Large projects are most successful when they're broken into small chunks, he says. And this one had better be successful. The stakes for the IRS are extremely high. If this project fails, the IRS will still collect taxes, but it'll be collecting them from increasingly angry taxpayers. If this project fails, the IRS will still collect taxes, but it'll be collecting them from increasingly angry taxpayers.
Angry taxpayers mean angry congressmen.
And angry congressmen mean budget cuts, media scrutiny and micromanagement. The law set taxpayer service goals for the agency that can only be accomplished with new technology. Congress wanted taxpayers to be able to access their accounts online, file electronically and receive straight answers to their tax questions via telephone the first time they ask. The IRS's current systems are decades old and hard to use. More than 200 accounting, research and auditing systems aren't integrated, so IRS agents can't even fix simple errors easily, much less tell whether it's their records or yours that are wrong.