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Internal Revenue Service
As a bureau of the Department of the Treasury and as one of the world's most efficient tax administrators, the IRS role is to help the large majority of compliant taxpayers with the tax law, while ensuring that the minority who are unwilling to comply pay their fair share. (Source: www.irs.gov)
This forum will allow you to share and ask job-related questions about this bureau. This is NOT the place to ask tax questions.
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Originally Posted by: Krystal458  what if they audit your taxes and you made a mistake on something? can you file an amended return and fix it, are you automatically disqualified? I was audited when I started. I met with a tax compliance officer in another city (about 60 miles from my office) and had to supply documents to support certain deductions. I had a lot of medical expenses that year and I couldn't find/hadn't saved all of my receipts. I ended up paying some tax and a penalty. You will not have to fix or amend your return if they have an adjustment due to an audit. They will assess the additional tax and you'll have to pay it. Also, they will not disqualify you for honest mistakes made on your taxes prior to being hired. After you're hired though, you will want to make sure that there are no mistakes on your taxes. We are held to a very high standard and they will take disciplanary action for not filing a correct return.
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Originally Posted by: Rev Agent  Originally Posted by: Krystal458  what if they audit your taxes and you made a mistake on something? can you file an amended return and fix it, are you automatically disqualified? I was audited when I started. I met with a tax compliance officer in another city (about 60 miles from my office) and had to supply documents to support certain deductions. I had a lot of medical expenses that year and I couldn't find/hadn't saved all of my receipts. I ended up paying some tax and a penalty. You will not have to fix or amend your return if they have an adjustment due to an audit. They will assess the additional tax and you'll have to pay it. Also, they will not disqualify you for honest mistakes made on your taxes prior to being hired. After you're hired though, you will want to make sure that there are no mistakes on your taxes. We are held to a very high standard and they will take disciplanary action for not filing a correct return. Wow! My returns were pretty straightforward and simple so I'm not worried about that part.
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Originally Posted by: Nathan Drake  Originally Posted by: jaylakent 
This is an excellent synopsis/example. I ditto the above. Why did you leave RA NathanDrake?? Are you still in service or just switch jobs internally?
I left the IRS and became a Special Agent with another Federal agency (that just happens to have Service in its name). I always wanted a career in law enforcement but with my crazy schedule now plus working too many weekends, holidays, and midnight shifts, I just want to get back to a normal schedule of Monday thru Friday so that's why i applied to the IRS. Also, I will do anything to get back to FL and away from the the Northeast winters. I am happy that the RA position journeymans at grade 12 since I will be taking a pay-cut since I am currently a 13 step 7. You should get pay retention for at least 1-2 years I think, no? You will have to ask for it since you aren't an IRS hire, but you should qualify I believe.
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Originally Posted by: slowpoke  Originally Posted by: Krystal458  what if they audit your taxes and you made a mistake on something? can you file an amended return and fix it, are you automatically disqualified? They don't audit your tax returns they make sure you paid on time no extensions. Not true. Someone will review your tax returns for prior 2-3 years. If there is audit potential, the returns are sent to the field for exam. Simple W-2 returns, no Sch. A/C/E, likely never even hear from the service about it. Others might meet an Office Auditor (TCO) or a Revenue Agent, depending on the return complexity. The audit will transpire exactly like a normal examination. Assuming no fraud is found, it doesn't affect your employability. I was audited when I started, had changes to one year which I agreed to. Paid the bill and closed the case. I have also done an employee audit as an RA due to the return complexity. The tax check is what SlowPoke referred to. Prior to hire, they will run your transcripts for prior tax years to make sure that you have paid any outstanding balances. I don't know if they will hire on someone with a balance on Installment Agreement, but if there is a currently unpaid debt or unfiled returns, those will need to be corrected prior to hire.
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Originally Posted by: YoungGunner  Originally Posted by: Nathan Drake  Originally Posted by: jaylakent 
This is an excellent synopsis/example. I ditto the above. Why did you leave RA NathanDrake?? Are you still in service or just switch jobs internally?
I left the IRS and became a Special Agent with another Federal agency (that just happens to have Service in its name). I always wanted a career in law enforcement but with my crazy schedule now plus working too many weekends, holidays, and midnight shifts, I just want to get back to a normal schedule of Monday thru Friday so that's why i applied to the IRS. Also, I will do anything to get back to FL and away from the the Northeast winters. I am happy that the RA position journeymans at grade 12 since I will be taking a pay-cut since I am currently a 13 step 7. You should get pay retention for at least 1-2 years I think, no? You will have to ask for it since you aren't an IRS hire, but you should qualify I believe. If I get hired, I would start as an 11-10 then after a year go to a 12-10. When I can apply for a 13 and if I get it, i would go back to my 13-7 or maybe step 8 if its been more than 3 years from when I got my step 7.
