CS-22-536 2023 LBI Domestic Survey Supporting Statement - updated

Supporting Statement

Request for Approval for the Customer Satisfaction Survey

(OMB Control Number: 1545-1432)

TITLE OF INFORMATION COLLECTION: 2023 LB&I Large Corporate Compliance (Domestic) Customer Satisfaction Survey

1. JUSTIFICATION

1. Circumstances Making the Collection of Information Necessary

As mandated by the Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998, the Large Business and International (LB&I) organization implemented a Service-wide effort to establish a system of balanced organizational performance measures. The new LB&I Balanced Measurement System rates LB&I, its managers and employees, on customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, and business results. This balanced measurement system draws on direct customer feedback, including independent surveys of customers and an annual census survey of employees. The customer satisfaction portion of these performance standards necessitates the identification of LB&I’s customers and mechanism(s) gauging the level of satisfaction with interactions and services of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Further, Executive Order 12862 requires all government agencies to survey their customers and incorporate customer preferences in their process improvement efforts.

LB&I serves a return population comprised of approximately 138,000 corporations and partnerships whose assets are in excess of ten million dollars. By surveying and analyzing this customer base, it will afford LB&I management the opportunity to make informed business decisions to improve upon customer satisfaction.

2. Purpose and Use of the Information Collection

The objective of the domestic customer satisfaction survey will be to gauge customer expectations and perceptions about LB&I services. Each customer surveyed will be given an opportunity to express their opinion about the services they have received. As customer satisfaction results are analyzed and program improvements are initiated by LB&I, additional interactions with internal and external customers may be required to obtain customer perspectives and fully understand any root causes for stagnant satisfaction levels and/or chronic areas of dissatisfaction.

The products of the surveys and survey data should provide specific, actionable results that may be used to guide process improvements. It should facilitate more effective management of LB&I by providing insight from the customer’s perspective about possible improvements for program evaluation and execution at the programmatic and field office level of service delivery.

Survey program priorities are to make the survey results relevant to LB&I executives, make the results actionable for managers, increase awareness of the results and recommendations of the surveys and increase dialogue on customer satisfaction improvement.

If this information is not collected, vital feedback from customers and stakeholders on the Agency’s services will be unavailable. The feedback received will not institute new policy, yet enable the IRS to meet taxpayer needs

3. Consideration Given to Information Technology

Electronic collection of the data is the primary option for the LB&I Domestic survey as it is conducted via online survey software.

4. Duplication of Information

This survey will provide valuable information that is not available in any internal IRS data source.

5. Reducing the Burden on Small Entities

LB&I customer base are corporations with $10 million or more in assets. Small entities are not affected by survey.

6. Consequences of Not Conducting Collection

Without these types of feedback, LB&I will not have timely information to adjust its services to meet customer needs.

7. Special Circumstances

There are no special circumstances. The information collected will be voluntary and will not be used for statistical purposes.

8. Consultations with Persons Outside the Agency

LB&I is consulting with a contractor Pacific Consulting Group (PCG) to conduct the survey.

9. Payment or Gift

LB&I will not provide payment or other forms of remuneration to survey respondents.

10. Privacy

All survey responses will be released only as summaries. No individual answers will be reported and survey responses will have no effect on individual tax accounts. Customers are under no obligation to participate or complete the survey, it is completely voluntary. However, the participation solicitation will encourage their participation so that their answers will help the IRS provide better service to the business community. Our contract with PCG authorizes them to collect taxpayer specific information. Therefore, responding to the survey is not an unauthorized disclosure of taxpayer information. Prior to taking the survey, each participant who would like to verify the authenticity of the survey request, may contact Keith Fowler, LB&I Program Analyst by email at keith.e.fowler@irs.gov.

11. Sensitive Nature

No questions will be asked that are of a personal or sensitive nature.

12. Burden of Information Collection

The estimated time to complete the survey is 10 minutes, but some variation in the length of time required to answer the survey is expected. Assuming a 13 percent response rate (total population of 3,000 contacted), the total annual burden hours requested (196.67 hrs) are based on the number of completed surveys we expect to obtain over the requested period for this clearance (collection start date: March 2023; collection end date: May 2023).

