B-261038

agreed with our recommendations, but suggested wording changes in the recommendations to clarify their intent. We have made the wording changes the IRS officials suggested.

In their comments on a draft of this report, IRS officials pointed out that a process owner-the Assistant Commissioner for Taxpayer Services-had been assigned ownership responsibility for all of the interactive telephone systems in June 1995. They said that the Assistant Commissioner's responsibilities included coordinating requirements and overseeing the development of interactive telephone systems that involved more than one core business system. Assigning a senior official ownership responsibility for all of the interactive telephone systems should help to avoid the kinds of problems we identified with those systems.

The IRS officials said that, to address our concerns on a broader basis, the Modernization Executive-the official who has overall responsibility for IRS' TSM efforts-has been charged with directing, prioritizing, and coordinating any projects dealing with modernization, including those that support Customer Service. The IRS officials also said core business system owners have responsibility for identifying process owners for processes within their core business system. However, they emphasized that the Modernization Executive is responsible for making sure that any change efforts that involve more than one core business system, including TSM projects, are not adversely affected by the overlap. We believe that assigning the Modernization Executive responsibility for ensuring that TSM projects involving more than one core business system are not adversely affected by the overlap should, if properly carried out, accomplish the intent of our recommendations.

In accordance with 31 U.S.C. section 720, I am writing you concerning actions by the Internal Revenue Service in response to the recommendations contained in a report by the General Accounting Office entitled "The 1995 Tax Filing Season: IRS Performance Indicators Provide Incomplete Information About Some Problems" (GGD-96-48; December 29, 1995).

The GAO report contains several recommendations geared to addressing the IRS' performance during the 1995 tax filing season. Specifically, this report focuses on (1) the processing of individual income tax returns and refunds, including information on the IRS' efforts to combat refund fraud; (2) the ability of taxpayers to reach the IRS by telephone; and (3) the performance of a new computer system for processing returns.

Our November 13, 1995, response to GAO on the draft of this report is included in the enclosed final report beginning on page 18. We are in general agreement with the final GAO report on validating Social Security Numbers and delaying refunds. As stated by GAO, our criteria have been refined and the number of taxpayers who have a refund delayed will be substantially reduced as compared to last year. As noted in the report, GAO agrees there is no need to revise the refund timeliness computation since the volume of delayed refunds will be substantially decreased.

We do not agree with GAO's draft report recommendation that the IRS develop, for inclusion in the key filing season performance indicators, a measure of taxpayer assistance accessibility that focuses on the number of incoming calls and/or the number of taxpayers calling for assistance; however, the IRS has made a commitment to increase access for taxpayers who need assistance. The Executive Officer for Customer Service Operations has formed a group, chaired by the District Director of Nashville, Tennessee, to evaluate existing and proposed Customer Service Measures in time for our 1998 budget submission. Also, the IRS Business Master Plan does measure (beginning in FY 1996) access on a Servicewide level. We are close to