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New job posting on usajobs for tax exempt revenue agents. Start date 5/12/2019.
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Originally Posted by: YoungGunner  Originally Posted by: slowpoke  Originally Posted by: Krystal458  what if they audit your taxes and you made a mistake on something? can you file an amended return and fix it, are you automatically disqualified? They don't audit your tax returns they make sure you paid on time no extensions. Not true. Someone will review your tax returns for prior 2-3 years. If there is audit potential, the returns are sent to the field for exam. Simple W-2 returns, no Sch. A/C/E, likely never even hear from the service about it. Others might meet an Office Auditor (TCO) or a Revenue Agent, depending on the return complexity. The audit will transpire exactly like a normal examination. Assuming no fraud is found, it doesn't affect your employability. I was audited when I started, had changes to one year which I agreed to. Paid the bill and closed the case. I have also done an employee audit as an RA due to the return complexity. The tax check is what SlowPoke referred to. Prior to hire, they will run your transcripts for prior tax years to make sure that you have paid any outstanding balances. I don't know if they will hire on someone with a balance on Installment Agreement, but if there is a currently unpaid debt or unfiled returns, those will need to be corrected prior to hire. I wonder if this is hiring specific to RA's. When I was working previously for the service I never heard a peep.
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If you are hired, you will receive an audit. If you don't have much other than W2 wages, you probably won't hear anything. If you have a Schedule C or capital gains/losses, large itemized deductions, etc - then you will get correspondence. I was audited when I was hired, and they tried to disallow a capital loss I had, it was a mess trying to help the TCO understand the carry-forward loss. I know personally I have audited several employees who got new jobs within the IRS or recently hired. It's just like any other exam.
Right now it's frustrating environment - not a lot of promotions for journey level employees, but seems thousands of upper level promotion opportunities. We have 5 managers for 4 employees - or 30 subject matter experts and no exams being conducted. People can't work because of computer problems - months to fix technology issues. I know in our area, I was told they did not have any applicants at some POD's - and can't fill jobs externally. People on outside don't seem to want to work for government?? Anyone have any insight why there is such a low application rate for RA's?? Is it the pay? The political environment?
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Originally Posted by: jaylakent  If you are hired, you will receive an audit. If you don't have much other than W2 wages, you probably won't hear anything. If you have a Schedule C or capital gains/losses, large itemized deductions, etc - then you will get correspondence. I was audited when I was hired, and they tried to disallow a capital loss I had, it was a mess trying to help the TCO understand the carry-forward loss. I know personally I have audited several employees who got new jobs within the IRS or recently hired. It's just like any other exam.
Right now it's frustrating environment - not a lot of promotions for journey level employees, but seems thousands of upper level promotion opportunities. We have 5 managers for 4 employees - or 30 subject matter experts and no exams being conducted. People can't work because of computer problems - months to fix technology issues. I know in our area, I was told they did not have any applicants at some POD's - and can't fill jobs externally. People on outside don't seem to want to work for government?? Anyone have any insight why there is such a low application rate for RA's?? Is it the pay? The political environment? I think it’s a mixture of both pay and political environment. But I think mostly political environment at this point. When you have folks saying I’m proud to shut the government down if I don’t get what I want. That’s for sure a deterrent when it comes to people wanting to work for the government. A lot of people don’t think in the long term they think in the here and now. So they don’t realize it won’t always be like this and people won’t be in office forever.
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Just out of curiosity if the government does shut down, do you end up getting back pay once it's back up and running, or is it essentially unpaid leave?
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Originally Posted by: TestPilot  Just out of curiosity if the government does shut down, do you end up getting back pay once it's back up and running, or is it essentially unpaid leave? Historically permanent and career conditional employees have gotten back pay.