Category of Respondent	No. of Respondents	Participation Time	Burden
Customers Responding to the Survey	400	10 minutes	66.67 hours
Non-Responding Customers	2,600	3 minutes	130 hours
Totals			196.67 hours

13. Costs to Respondents

There is no dollar cost to respondents. The total estimated annual cost burden to respondents is $5,508.73 (196.67 x $28.01=$5,508.73). The surveys take place across the United States with a cross-section of individuals. This estimate was created using the mean hourly wage for all occupations ($28.01) from the BLS May 2021 National Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates - United States.

14. Costs to Federal Government

The estimated annual cost to the Federal government is $176,184. This is the cost of the contract with PCG.

15. Reason for Change

This is a new survey.

16. Tabulation of Results, Schedule, Analysis Plans

LB&I serves a return population comprised of approximately 138,000 corporations and partnerships whose assets are in excess ten million dollars. LB&I has been tasked to survey this group and create valid output to be used to determine the overall level of satisfaction of these group. By surveying and analyzing this customer base, it will afford LB&I management the opportunity to make informed business decisions to improve upon customer satisfaction.

Although LB&I does not intend to publish its findings, LB&I may receive requests to release the information (e.g., congressional inquiry, Freedom of Information Act requests). LB&I will disseminate the findings when appropriate, strictly following IRS’ "Guidelines for Ensuring the Quality of Information Disseminated to the Public.” and will include specific discussion of the limitation of the qualitative results discussed above.

17. Display of OMB Approval Date

We are requesting no exemption.

18. Exceptions to Certification for Paperwork Reduction Act Submissions

These activities comply with the requirements in 5 CFR 1320.9.

19. Dates Collection of Information Will Begin and End

March-May, each year from 2023-2025.

B. STATISTICAL METHODS

The primary purpose of these collections will be for internal management purposes; there are no plans to publish or otherwise release this information.

1. Universe and Respondent Selection

LB&I serves a return population comprised of approximately 138,000 corporations and partnerships whose assets are in excess ten million dollars. Customers are selected for audit using various classifying techniques with audits usually of one year extended as necessary. Large Corporate Compliance (LCC) customers are the most complex and audits are conducted by a team of revenue agents lead by a team coordinator along with assistance from field specialists. They are audited in cycles of multiple years and usually are audited every year. By surveying and analyzing this customer base, it will afford LB&I management the opportunity to make informed business decisions to improve upon customer satisfaction.

Customers whose audits are closed are selected to be surveyed.

2. Procedures for Collecting Information

The selected customers are mailed a pre note on IRS letterhead signed by the Director, Technology & Program Solutions. The pre note provides information about the reason for the survey, the contractor who is conducting the survey on our behalf and an LB&I program analyst contact information if they want to confirm the validity of the survey. The selected customers are then contacted via letter with a web link and the taxpayer completes the survey. See Attachment A for a copy of the pre note and Attachment B for the survey questions.

3. Methods to Maximize Response

Contractor uses social exchange principles to maximize survey response rates. These include establishing trust that the survey is legitimate, establishing the anonymity of the respondent, preparing a list of frequently asked questions to help address respondent concerns, explaining the value and uses of the survey data, making multiple contacts, using a respond-by date to help motivate timely responses, making it convenient to participate, and reduce participation burden.

4. Testing of Procedures

Contractor’s quality assurance process includes testing of all survey programming to ensure accuracy of content and to test programming logic and questionnaire length. IRS staff are invited to participate in the testing of questionnaires. In addition to testing the accuracy of the questionnaires, contractor administers customer pretests to a small subset of respondents to test comprehension of survey questions, questionnaire flow, and in the case of online surveys, visual appeal.

5. Contacts for Statistical Aspects and Data Collection

For questions regarding the study or discussion guide design, contact

Keith Fowler

Program Analyst, LB&I

Program Planning Coordination & Analysis

1301 Clay Street

Oakland CA

513-518-4905510-907-5290

Keith.E.Fowler@irs.gov

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