OMB Package
A Customer Satisfaction Study for Taxpayers using
IRS.gov Interactive Tax Assistant (ITA)
Introduction
In order to evaluate the service provided by the IRS.gov web site, the IRS is interested in determining levels of customer satisfaction with the service being provided to taxpayers who use the Interactive Tax Assistant (ITA) application on the IRS’ Internet web site, www.IRS.gov. As part of the ITA application pilot, only seven ITA topics will be implemented.
Objectives of Research
The objectives of this research are to:
Determine taxpayers’ customer satisfaction with ITA on the IRS.gov web site.
Determine areas of possible improvement with ITA on IRS.gov.
Methodology
An on-line web based survey will be used to gather taxpayer’s input regarding the effectiveness of the ITA. Survey responses will gauge if taxpayers received the needed information, the usefulness of that information and the ease of navigating through ITA.
The survey package is being forwarded to OMB for approval. Attachment 1 contains the survey for the study.
The survey will be an on-line survey taken when the survey participants access ITA on IRS.gov. At the bottom of each ITA answer page, a four question survey is displayed. Participation in the survey is completely optional.
Sample Design
The population will include all taxpayers who access the ITA on IRS.gov. The rough estimate for site visits for the ITA (which will pilot only 7 topics) is 51,500 for calendar year 2010. It is expected that 1% of the taxpayers will participate in a web survey.
Data Collection Date
This is an on-going survey starting in February 2010 with an end date of December 2010. At that point, the survey questions will be updated and resubmitted for OMB approval.
Data to be collected
This survey will collect customers’ overall satisfaction with the ITA topics in the ITA Content Area on the IRS.gov web site.
How data will be used
Data will be used to evaluate taxpayers’ satisfaction and identify areas for improvement for the ITA application on the IRS.gov web site.
With regards to the low response rate, the IRS will assume that all data collected from this survey is qualitative in nature, and that no critical decisions will be made by this office solely from the analysis of data from this survey. The results from this survey are simply one piece of a larger set of information needed to assess the needs related to services provided by the IRS.
How data will be analyzed
Analysis of the survey data will be conducted by Wage & Investment (W&I), Customer Account Services (CAS). Data secured from the responding participants will be tabulated by WebTrends. WebTrends is a Web analytics tool which collects and presents information about user behavior on web sites. WebTrends will provide weekly and monthly Excel reports which will be provided to the W&I CAS.
Who is conducting research?
The research will be conducted on IRS.gov via survey application. After survey participants complete the survey and click submit, the response data will be sent to WebTrends. From WebTrends, automated weekly and monthly reports will be sent to W&I CAS.
Cost of Study
The one-time cost for this survey and the survey weekly and monthly reports is $227,205.
Location
This survey will be fielded via the Internet.
Stipend
Survey participants will not be paid a stipend for participation.
Burden Hours
The survey contains four questions. All the questions are simple multiple choice. The survey should take approximately 30 seconds. Based on an estimated response rate of 1% and using the 2008 web traffic statistics (51,500 page views for 7 ITA topics), the burden hours are 4.29 hours. With regard to the low response rate, the IRS will assume that all data collected from this survey is qualitative in nature, and that no critical decisions will be made by this office solely from the analysis of data from this survey. The results from this survey are simply one piece of a larger set of information needed to assess the needs related to services provided by the IRS.
See below:
A one percent (1%) response rate for 51,500 taxpayers (based on 2008 web traffic statistics) could potentially yield 515 respondents.
For those survey respondents (515), the survey will be 30 seconds, which would yield 15,450 seconds (515 respondents/30 second) or 257.50 minutes (5,450 second/60 minutes) a year.
As a result, the total burden hours for the study would be 257.50 minutes divided by 60 minutes = 4.29 burden hours.
Efforts to not duplicate research
This research will provide original information because no current information exists on taxpayer’s satisfaction with an IRS probe and response type tool.
Privacy, Security, Disclosures, Anonymity
The tabulated response returned to the IRS W&A CAS ITA content owners will not have any form of identifying information relating specific records to individual taxpayers. CAS personnel will ensure that privacy, security, and anonymity of the aggregated results will receive utmost attention. The computer files containing this tabulated information will remain password protected at all times.
Attachment 1
Questionnaire for the survey
| File Type | application/msword |
| File Title | OMB Package |
| Author | 401fb |
| Last Modified By | mdsloa00 |
| File Modified | 2009-09-16 |
| File Created | 2009-09-16 |