Clarification from the agency

U.S. Citizens or Nationals

WHAT DOES A REVENUE OFFICER DO? As a Revenue Officer you will serve as a civil enforcement officer, and perform collection related activities in the field within established laws, rules and regulations. You will be responsible for collecting delinquent accounts, securing delinquent tax returns, and using a variety of investigative and enforcement techniques to administer the tax laws and appropriately promote and achieve compliance. 

WHAT IS THE SMALL BUSINESS / SELF EMPLOYED (SB/SE) DIVISION?

The Small Business/Self-Employed (SB/SE) Division provides collection, examination and taxpayer education services for about 7 million small businesses and upwards of 33 million self-employed and supplemental income taxpayers. SB/SE taxpayers generally have higher incomes than most taxpayers, need to file twice as many tax forms, and generally need to rely more on paid tax preparers and the taxpayer education outreach activities of the IRS.

As a Revenue Officer you will:

• Perform extensive and complex research on available background material concerning industry practices and any applicable interpretations of precedent setting court cases.
• Examine voluminous and complex books and records which may be incomplete, poorly organized, or intentionally disorganized or arranged in order to conceal the true nature of payment to individuals, including cash or barter transactions, requiring considerable reconstruction of records.
• Use investigative, interviewing, and fact-finding techniques to determine the position of the Service as to whether taxes have been accurately reported and paid.
• Identify income and excise tax issues, employee plan issues, and potential tax fraud issues, and refer them as appropriate to the appropriate organization for resolution.
• Research available guidelines and reference material, to resolve complex questions of tax law that may have arisen during the course of the examination. Such questions usually involve issues for findings which could be legitimately contested by a different interpretation of the law, ruling, or precedents.
• Field Revenue Officers' work assignments regularly require them to independently travel to and from locations in the field, ensuring their personal safety and the safety of others around them. As part of the investigation and/or enforcement process, they will meet taxpayers, their representatives, and/or third parties at the business location, residence, or other field locations that will include a wide variety of environments and settings, for example, to view assets or number of employees, in order to compare what they observe to information disclosed by the taxpayer.

If you are selected at a lower grade level, you will have the opportunity to learn to perform all these duties, and will receive training to help you grow in this position.

WHERE CAN I FIND OUT MORE ABOUT OTHER IRS CAREERS? If you want to find out more about IRS careers, visit us on the web at www.jobs.irs.gov.

Conditions of employment

• Refer to Other Information
• Click "Print Preview" to review the entire announcement before applying.
• Must be a U.S. Citizen or National.

.

Qualifications

You must meet the following requirements by the closing date of this announcement:

GS-7 LEVEL: You must have 1 year of specialized experience at a level of difficulty and responsibility equivalent to the GS-5 grade level in the Federal service. Specialized experience for this position includes: Demonstrated knowledge and experience of business organization and commercial practices; knowledge of investigative techniques and methods, and the ability to apply such techniques to the analysis of business and financial matters; practical knowledge of business law, including laws governing fraudulent transfers, secured and unsecured debts, negotiable instruments, business corporations, and survivorship rights and titling instruments; knowledge of delinquent loan collection processes and techniques; working knowledge of accounting principles and practices; knowledge of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) and related Federal tax regulations and procedures; knowledge of bankruptcy and lien law.  Experience may have been gained in work such as:

• Reviewing financial documents to determine a business' financial condition and its ability to pay debt;
• Evaluating income assets, equity and credit to collect delinquent payments;
• Investigating or tracing financial transactions such as a real estate broker or insurance broker;
• Establishing or operating a small business that included administering a budget, defining operating procedures and understanding tax consequences of business actions;
• Counseling taxpayers on tax filing and paying obligations;
• Dealing with the effects of various legal instruments such as leases, wills, deeds, and trusts; OR

Superior Academic Achievement may be met by having a Bachelor's degree, with one of the following: A GPA of 3.0 or higher on a 4.0 scale for all completed undergraduate courses or those completed in the last 2 years of study, or a GPA of 3.5 or higher on a 4.0 scale for all courses in the major field of study or those courses in the major completed in the last 2 years of study, or rank in the upper one third of the class in the college, university, or major subdivision, or membership in a national honor society recognized by the Association of College Honor Societies; OR
You may substitute education for specialized experience as follows: One (1) academic year of graduate education in a field of study such as: business administration (finance, accounting, auditing, marketing and business law), law, economics, criminology, political science, government, social science, communications, psychology, public administration or another related field; OR
You may qualify by a combination of experience and education. Options for qualifying based on a combination will be identified in the online questions.

