IRS employees can be exposed to dangerous situations in their interactions with the public but not all IRS employees have sufficient knowledge of the employee protection programs that the agency administers, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration has said.
The IRS has an Office of Employee Protection, the Potentially Dangerous Taxpayer, and Caution Upon Contact programs to improve its ability to identify taxpayers who represent a potential danger to IRS employees. They are adequately controlled but some employees who have direct contact with taxpayers do not have sufficient knowledge of them.
TIGTA said it found several threatening incidents by taxpayers that were not reported, and other circumstances where training courses and internal guidance for these employees were incomplete or inaccurate.
Just 15 percent of employees interviewed said they had received specific training on the programs, and TIGTA said the OEP is misaligned because it is located within the office that focuses on taxpayer compliance activities and not the office whose responsibilities include employee safety.
IRS management agreed to establish processes to ensure that all front-line employees receive annual PDT and CAU criteria training as well as to determine where the OEP should be aligned in the organizational structure to enhance its mission of providing agency-wide services.