The report cards sought to encourage this dialogue by providing taxpayers and parents with good, solid information about school spending, tax rates, teacher salaries, staffing patterns, graduation rates and test scores.

Concerns about cost aside, both plans would seem to be able to provide taxpayers with temporary relief.

The legislation would also provide taxpayers with channels for appeal on such collection actions.

It also provides taxpayers with calculations on their average cost for use at tax time, a real time-saver for people who have failed to keep records.

To provide taxpayers with an annual report disclosing the cost of, performance by, and areas for improvements for Government programs, and for other purposes.

Still, many of the changes now being put into effect are intended to provide taxpayers with more information, and to make it easier for errors to be identified and corrected.

The chief problem, the audit concluded, was basing evaluations of managers and executives in the tax offices largely on statistical enforcement goals and not on the services they provided taxpayers.

He said the process allowed commissioners to identify the most important services their agencies now provide taxpayers.

Doing so would provide Congress and taxpayers with a better understanding of the online services IRS plans to provide with its significant investment on its website.

Recovery.gov is a promise of the Obama Administration to provide taxpayers with unprecedented levels...