EXPOSED
The bulk of this work — matching reported income against third-party data, flagging arithmetic and eligibility errors, sending deficiency notices, computing interest and penalties, and processing correspondence audits — is structured data comparison that automated matching systems already do at scale and that AI extends further. What survives is the enforcement tier: field audits of complex business books, interviewing taxpayers and representatives, exercising statutory discretion on offers in compromise, liens, levies, and penalty abatement, and defending findings in appeals. Score reflects the modal examiner doing desk review; senior revenue agents auditing partnerships and corporations sit materially higher.
Core tasks are already automatable. The modal examiner's day is comparing a 1040 against W-2s and 1099s, recomputing EITC eligibility, issuing CP2000 and CP-series notices, and closing correspondence audits from a queue — work the IRS's own Automated Underreporter and math-error programs already do without a human, which is why this sits at 6 rather than the 10-12 a field revenue agent reconstructing a partnership's books would earn.
Some physical or field component. Above pure desk work because field collection and field audit mean going to the taxpayer's place of business to inspect records, inventory, and assets, serving levies and seizing property, and occasional site visits with a POA present — but that's a minority of positions and the rest is a terminal, IDRS, and a phone, holding it to 5.
Certification preferred, not legally required. There is no licence to examine returns for the government — Revenue Agent positions require 30 semester hours of accounting, not a CPA, and the assessment is the Service's, not the individual's — but delegated authority under IRC 6320/6330 and 7122 means a specific examiner's signature attaches to liens, levies, and compromise acceptances and is reviewable in Appeals and Tax Court, which is what earns 8 instead of 3.
Anonymous artifact production. Taxpayers do not choose their examiner and most never learn a name beyond a badge number on a letter; the repeat-relationship element that exists — working the same representative or corporate tax department across a multi-year LB&I cycle — is thin and reassignable, so 5.
Meaningful discretion. Real discretion exists in reasonable-cause penalty abatement, evaluating collectibility on an offer in compromise, and deciding whether to expand an audit's scope, but it is exercised inside the IRM with mandatory managerial approval thresholds, DATL review, and Appeals as a backstop, which keeps this at 10 rather than the 15+ of someone whose call is final and unreviewed.
Personal Financial Advisors EXPOSED
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