IRS Overhaul

The sharp increase in the number oftaxpayers who file returns electronically,along with several other technologicaladvances, is allowing the IRS to parehundreds of jobs by closing some tax-returnprocessing operations and consolidatingback-office staff. The flipside isthat the agency is going to use some ofthe money it saves to hire more enforcementstaffers, who will be assigned totrack down taxpayers who take advantageof suspect tax shelters and offshoretax scams. The number of agents in theIRS enforcement division has droppedmore than 28% between 1996 and 2002,but the cuts in other operations areaswill allow the agency to add back morethan 2200 of those jobs.