Fourteenth Annual IRS-TPC Joint Research Conference on Tax Administration

 

Thursday, June 13, 2024, 8:30 a.m. – 4:05 p.m.

Urban Institute
500 L’Enfant Plaza SW
Washington, DC 20024

The Internal Revenue Service and the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center will co-sponsor their 14th annual tax administration research conference this year. It will be held on June 13, 2024, at the Urban Institute in Washington, DC. For more information about IRS research conferences, including previous conference programs and papers, see IRS Research Conference for links to previous conferences.

Register for the 14th Annual IRS/TPC Joint Research Conference on Tax Administration

8:30 a.m. – 8:45 a.m. – Opening

  • Tracy Gordon (Co-Director, Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center)
  • Barry Johnson (Chief Data and Analytics Officer, Research, Applied Analytics and Statistics (IRS))

8:45 a.m. – 10:15 a.m. – Session 1: Harnessing Data for Better Research
Moderator: Brittany Jefferson (IRS, Wage and Investment)

  • Improving Linkages to Individual Income Tax Data

Amy O'Hara, Stephanie Strauss, Maanasa Vatsavayi, Nathan Wycoff (Georgetown University)

  • A Large Scale, High Quality US Occupational Database: Results from Merged IRS and ACS Write-Ins

Victoria Bryant, Thomas Hertz, Kevin Pierce (IRS, RAAS); Julia Beckhusen, Lynda Laughlin, Liana Christin Landivar, Carl Sanders (US Census Bureau); Josh Gagne, David Grusky, Sofia Jamesson (Stanford University); Michael Hout (New York University); Ananda Martin-Caughey (Brown University); Javier Mirand (University of Jena)

  • Disaggregating Tax Compliance Burden: A Comparative Study

Bizuayehu Bedane (IRS, RAAS)

Discussant:

  • Leonard Burman (Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center)

10:15 a.m. - 11:45 a.m. – Session 2: Discovering the Art of Avoidance
Moderator: Devi McKalko (IRS, RAAS)

  • Using a Gravity Model to Predict Cross-Border Tax Avoidance

Lori Stuntz, Michael Udell (IRS, RAAS)

  • Art in the Age of Tax Avoidance

Matthew Pierson (The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania)

  • Staying on the Wagon: Estimating Indirect Deterrence Effects from Filing and Payment Compliance Programs

Brett Collins, Chris Wilson, Corbin Miller, Mark Payne, Sean Roh, Yan Sun, Alex Turk (IRS, RAAS)

Discussant:  

  • William Boning (U.S. Department of the Treasury)

11:45 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. – Break/Lunch

12:15 p.m. – 12:45 p.m. – Keynote Speaker

  • Daniel Werfel (Commissioner of Internal Revenue)

12:45 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. – Break

1:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. – Session 3: Trusting the Tax Man: Metrics, AI, and Audits
Moderator: Melissa Vigil (IRS, RAAS)

  • Measuring Success: New Performance Metrics for a New Internal Revenue Service

Janet Holtzblatt (Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center)

  • Assessing Demographic Fairness in the Selection of Tax Returns for Audit

Thomas Hertz (IRS, RAAS)

  • Tools to Promote Trustworthiness in a Prototype AI System at the IRS

Michael Szulczewski, M. Feldman, Steffani Silva (MITRE); Brandon Anderson, Tomas Wind (RAAS)

Discussant:

  • Arnstein Øvrum (Norwegian Tax Administration)

2:30 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. – Session 4: Simplifying the Filing Burden
Moderator: John Guyton (IRS, RAAS)

  • Technical Challenges in Maintaining Tax Prep Software with Large Language Models

Sina Gogani-Khiabani, Varsha Dewangan, Ashutosh Trivedi (CU Boulder);

Nina Olson (Center for Taxpayer Rights); Saeid Tizpaz-Niari (UT El Paso)

  • Rethinking Tax Information: The Case for Quarterly 1099s

Kathleen DeLaney Thomas (UNC School of Law)

  • Investigating the Impact of Free E-File Letter Intervention on Taxpayer’s Tax Filing and Preparation Methods

Pei-Hua Chen, Astin Cornwall, Anne D. Herlache, Scott Leary, Brenda Schafer, Melissa Vigil (IRS, RAAS); Rizwan Javaid (IRS Taxpayer Experience Office)

Discussant: 

  • Robert Weinberger (Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center)

4:00 p.m. - 4:05 p.m. – Wrap-up
Barry Johnson (Chief Data and Analytics Officer, Research, Applied Analytics, and Statistics (IRS))

Note: Bolded names indicate presenters.

For more information about IRS research conferences, including previous conference programs and papers: