IRS How?

February 9, 2023 9:54 AM

Hi AskMe. This is not a question about trouble I'm having with the IRS, thank God, but more out of general interest. My taxes this year were thankfully simple, but I was intrigued by how the sausage gets made, so to speak.

I've been curious enough to look into the Internal Revenue Manual, which has a metric ton of (very dry) information about policies and procedures and processes. It makes reference to, for instance, "Command codes," and when I hear that I immediately think of someone sitting at an old-style terminal typing cryptically, but surely they don't have to do that anymore?

I guess I'm just wondering about insights into the whole process, from eFiling the return to dealing with trouble, what does the day to day look like, and so on? I have read some resources on the iRS site which are very high-level, and of course the IRM seems to have a lot of detail but it's hard to get the medium overview , I suppose.

I stumbled onto at least one conspiracy-flavored site which made reference to using an FOIA request to obtain your IRS master file, and suggested that they would deliverately try to make it difficult for you to read by printing things with an old printer... Anyway.

Just curious how the machine works, I guess. THanks for any insight :)

posted by Alensin to Law & Government (10 answers total)

Last year, the Washington Post published a totally fascinating article with a lot of photographs and a timeline depicting the process of dealing with tax returns. It looks like they print everything with an old printer, and then they put it in files in the former cafeteria! Not just as revenge, because they're underfunded, and underresourced. It doesn't look like they could afford a special FOIA printer.

That said, as a sighted person it was easy for me to access the whole multimedia article. I seem to recall that you are blind or have low vision - I don't know how this would perform for a screen reader! Fingers crossed that it will work well.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 10:40 AM on February 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

They are still on that cryptic system.
posted by theclaw at 10:42 AM on February 9, 2023

Best answer: BTW you may be interested in Richard Yancey's memoir about working at the IRS.
posted by brainwane at 10:57 AM on February 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

The Tax Policy Center is the go-to resource for, as it says on the box, tax policy. Here's their page on individual tax administration.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 12:19 PM on February 9, 2023

Way back when I was but a young pup, I was working a summer temp job for an agency, and they sent a bunch of us to an IRS facility for a couple days in SF.

All we did was basically sorting through the estimated taxes and mail, and we don't read them. The instructions are very simple. A machine sliced off the top, and we reach in and grab the content.

If it has a return and a check, verify the check's made to IRS or Dept of Teasury or something similar to that. If it doesn't stamp it with the "payable to Dept of Treasury" stamp. And they're sorted into piles.

If it has a letter, it goes into manual handling.

If it only has a check, or only has a return, manual handling.

If it is really going to Franchise Tax Board (California state tax) separate handling (a lot of people file both at the same thing, and even if they scratch out the address, they didn't scratch out the ZIp+4 barcode at the bottom)

You get the idea. Those who know ten-key do some tabulation. Then every 30 minutes they make a large bundle which goes to an automatic sorter/feeder.

I doubt it had gotten any better.
posted by kschang at 6:54 PM on February 9, 2023 [3 favorites]

Richard Yancey's book was an interesting and easy read.
posted by mmascolino at 9:19 AM on February 10, 2023

Response by poster: Thanks all. The memoire recommended above is definitely an interesting read. I'm enjoying the insider perspective quite a bit.
posted by Alensin at 10:42 AM on February 10, 2023

In short the IRM is the employee manual for how "we" (employees of the IRS) are to make use of the tax laws and processes for input into the various systems used to process taxes. Command codes are the six letter function codes that navigate the particular computer system (Internet Database Research System) used. These manuals and programs are proprietary to IRS and not readily accessible to public viewing. The language is very jargon heavy and insufficient for mastery if you have not had any training in operating programs used here because there would be no point in knowing it. As for requesting your transcripts' all of the last three years of your filings (sequential years, not chronological) are available for little to nothing but master files are useless to taxpayers as they are encrypted in language only the computer can decipher. They just reference what files are held within them' not what information is in each file.
Youd be a welcome addition to the staff. There is always hiring fairs at processing centers maybe you should look into becoming a tax Examiner.
posted by The_imp_inimpossible at 7:13 AM on February 11, 2023

Response by poster: LOL. Now I wonder whether a blind personc ould in fact work in that department. I know I remember hearing about blind IRS employees once...
posted by Alensin at 10:48 AM on February 11, 2023

It would be next to impossible since their are only braille versions of the 1040 available, not the computer software.
posted by The_imp_inimpossible at 3:34 PM on February 13, 2023