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Originally Posted by: jaylakent  Right now it's frustrating environment - not a lot of promotions for journey level employees, but seems thousands of upper level promotion opportunities. We have 5 managers for 4 employees - or 30 subject matter experts and no exams being conducted. People can't work because of computer problems - months to fix technology issues. I know in our area, I was told they did not have any applicants at some POD's - and can't fill jobs externally. People on outside don't seem to want to work for government?? Anyone have any insight why there is such a low application rate for RA's?? Is it the pay? The political environment? I think there are two primary reasons for the low response rate of applicants: 1- The economy is booming right now. Jobs are plentiful and wages are rising (slowly but still.) People don't want to give up the money for the security that accounts for much of the compensation in a federal job. This exact same thing happened in the mid/late 2000's. No one wanted to apply because the economy was doing great. I was the only person in a graduating class of 30 accountants that applied when this position was made available back then. The economy was just starting to turn down in 2008/2009 and so everyone thought they would be making 60k out of school working for a local CPA firm. Two years later, I was one of 3 people from that class who had a job. Everyone else was stuck with positions paying $14/hour and requiring 2-3 years experience, CPA preferred. I'm not an economist, but the indicators are there for at least a short recessionary period again (I'm looking at you stock market) and people will be out there looking for work again. Unfortunately for the service, that just isn't the case right now. 2- The IRS does an absolutely terrible job promoting these positions and themselves. This is a function of budgetary issues primarily. We just don't have the money to hold or attend job fairs. We don't have recruiters, so if people aren't actively looking on USAjobs, they likely won't ever even know we're hiring. And even if they do, the information on the job and benefits are limited unless you know where to look. Couple that with the fact that we hire twice a decade, it just makes timing the whole thing very difficult. We should be hiring as needed, as a constant function of the budgeted spending, but we can't. It takes years and years to save the resources to hire and train new people so we rely on these one time mass hirings that may or may not be effective.
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If I applied to multiple POD’s is there a separate interview for each one? I mean if I am put on their referred list obviously. One of my locations I am no longer interested in (a cross country move that’s no longer on the table). So if they call me to interview do I just tell them no thanks, and hopefully still be called to interview at one of my preferred locations?
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Originally Posted by: cooljul  If I applied to multiple POD’s is there a separate interview for each one? I mean if I am put on their referred list obviously. One of my locations I am no longer interested in (a cross country move that’s no longer on the table). So if they call me to interview do I just tell them no thanks, and hopefully still be called to interview at one of my preferred locations? The same interview is good for all POD's you applied to. At least that's how it was for me last time around. I interviewed at the local IRS office closest to me (though I didn't apply to that office since there were no openings). So I would imagine they will have you interview at the POD closest to you even if you didn't apply there, and that interview will be used for all POD's you applied to.
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“2- The IRS does an absolutely terrible job promoting these positions and themselves. This is a function of budgetary issues primarily. We just don't have the money to hold or attend job fairs. We don't have recruiters, so if people aren't actively looking on USAjobs, they likely won't ever even know we're hiring. And even if they do, the information on the job and benefits are limited unless you know where to look.” I definitely agree about doing a terrible job promoting the positions. I wouldn’t have known had I not met someone on Facebook that works for the IRS. Edited by user Thursday, December 20, 2018 11:01:32 AM(UTC)
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Funny thing happened with me - I took the assessment for this job and the Revenue Officer job about the same time. Got a Category B on this assessment, but a Category A on the Revenue Officer job.
I'd be happy with either job though, so I'm satisfied with that.
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Originally Posted by: CPAHopefull  Funny thing happened with me - I took the assessment for this job and the Revenue Officer job about the same time. Got a Category B on this assessment, but a Category A on the Revenue Officer job.
I'd be happy with either job though, so I'm satisfied with that. Aren't they quite different assessments? Good luck to you anyway with the volume of RA's they need I wouldn't discount the CAt B rating at all.
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Originally Posted by: CPAHopefull  Funny thing happened with me - I took the assessment for this job and the Revenue Officer job about the same time. Got a Category B on this assessment, but a Category A on the Revenue Officer job.
I'd be happy with either job though, so I'm satisfied with that. I haven't gotten the results of the Revenue Officer assessment yet. When did you tske it?
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Originally Posted by: cooljul  Originally Posted by: CPAHopefull  Funny thing happened with me - I took the assessment for this job and the Revenue Officer job about the same time. Got a Category B on this assessment, but a Category A on the Revenue Officer job.
I'd be happy with either job though, so I'm satisfied with that. Aren't they quite different assessments? Good luck to you anyway with the volume of RA's they need I wouldn't discount the CAt B rating at all. Yeah, they were completely different formats. I personally liked the format of the Revenue Officer test a lot better. Maybe that's why I did better on that one.
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Originally Posted by: DRam2500  Originally Posted by: CPAHopefull  Funny thing happened with me - I took the assessment for this job and the Revenue Officer job about the same time. Got a Category B on this assessment, but a Category A on the Revenue Officer job.
I'd be happy with either job though, so I'm satisfied with that. I haven't gotten the results of the Revenue Officer assessment yet. When did you tske it? It seems like I took mine in the first couple of days of December - I don't remember the exact date at this time.
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