Coolheads Consulting Copyright © 2003 Coolheads Consulting The Internal Revenue Service Tax Map Michel Biezunski Coolheads Consulting New York City, USA

Copyright © 2003 Coolheads Consulting

Coolheads Consulting

The Internal Revenue Service Tax Map

Michel Biezunski

Coolheads ConsultingNew York City, USA


Providing better service to taxpayers

When taxpayers call the IRS for assistance, they don't always get the right answer.

Too much information, changing rapidly.

The call centers receives up to 1,000,000 calls a day.

Exploit existing metadata to display all information relevant to a subject


How Tax Map was Built

Started with a prototype with 8 Tax Information Publications (Dec. 2001)

Extended the prototype with 33 business Tax Information Publications

Added Frequently Asked Questions

Merged Publications and FAQs

Extended project to 95 Tax Information Publications

Added Tele-Tax Topics


First Prototype

Methodology Design a topic map model. Preserve the workflow. Exploit markup for printed index. Use an existing technology with some customization. Set up an automatic process to produce HTML pages

containing sliced publications + automatically created web pages for topic screens and indexes.

Results: Much information becomes visible, but:

Too many topics for easy navigation.Some inconsistencies in the indexing revealed for the first time by

integration.


Subsequent Steps

Integration of more Tax Information Publications 1st step: 8 2nd step: 33 3rd step: 95

Integration of the Frequently Asked Questions

Integration of the Tele-Tax Topics

Improvement of Graphic design

Improvement of Tax Map


Side Effects of Merging Information

The "getting-together" effect Publications are authored by tax experts who are providing

reliable and precise information to taxpayers mirroring expert terms.

2 domains: Business and Individual domains use different terminology, with some overlap.

Frequently Asked Questions are authored using terms used by taxpayers writing email to the IRS. Taxpayers have their own non-expert vocabulary.

Need to map the various vocabularies.


Improving System Efficiency

Difference between 3 kinds of subjects: The "key topics", i.e. frequently used subjects appearing in the

Frequently Asked Questions. Number: a few hundreds, as opposed to 8000 for all topics.

The "form topics", i.e. topics that refer to forms. All other topics.

Differentiation of kinds of subjects is achieved automatically by different extraction procedures. However, some subjects have been "upgraded" to key subjects

by tax experts and call assistors who have picked them from the comprehensive list.


Merging/relating by name

Mapping done using 2 kinds of links: Identity (Synonyms): Same subject, different terms.

Example: "1040X" and "Amended Tax Return". Related subjects: Nature of the relationships too complex to be

differentiated into various relation types. Notion of "generic relationship" preferred.

2 methods: Automatic method: Rules designed for assimilating terms:

Singular/plural forms, expression using permutations of same words, etc.

Mapping done by tax experts and call assistors (users) during a one-week seminar.

Result is a map containing topics to merge and topics to relate. This map is integrated with the map automatically derived from extracted topic markup from source documents.


Possible Extension Scenarios

Tax Map has been designed to be reused over the year with new source information coming in.

User feedback combined with input of tax experts will be used to maintain and improve the existing topic map.

Other document types can be added. For example, assistors use a "Probe and Response Guide" that leads them to qualify the caller and find the relevant topic. This document could be added to Tax Map.

Tax Map can be adapted for use by the public on the IRS web site.


IRS Tax Map as a Reference

A "Published Subject" is a subject described and maintained by an organization that is intended to be linked to from outside.

The "IRS published subjects" (if any) could serve as navigation hubs for other users.

The IRS is the most authoritative source of information for tax information. It is responsible for defining and maintaining the terms that are used throughout publications that have to do with tax matters.

Consequently, IRS Tax Map is a good candidate to be used as a basis of reference for information sets which need to make use of tax-related information.


The Internal Revenue Service Tax Map Pilot

For use on the Intranet by assistors in the call centers.


Accessing the Subjects by Category

Main Topics, enriched by a team oftax experts, are isolated from the total number of topics resulting from theintegrated indexes of thepublications as well as from theFAQs.

•Main topics are accessible throughalphabetic indexes.

•Form topics are accessible through a specialized list.

•All other topics can be retrievedusing the built-in search engine.


Browsing Documents

3 document types:

PublicationsFAQs

Tele-Tax Topics

Hierarchicalnavigation todocuments.

Each pub hasits own tableof contents.


Browsing by Subject

Resource Scope

Resource Type

Abstract

Other names

Main name

Related Subjects (Main Name displayed)


Bookmarks

When a subjectoccurs within

a page, navigation is

enabled to thesubject page,

and to thenext/previous

occurrenceof the same

subject elsewhere.


Demo

Click here to access Tax Map