Seeing as I don’t think i’m going to be able to work for a big 4 firm cause of my 3.5 GPA at a state school, I was wondering if anyone had any experiences with working for the IRS because one of my high school teachers talked highly of working there (not prestigious or anything but great benefits).
So any information regarding compensation, benefits, experiences, average weekly hours, requirements, etc, would be greatly appreciated.
Note: i’m getting a BBA in Accounting
Anything I’m going to say really depends on the business climate overall. Just like private business, public service goes through a business cycle of sorts that may or may not coincide with the private sector. Right now, depending on your geographic location, the Service (IRS) isn’t really hiring entry-level of many positions at all. This is the same for many governmental agencies, particularly with the political climate in congress. As we speak, the gov’t (and thus the agencies they employ) are only funded until Dec 11, less than 60 more days from now. Sequestration (force furloughs) have happened in the past, as recent as 2013. Anyway . . . with that out of the way:
I’ve worked for the Service for 5+ years now and I’ve enjoyed it. Very generally, I enjoy the people I work with and I think they provide good benefits, even if not the greatest pay compensation compared to some equivalent private industries. The biggest trade-off is in the work-life balance, from my experience and from the experiences that I’ve talked to with co-workers.
As far as particulars: the Service, like most agencies, pay on salary using the General Schedule (GS). You can google the salaries tables on the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) website, which are conveniently separated by geographic location. Most entry-level positions in the Service will be GS-05 or 07 (typically 07 as an entry level held for those who have demonstrated superior academic performance or have more than entry level experience for an entry-level position). There are automatic grade increases, but to what level depends on your series position, and then you must compete with your co-workers for higher grades, each higher grade is like getting a raise in pay, but also assuming some more work responsibility. For example, the 0512 series for a Revenue Agent position gets an automatic grade increase (raise) up to GS-11. After that, all GS-11s must compete for GS-12, and all 12’s compete for 13’s, etc. However, some other positions have automatic grade increases up to GS-09 only.
Overtime in the Service is rare, but depends on your actual position. Generally, the Service is strict on overtime, and only gives overtime pay under special circumstances. Usually, if a Service employees work more than their tour of duty (TOD) hours, usually 8 or 9 hours a day, then they are given credit hours for the extra hours worked for which they can “get credited” for at a later time, essentially acting as paid leave during a future work day. For example, if your TOD is 8 hours (8:00am - 4:30pm; includes a 30 minute unpaid lunch period) and your manager approves you to work until 5:30pm, so 1 credit hour awarded, then you may use that credit hour as paid leave for a subsequent day (say by coming in the next morning at 9:30am, but getting paid like you came in at 8:30am).
Speaking of paid leave - entry-level employees earn 4 hours of regular leave and 4 hours of sick leave each pay period of 2 weeks. The regular leave earned increases to 6 per 2-week period after 5 years of service. Do the math and that’s about 100 - 150 hours of regular paid leave and 100 hours of sick leave (200 - 250 hrs of total paid leave) each calendar year. There is a “use-or-lose” clause at the end of each year at a cap of 240 regular leave hours (so at the most you can only carry over 240 regular leave hours into the next CY).
Other benefits include a wide options array of health coverage, which will vary depending on your geographic location. You can cover yourself and your family members for health, dental and vision, and premiums are deducted directly from your bi-weekly pay. Monthly premiums are just split into two payments. There should also be a website where you can view premium amounts and coverage options, but it’s not on the top of my head right now. Open-enrollment period is at the end of every year and you can change coverage during any major life event (new baby, marriage, etc).
For financial and retirement planning benefits, the Service offers both a defined-contribution plan in the form of the Thrift Savings Plan and a defined-benefit plan in the form of a pension (technically called FERS, but I won’t go into too much detail). Essentially, you do not have to participate in the TSP since a percentage of each pay check will be deducted if you do. If you do elect to participate in the TSP, then you choose 3% or more of your bi-weekly pay to go into an investment account, for which you also make general decisions for such as investing in either gov’t bonds (generally safest, but lowest returns), stocks (riskier, but higher average returns than gov’t bonds), or “Life Cycle” funds, which automatically proportion your TSP funds in accordance for when you plan to retire. For example, I don’t plan to retire until at least the year 2050, so my TSP in all in the Life Cycle 2050 fund, where more aggressive investments are made now, but will taper off into safer investments are my supposed retirement nears - no real monitoring back and forth between funds for me. The Service will match up to 5% of your pay check, so if you do the minimum of 3%, then the Service will match you 3% for a total of 6% going into the account from each pay period and so forth. To maximize this benefit, an employee would elect to deposit 5% of his or her pay in the TSP each pay period. The TSP funds can be borrowed against, or withdrawn at any time, although they are tax-deferred, so you will pay taxes on them when withdrawn (there is a Roth-style TSP account, but it’s not automatic, you’ll have to make that election when you sign up). You may also roll over your TSP funds into an approved IRA if you leave the Service before retirement. The pension system I’m not too familiar with (I’m like 35+ years away from that), but essentially you receive a certain percentage of your pay, averaged from the highest 3 years of your pay, which are generally the last 3 years of your career. Percentages depend on length of service at retirement, such as 25, 30, 35, 40, etc.