GS-9 LEVEL: You must have 1 year of specialized experience a level of difficulty and responsibility equivalent to the GS-07 grade level in the Federal service. Specialized experience for this position includes: Demonstrating knowledge and experience of the Internal Revenue Code and related enforcement and collection regulations and procedures. Practical knowledge of business organization and commercial practices; practical knowledge of business law, including laws governing fraudulent transfers, secured and unsecured debts, negotiable instruments, business corporations, and survivorship rights and titling instruments; knowledge of and conducts financial analysis, including the ability to analyze the operations, financial condition, profitability of taxpayers; including the valuation of assets for case resolution; uses arithmetic and mathematical reasoning to resolve collection determination issues; knowledge of electronic data exchange and the ability to conduct business online including use of the internet and intranet.  Experience may have been gained in work such as:

• Collecting delinquent Federal taxes and securing delinquent returns;
• Conducting investigations of alleged criminal violations of Federal tax statutes and making recommendations for criminal prosecutions and civil penalties;
• Performing internal audit, administrative, or management duties directly related to the collection of Federal taxes;
• Furnishing taxpayer assistance and information to the general public or determining, re-determining, or advising of liability for Federal taxes where the applicant was required to apply a comprehensive knowledge of the Internal Revenue Code and related regulations and procedures pertaining to income, estate, gift, employment, or excise taxes; OR

You may substitute education for specialized experience as follows: Master's or equivalent degree or 2 full academic years of progressively higher level graduate education leading to a degree in a related field of study such as business administration (finance, accounting, auditing, marketing and business law), law, economics, criminology, political science, government, social science, communications, psychology, public administration or another related field; OR LL.B or J.D., if related; 

You may qualify by a combination of experience and education. Options for qualifying based on a combination will be identified in the online questions.

- The experience may have been gained in the public sector, private sector or Volunteer Service. One year of experience refers to full-time work; part-time work is considered on a prorated basis.
- To ensure full credit for your work experience, please indicate dates of employment by month/year, and indicate number of hours worked per week, on your resume.

How you will be evaluated

You will be evaluated for this job based on how well you meet the qualifications above.

Your application includes your resume, responses to the online questions, and required supporting documents. Please be sure that your resume includes detailed information to support your qualifications for this position; failure to provide sufficient evidence in your resume may result in a “not qualified” determination. 

Rating: If you are eligible and tentatively qualified for this position based upon your responses to the application questions, you will receive an email directing you to an on-line assessment including directions for accessing the assessment website and a unique link to register for your personal testing session. The on-line job assessments measure the following competencies: Decision Making & Reasoning, Flexibility, Integrity/Honesty, Interpersonal Skills, Learning, Self-Esteem, Self-Management, Stress Tolerance, Arithmetic, Memory, and Communication.

This on-line assessment process includes three (3) separate assessments that will take about three (3) hours or less to complete. The on-line assessments must be completed within the timeframe of the open testing period. If you pass the on-line assessment, you will be placed into one of two final quality category groups (A/B or C) based on your results. If you fail the on-line assessment, you will be removed from consideration. Each category group represents a quality level (i.e., A/B = Best Qualified, C = Qualified). Candidates will be considered in category group order.  Veterans' preference is applied after applicants are assessed. Preference-eligibles will be listed at the top of their assigned category and considered before non-preference-eligibles in that category. Qualified preference-eligibles with a compensable service-connected disability of 10% or more will be listed at the top of the highest category.

Referral: If you are among the top qualified candidates, your application may be referred to a selecting official for consideration. You may be required to participate in a selection interview (telephonic and/or in person at the discretion of the Selecting Official in accordance with hiring polices). We will not reimburse costs related to the interview such as travel to and from the interview site. If you are a displaced or surplus Federal employee (eligible for the Career Transition Assistance Plan (CTAP)/Interagency Career Transition Assistance Plan (ICTAP), you must receive a rating of Category A/B will be rated as "well qualified" to receive special selection priority.