Overview
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report today finding that the current IRS procedures increase the risk that the IRS could select exempt organizations for examination in an unfair manner. The report highlights concerns over failure to publish selection criteria and poor documenting of selection decisions. The GAO made several recommendations, including that the IRS ensure, moving forward, that all selection procedures are included in the Internal Revenue Manual—which is available to the public—and that any deviations from such published procedures are subject to executive management approval. The report also provides detailed statistics about the sources of examinations and the percentage of organizations of various types that are examined.