Average weekly hours depend on your work schedule. The Service has flexible work schedules from a “straight 8” (8-hour work days 5-days a week), 5-4-9s (9-hour work days with one weekday off in a 2-week period), and 4-10s (10-hour work days for 4-days each week). Basically, each option will come out to 40 hours per week, or 80 hours within 2 week periods. Anything over that in a week is subject to that “credit hours” thing I mentioned previously. These work schedules are fairly strict, which is good and bad. Good because you know you’ll never be called in on the weekends or to stay for really late hours - you’ll be home every night and all weekends with your family and friends. Bad because you’ve got to know to balance time-sensitive tasks since you “don’t have all night”. In every Service employee’s life there’s at least one instance where he or she feels like, “I really want to stay longer to finish up this task so that I don’t have it tomorrow, etc, etc”, but can only do so if approve for credit hours (unofficially, an employee can still work past his or her TOD, but without pay, and it’s a big no-no if caught working on work-related tasks outside of your TOD, mainly because of labor relations and paying overtime and all that). All Service employees, like all other Federal Civil Service employees, are also granted a handful of paid holidays each year, which average about 1 per month.
I’ll get to actual experiences of the job (mostly sticking to what I know as Revenue Agents and Revenue Officers) in a second . . .
I’ll have to make an assumption here that with your BBA in Accounting, you’ll want to apply to the Service’s positions that require a BBA in Accounting. The majority of entry-level positions that require accounting degrees (or accounting degree equivalent amount of credits) are Tax Compliance Officers (TOCs) and Revenue Agents (RAs). These positions are the tax auditors. Revenue Officers are in collection of taxes, and do not require an accounting degree.
Both TCOs and RAs start at GS-05 and perform audits of tax returns for small businesses and self-employed individuals. The main difference is that a TCO strictly performs audits, including meetings with taxpayers (TPs) and review records all in the IRS offices and RAs are “field” agents meaning that they are expected to go out to the business site itself and perform the audit. What ends up happening is that TCOs are always in the office, and RAs generally split their time 50/50 in the office and in the field. By this difference in work environment, TCOs get automatic grade increases up to level 09, and compete up to GS 11, while RAs get automatic grade increases up to level 11 and compete up to 13, although both positions work varying degrees of complex cases. Both positions will require you to apply your accounting tools to audit the books and records of individuals and businesses and reconcile your findings with their tax returns, subject to specific issues, such as COGS, Schedule C expenses, etc. Both work as part of a group of other RAs or TCOs (usually about 8 - 12 in a group, plus one manager per group), but the work is very individual - you are the only one working and responsible for your own cases and work product, with periodic guidance or advice from your manager. Being in a group is just a hierarchical way to manage so many employees and track them administratively, but there still are some benefits such as knowledge spillovers. For example, say you are working a tough tax issue and are having a hard time resolving it. A more experienced co-worker may notice that (or you may ask them) he or she has had a similar issue in the past and can then give you tips or advice on how to proceed with the issue (not sharing any personal taxpayer information, of course, just the general issue and the $ numbers). These small groups may share actual repositories of compiled information as well to help members develop their cases, which builds at least some sense of camaraderie - you’re not completely out there on your own. Every so often, your manager may organize a group meeting as well, where you spend a big portion of your work day doing group activities or participating in presentations designed to build employee knowledge base or refresh on fundamental issues.
RAs are fairly independent and develop their cases as they work them with all their other cases. Workload will depend on your location and specific group. There are guidelines for how many cases each grade should have (i.e. 05, 07, 09, etc), but I don’t remember how many exactly. RAs schedule their own appointments, work their cases, and close their cases when they’ve been worked. Different kinds of cases with different kinds of issues tend to break up monotony. One of the interesting things I hear from RAs in particular is how they learn about so many different businesses and industries based on having to audit all kinds of businesses. By the nature of looking at a business’s books and records, the RA may need to do a tour of the physical business itself or learn more about how the business operates, and in doing so they learn about how to do things they never thought they would. For example, they learn how a bakery operates, how to print t-shirts, how different agricultural businesses operate, doctor’s offices, equestrian race horse raising, and many many more things.
RAs also have opportunity to develop, although this often is hindered when faced with a strict financial climate like the current one. For example, when there’s lots of new hires, many of the more experienced RAs become on-the-job instructors (OJIs) and essentially mentor some new hires. When the agency has more money, then more special training programs open up and many RAs become specialized in a particular issue, becoming the “subject-matter expert” on a particular type of issue for their group, or even for many other groups as well. Some even temporarily or permanently leave their groups to go to special units that perform specialized tasks such as reviewing recently closed case files for errors. Sadly, as mentioned, the current financial climate has seen a dramatic decrease in these opportunities, at least in my location, and over the last year or two many RAs have been leaving the Service for better opportunities either in other agencies (such as the FTC) or to the private industry. Groups have been getting smaller, and pressure has built to do more with less. This coupled with many retirements in the last several years where lack of hiring has not been able to replace those workers, and the Service of today is considerable smaller, and shrinking still, than the Service of just 5 years ago when I started. Of course, many of the more experienced employees mention that this is part of the “cycle” and that eventually hiring will have to pick up and new training programs open. Hopefully sooner rather than later.
As for requirements, from what I remember, entry-level GS-05 RAs and TCOs only required a bachelor’s in accounting from an accredited university, and that you’re a US citizen. It is, after-all, entry level. You can check current requirements on USAJobs (position titles of Revenue Agent and Tax Compliance Officer) to see if the Service is hiring any entry-level for those positions and the job announcement on that website will list the hiring requirements.
Hope all of this information was helpful.
IRS must have awesome job security, since the two things everyone can count on is death and taxes.