The Internal Revenue Service successfully carried out
three tests in 2004 to evaluate the main sources or error
related to the earned income tax credit, but it failed
to document enough detail to facilitate managerial
review, stakeholder oversight as well as to describe the
status of the 2005 evaluation plans, the Government
Accountability Office has said.
It said a qualifying child test, filing status test,
and income misreporting test all “proceeded smoothly and
largely as planned,” although, “some information, such
as a key change in the filing status test, was not well
documented and the level and quality of some services
provided to test participants were not measured.”
“This lack of documentation hindered monitoring, oversight,
and did not foster a common understanding of the tests,”
according to GAO-05-92.
It said however that IRS made some changes for the 2005
test. For example, IRS changed the qualifying child test
to get filers to certify their status before hand, and to
get an idea of how that might work on a nationwide scale —
and it changed the sample selection criteria on the filing
status test to better identify noncompliant filers.
The tests could have been more useful to managers and
stakeholders if the 2004 test evaluation plans had more
documentation and detail on several key issues, said GAO.
It said the evaluation plan is essentially the management
plan for evaluating the entire endeavor and noted that IRS
initiated two of the 2005 tests without complete
evaluation plans.
