 internal revenue service IRS tax news new IRS strategic plan agency issues five-year plan with goal to help taxpayers help taxpayers empty their pockets that is oh empty the taxpayers pockets into like the IRS's pockets let's do this the big guy needs a new pair of shoes I I don't know what happened to my last pair I seem to lose shoes faster than some people lose laptops but no worries that's what the IRS is for that's why we implemented the five-year plan because the big guy wants a super expensive pair of shoes this time possibly a backup pair of super expensive shoes too the press secretary keeps asking president Biden please stop playing with your food you stop playing with your food but he can't help it he's really feeling his oats literally I'm feeling my oats share the oats please stop Mr. President you're making a mess but I for one am totally okay with president Biden feeling his oats however I do think we should draw the line when he starts grabbing ours get your grubby hands off our oats we've already given you far more oats than you need to play with over there man come on man if you try making that oatmeal castle in your bowl any larger it'll just fall over again behavior they just do it over and over and over again haven't you learned from the last thousand times IR 2022-142 July 20th 2022 Washington the internal revenue service today released a new five-year strategic plan that outlines its goals to improve taxpayers service and tax administration the IRS strategic plan fiscal year 2022 through 2026 there's a link to that year will serve as a road map to help guide the agency's programs and operations the plan will also help meet the changing needs of taxpayers and members of the tax community quote through the strategic plan we want to share our priorities and how to shape the important work that takes place at the IRS year in and year out to help taxpayers and quote said IRS commissioner Chuck Reddick quote we serve and interact with more Americans than nearly any other public or private organization which isn't really surprising the collection arm of the government serves quite closely with many Americans more closely than they would like oftentimes but in any case the IRS has gone undergoing tremendous change over the last five years and we continue to evolve to better serve the nation's taxpayers and quote the strategic plan developed with input from external partners as well as IRS employees focuses on four goals that will help improve customer service now these goals are the kind of goals that are really kind of very broad goals they don't have a lot of specificity in my opinion to them meaning I would look at these goals and say they're kind of like political goals right they're kind of generic goals that almost any organization can basically say that they're going for but they're not pointing to any actual measurable thing that you can help to determine whether or not you're getting closer to the goal so that you can then pick and choose it seems to me would be the objective of a political goal in the future you can pick and choose anything that kind of looks good or it was is in your narrative kind of thing instead of having a targeted goal that you can kind of aim for now I might be being unfair here because you could dive into the specifics of the strategic plan and see if there are more measurable goals but clearly if you're trying to reach a goal personally or in an organization you want to make the goal you know measurable know whether you're not you're getting closer to it and so on so these are kind of a like if you ever heard a mission statement of a generic company that says well we're just going to make a goal that we're going to help out the shareholders and just generate revenue or something like that that's you know way too broad so it's a generic mission plan you would think but in any case that's just my personal criticism because like the first one service provide quality index and accessible services to enhance the taxpayers experience I mean that could be just any organization serves the people in some way at some point so you can apply that generic goal to any organization there's no really measurable component I mean how would we know if the service is improving if your quality is going up and so on you know so it seems kind of broad and generic to me so enforcement and force the tax law it's fairly and efficiently to increase voluntary compliance and narrow the tax gap so that's kind of the objective of the IRS they should be putting in the tax law in such a way that it's fair because if people perceive the process to be fair for everybody they're going to be more willing to pay the taxes and and work within the system it would also be nice if the people spending the money would spend it efficiently but that's kind of outside of the taxpayers control but again that seems somewhat broad I mean how exactly are you going to make it more fair I mean how can we measure whether something is getting more or less fair you know what are the what are the steps that are being taken can we see these steps going forward but anyway people foster and inclusive diverse and well-equipped workforce and strengthen relationships with our external partners again that's that could be just a generic you know statement on almost any corporation could put that in play and you could say yeah I mean that's like a buzzword these days foster inclusive diverse and well-equipped workforce well of course we want laws that are you know inclusive we want the people to be able to hire the people you need that have the skills to do what you need to do well-equipped obviously we'd want to be well-equipped how exactly how exactly are you doing that could we measure how you know how that you know how but it could transformation transform IRS operations to become a more resilient agile and responsive to improve taxpayer experience and narrow the tax gap so again you got said obviously any organization would love to be more resilient and agile and responsive to improve taxpayer experience those those words are the broadest words I mean they could be applied to any any kind of generic organization so to me these look an awful like lot like basically political goals that don't actually narrow down the actual objectives so that you can pick and choose certain things in the future that look good or bad but maybe I'm not being fair that you can make your own judgment and possibly they're more specific I would hope if you if you break down the IRS strategic plan and more depth and giving some more goals that are giving us some some terms that we can actually shoot for and and measure whether or not we're getting close to it so in any case as the IRS works to achieve these goals it will continue to uphold taxpayer rights and enforce the tax code fairly and improve taxpayer experience under the taxpayer bill of rights there's a link to that here every taxpayers has fundamental rights of which they should be aware when dealing with the agency there's a link to that and there's a link to this strategic plan as well if you want to go into it in more detail there'll be a link to this in the description