IRS Wants to Reduce the
Time for Large Corporate Appeals

WASHINGTON - The Internal Revenue Service announced today a new initiative designed to increase customer satisfaction by reducing the time it takes to resolve cases in the IRS Appeals Office involving the nation’s largest corporations. The Appeals Office is an alternative to the courts for settling tax disputes. Examinations of these large corporations are done in the Coordinated Examination Program (CEP). CEP cases are very complex and the time to resolve the cases is normally lengthy. The new initiative for CEP cases is referred to as the Mutually Accelerated Appeals Process (MAAP).

This new initiative follows customer satisfaction surveys indicating the length of time to reach final resolution of an Appeals case needed improvement. The average time for a CEP case in Appeals is approximately 790 days. Last year, there were about 1,000 Appeals CEP cases.

Many CEP cases are now worked in a team environment in Appeals. Under the new MAAP initiative, Appeals will review current cases to determine where there is a potential for accelerating resolution of the case by adding team members, shifting workload among current team members or creating new teams. They will seek the commitment of the taxpayer or representative to participate in the accelerated process. Taxpayers must be able to add resources and accelerate the pace as needed. Appeals will assess the potential for using MAAP on new cases. Appeals will then coordinate with taxpayers or representatives to determine their willingness and capacity to participate in MAAP.

"I am confident that this initiative will have a substantial positive impact on the length of time it now takes for the largest, most complex cases to go through the Appeals process," said National Chief of Appeals Daniel L. Black, Jr. "With the cooperation of taxpayers and the professional tax community, the initiative can improve the efficiency of our large case program and increase the satisfaction of our customers."

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