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Charles O. Rossotti

Many Unhappy Returns: One Man's Quest To Turn Around The Most Unpopular Organization In America (Leadership for the Common Good) Hardcover – March 8, 2005

by Charles O. Rossotti (Author)

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In 1997, the Internal Revenue Service was a much-maligned public agency mired in unprecedented scandal and crisis. [UNK] Servicing 132 million individual and 6 million business taxpayers, the IRS has by far the largest number of customers in the country. And for years, it also had the lowest approval rating. The power of this story is that if the IRS was turned around so dramatically, so can any other large organization. [UNK] Provides a fresh and informative perspective. Conveys the hopeful message that real, ongoing change is possible at the IRS - an outcome that affects every taxpayer. [UNK] Well-written narrative that directly addresses taxpayers' biggest gripes, and suggests a solution. [UNK] There is a potential market among IRS employees, which number about 100,000.

Print length

352 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Harvard Business Review Press
Publication date

March 8, 2005
Dimensions

6.32 x 1.22 x 9.66 inches
ISBN-10

1591394414
ISBN-13

978-1591394419
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A successful businessman but political neophyte, Rossotti was appointed commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service in 1997; this book is a matter-of-fact recounting of his five-year tenure, which included many of President Bush's changes to the code. An entertaining insider's account, it reads like the bureaucratic equivalent of a police procedural. With refreshing clarity, Rossotti describes such impediments as political pressure from the White House and the "senseless issues that the [IRS] lawyers insisted on pursuing." None of the villains are identified by name, but the author's determination to name and praise everyone who helped sometimes make the book read like an overlong Academy Awards acceptance speech. It succeeds as a management case study, clearly laying out Rossotti's initial analysis of apparently intractable problems, followed by the development of strategies for change, the recruitment of stakeholders and the use of skills and tricks required to shepherd the process to a successful conclusion. And the book demonstrates that dedication by honest and talented managers can produce results (even if one disagrees with them). It's also an inspiring bit of political truth telling. (Mar. 8)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

In 1998, with public opinion of the IRS at an all-time low, Rossotti was hired as IRS commissioner. He faced the daunting task of reorganizing the behemoth organization, which had not been done since 1952. With the public and Congress clamoring for heads to roll, Rossotti was under the microscope. He was facing woefully outdated technology, including a telephone system that was busy 99 percent of the time, creaky computers with code that had been written in the 1970s that were about to collapse with the impending doom of Y2K, and a terrible system of quotas that ensured that American taxpayers were being, in many cases, persecuted and buried under red tape. Rossotti describes how he took on this challenge, which required delicacy, diplomacy, and bold initiative. Under his leadership the IRS has become more customer-friendly and moved into the information age: the IRS Web site is accessed more than nearly any other, and 40 percent of federal tax returns were filed online last year. David Siegfried
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harvard Business Review Press; First Edition (March 8, 2005)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 352 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1591394414
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1591394419
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.46 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.32 x 1.22 x 9.66 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #553,410 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #906 in Company Business Profiles (Books)
- #1,651 in Accounting (Books)
- #6,536 in Leadership & Motivation

Customer Reviews:
19 ratings

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4.8 out of 5

19 global ratings

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mandy Lozano

Great read even if you don't love filing your taxes

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 9, 2015

Verified Purchase

Excellent book. An entertaining read, if you're interested in our country's finances, management challenges, governmental processes, technology, or just trying to understand that mysterious bureau that takes your money every April.
Check it out!

Helpful

Dan Ezrow (ezrowda@yahoo.com)

Must read for anyone interested in public administration or organizational strategy

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 5, 2012

Verified Purchase

Former IRS Commish Rossotti writes a valuable playbook for all public and private sector managers faced with effecting deep changes in culture. Thought provoking and a pleasure to read.

Helpful

Pshrop

What you would expect

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 13, 2014

Verified Purchase

Mr. Rossetti shares his view of the massive IRS reorganization. There are some interesting passages, but the book showed he understood very little about tax administration when he redesigned the IRS. The book is worth the read, but there aren't any great insights provided.

Helpful

Porter

Some Happy Returns Too

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 27, 2005

This is a modest and engaging memoir from a successful businessman who, to the surprise of his own family, accepted an offer to become Commissioner of the IRS. He took the job in 1997, when the IRS was in a political firestorm, being berated as both abusive and bungling in dramatic Congressional hearings. Charles Rossotti took over this very troubled agency, and after five years of hard work, left it, well, still a troubled agency, but with somewhat more manageable problems than it had before.

