The IRS Wage and Investment Division

About the IRS Wage and Investment Division

The IRS Wage and Investment Division handles roughly ninety million tax returns for individual and married taxpayers. The IRS Wage and Investment Division primarily works with taxpayers that fall under a particular tax profile. Taxpayers that receive W-2 wages, who are employees, and who pay their taxes through withholdings generally fall within the profile that the IRS Wage and Investment Division is responsible for helping. Most taxpayers who contact this division do not do so more than once a year. Finally, many taxpayers associated with the IRS Wage and Investment Division will receive a refund as a result of excess withholdings. The IRS collects third party information from these taxpayers in the form of W2s filed by their employers and information taken from banks, brokerage houses, and other third parties.

When it comes to administration and ensuring compliance, the IRS Wage and Investment Division’s primary purpose to ensure that returns are prepared correctly. The main tool used by the division to check this is by matching the information contained on an individual taxpayer’s return with that information that is provided by third parties. The division also rechecks taxpayer returns to ensure that credits and deductions have been properly claimed and that income information has been properly reported to the IRS. Any misstatements to the Wage and Investment Division are handled through a CP-2000 letter, which notifies the taxpayer that the information provided on the return does not match the information that the IRS has on file as well as listing any changes that the IRS proposes to make to an individual return.

The IRS Wage and Investment Division headquarters office provides strategic and operational direction, which includes managing internal support processes. “The Headquarters Operations and functional operations work together to manage the full cycle of interaction with W&I customers. They have the authority, responsibility, and expertise to oversee current operations and improve business practices and strategies.” [1]

• Key Operations within the Wage and Investment Division include: Strategy and Finance; Equity, Diversity and Inclusion; Communications and Liaison; Return Integrity & Correspondence Services; and Office of Program Coordination & Integration.

• Key Offices include: Customer Assistance, Relationships and Education (CARE); Customer Account Services (CAS); Compliance; and Return Integrity and Correspondence Services (RICS). Each office is responsible for providing support and assistance to customers; processing submissions and payments; assisting taxpayers in fulfilling their tax obligations; and working in partnership to carry out strategies that help to strengthen revenue protection.

• Key Locations are in: Andover, Maryland, Atlanta, Georgia, Austin, Texas, Fresno, California, and Kansas City, Missouri. The other three centers for individual returns are Brookhaven, New York, Memphis, Tennessee, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.