It’s been well over a month since my last posting and I’m
feeling pretty guilty about it. Instead of having a typical slow January our
office started right off into tax season the first week. And we have been going
strong ever since. I guess that’s a good thing.
In previous postings I have, on occasion, been somewhat
critical of IRS employees. My experience with the local representatives has
rarely left me with good impressions in terms of training or knowledge. They
just don’t seem to be where they ought to be in order to do the best job for
the government, or the taxpayer, which in many cases is the same thing.
However I was recently handed a “paradigm shift”. I was
appointed to an IRS advisory committee and will be traveling to Wash. D.C. several times a year for the foreseeable future to work with IRS folks helping them implement new reporting laws. I was there for a few days last month working with IRS staff and others at the IRS national office, and came away with two conclusions: 1. Anyone working in the D.C. office of any organization is probably the smartest person in the room wherever they go, and 2. The people working for IRS in the national office are very hard working, intelligent, dedicated folks that are doing the best they can in the environment they are working in. I was definitely impressed by all the people I met back there.
There, I said it. However I still have a problem with the local talent.