thomas Short, Assistant 

Director. Other major contributors include Catherine Myrick and Grace 

Coleman. If you have any questions or would like additional information, 

please contact me at (202) 512-9110 or brostekm@gao.gov or Thomas 

Short at (202) 512-9110 or www.shortt@gao.gov. 

Michael Brostek 

Director, Tax Issues 
Appendix I: Comments from the Internal Revenue Service 

Page 15 GAO-03-711 Workforce Planning 

Appendix I: Comments from the Internal 

Revenue Service 
Appendix I: Comments from the Internal Revenue Service 

Page 16 GAO-03-711 Workforce Planning (440185) 
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