The list of problems he faced was truly daunting. The IRS was an outdated organization based on geography instead of function; its computer system for taxpayer accounts was from 1962; its customer service lines were chronically busy; and its workforce was demoralized. On his first day in office, Rossotti told his staff he wanted to send an e-mail to all employees and was promptly told it was impossible. Where to begin?

He began with the organization, removing layers of management and consolidating functions so that offices could focus on particular types of taxpayers. Rossotti was allowed to bring in his own management team, but to his relief, found that the career IRS executives he inherited were eager and able to make big changes in the agency. He accompanied IRS employees during their meetings with taxpayers so that he could watch them work. He replaced the big paper manuals that telephone assistors used with computer databases, and devised a plan to keep the old computer system updated for Y2K and tax law changes until a new system could be designed and deployed. All these changes were made after consulting with everyone from the employees' union to small business groups; Rossotti's motto is, "Engage, and then decide."

As the dour title of the book would suggest, not everything went well. Most of Rossotti's plan for "Modernizing America's Tax Agency" had only long-term benefits, but the politicians who make the rules and set the budget wanted a sense of immediate accomplishment. Congress demanded that he respond to the hearings by firing some employees. The White House hoped that a few public relations gestures could just make the problem go away. In one of book's few insider revelations, Rossotti claims that Clinton aides actually asked him to find a "happy taxpayer" for the audience of a State of the Union speech. Rossotti's budget requests were routinely cut, so he reduced enforcement to pay for the improvements he wanted in customer service. Not surprisingly, tax evaders, often assisted by prestigious accounting firms, took full advantage of the decline in audits.

So what is Charles Rossotti's legacy? The organizational and technological changes he was able to make will have lasting benefits. The IRS has caught up with such basics as fax and e-mail, and the irs.gov website is excellent. Rossotti's positive assessment of the employees he met is encouraging. His major emphasis on customer service may be threatened though. Rossotti's successor, alarmed at the level of cheating but no more successful with the overall budget, is now cutting customer service to shore up enforcement. Congress ignored Rossotti's requests to simplify the tax code, and in fact made things worse. Rossotti certainly wasn't the first businessman to go into government and find frustration, but with his modesty and his emphasis on consultation, he seemed much more poised for success than an autocratic type.

Many Unhappy Returns is neither bitter nor self-congratulatory. Rossotti doesn't criticize many people by name, and he is quick to share credit for what went right. His analysis of organizational structures certainly won't outsell books on terrorism or celebrity trials, but he does seem to be a very honest and capable man who took on a difficult job with no prospect of fame or glory. Reading his book is a small way of saying thanks. He didn't completely succeed, but thank God people like him are willing to try.

24 people found this helpful

Helpful

Derek Parker

Someone had to do it

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 25, 2005

Just when you think that your own job is the pits, you encounter someone whose occupation is even worse. Actually, Rosetti volunteered - sort of, if you can call succumbing to pressure from several Washington heavies 'volunteering' - to fix something that appeared terminally broken: the IRS. But the result is a book that has more to do with transformational change in large organisations than taxation, and Rosetti is clear about the steps that were involved in bringing the IRS back from the brink to being a fairly credible organization (although he admits the process will take much longer than the five years that he held the job).

As a former businessman from the private sector, before taking the job he insisted on being able to form his own team - and he managed to assemble some good people from the private sector and from within the IRS. He also highlights the importance of keeping reform promises credible - better, he says, to only promise realistic changes, rather than promise the world and deliver nothing. Another key was the installation of up-to-date technology - astonishing to realise that the IRS was still running on a computer system from 1963.

The major problem was the micro-mandates imposed on him by various Congressmen and other stakeholders, as well as the apparently random interventions of the Clinton White House.

As a non-American, I cannot personally vouch for Rosetti's claims about the IRS lifting its game, although it sounds right from other things I have read and heard. One way or another, it makes for a pretty interesting book, and Rosetti writes with clarity and occasional humor (an ability to see the funny side of things would have been essential in this job).

I think I will send my (advance) copy to the head of the tax office in my own country.

11 people found this helpful

Helpful

D. Jacobson

An Epic Tale of Organizational Transformation

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 9, 2007

When Charles Rossotti took over as Comissioner of the Internal Revenue Service in 1997 the IRS had more customers than any organization in America--and the lowest customer service rating. In Many Unhappy Returns, Rosotti describes how he led a major turnaround of the agency in spite of the extraordinary constraints he faced. Rossotti did an amazing job of engaging the career employees of the IRS at all levels while managing relations with key constituencies such as Congress, the National Treasury Employees Union, and the media. Rossotti demonstrated mastery of the big picture, but his strategic vision was informed by his regular encounters with front-line employees, who helped him understand the systemic problems that undermined employees' ability to provide great service to the public. This is an engaging read and a compelling story.

2 people found this helpful

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