The strategic planning process establishes the long-term direction of an organization with a vision of the future and a set of goals and objectives. The process of strategic planning enables alignment between IRSs functional requirements and the IRS strategic plan, the strategic plan of each Operating Division, and the agencys institutional capabilities.

Strategic Planning generally takes a one to three year look at the goals and objectives of LMSB. The planning process is broken into three phases:

Strategic Planning in Management in Finance is responsible for preparing the Strategy and Program Plan.

The annual LMSB Compliance Plan is developed as a draft at LMSB headquarters, Operations Support, and is a cooperative product of the entire LMSB organization. The plan matches available resources and operational priorities (short term/long term) to communicate the service and compliance objectives LMSB is expected to achieve. Tax return closures and DESYs are forecasted for the fiscal year by activity code. Each office within LMSB contributes to the development of the annual plan with overall coordination responsibility residing in the office of Planning Analysis and Support (PAS).

LMSB Operations Support headquarters staff is responsible for developing a draft plan that, at a minimum, provides for a primary resource allocation of LMSBs program priorities. These primary resource allocations are referred to as front end loaded programs, and time is planned and assigned to these programs first.

The draft plan is presented to the Industry PSPs. The Industries examination workplan is developed from the draft plan considering goals established by LMSB Senior Management.

The Industry Examination workplan is developed using a variety of factors that include:

The Industry PSP Analyst must be able to allocate the staff years and returns reflected on the Industry Plan to each respective Director of Field Operations and Territory Manager for feedback.

After the detailed Industry plan is developed, it is submitted to Headquarters Operation Support to be combined with other Industries into an LMSB plan.

The plan is then reviewed to see if the LMSB management goals and strategic initiatives are represented in the overall plan. Development of a final plan requires clear communication and partnering between Industries and LMSB Headquarters staff.

LMSB is exploring new approaches to ensure compliance. Current ways of doing business will be retired as more comprehensive approaches are developed and implemented. The planning process will evolve to reflect these changes.

Table 37, Examination Program Monitoring, is a summary report of Audit Information Management System (AIMS) and Summary Examination Time Transmission System (SETTS) information. Table 37 is generated by the Detroit Computing Center (DCC) at the conclusion of each AIMS/SETTS accounting period, referred to as reporting cycles. These reporting cycles are either 4 or 5 weeks in duration.

The Audit Information Management System (AIMS) provides the inventory and accomplishment information reflected on Table 37. The AIMS database includes various information on all returns open for examination, as well as returns closed (status 90). Closed cases are retained on the AIMS base for a minimum of 2 cycles and a maximum of 14 cycles.

The various references available for specific information regarding the use and maintenance of AIMS include the following:

The Summary Examination Time Transmission System (SETTS) accumulates time charges by examiners via the Examination Returns Control System (ERCS). Employee Records on ERCS contain information on each employee such as AIMS Assignee Code, grade, position code, and employee status. Examiners keep track of how they expend their time on an ERCS input document (Form 4502) utilizing various Activity Codes for both Direct and Indirect Examination activities.

The various references available for the specific information regarding the use and maintenance of SETTS include the following:

Within LMSB, Table 37 is generated at the Operating Division, Industry/Field Specialist and DFO/Specialty levels: AIMS and SETTS data are sorted by the first 6 positions of the AIMS Assignee Code (AAC) to generate Table 37 at each of these respective levels.

Table 37 is generated within a few days after the reporting cycle. This table is the first information available to the industries and headquarters staff that provides information on accomplishments.

The information on Table 37 can be used to monitor the following items

In order to allow the official system of records (AIMS) to be as accurate as possible, there is an extension of the correction capability for two additional reporting cycles (October and November) after the close of the fiscal year. As such, the Fiscal Year End Tables are produced at DCC three times and are labeled as follows:

Internal and external customers rely upon the accuracy of our AIMS and SETTS databases. Examination accomplishment statistics are included in the Internal Revenue Service Data Book and are used in formulating data for the Presidential Budget submitted to Congress. In addition, many decisions regarding hiring, funding and the allocation of resources are based on this data. Inaccuracies can lead to incorrect performance information being disseminated to IRS management as well as to sources outside the Service (e.g., GAO, TIGTA, etc.).

Management has a responsibility to maintain the database as accurately as possible and ensure stakeholders are provided with the best statistics available in order to allow the most informed decisions possible to be made.

The following AIMS Tables were specifically designed to help identify reasons for any increase or decrease to Table 37 and to help monitor tax returns that have significant impact on Examinations accomplishment statistics:

See IRM 4.4.27, AIMS/Processing Handbook, Reports for additional information regarding Tables 10.1B. 15 and 16

The Examination Returns Control System is an inventory management and time tracking tool that uses interactive menu-driven programs to request, assign, reassign, update, close, and charge time to returns under examination.

In addition to returns that are controlled on AIMS, ERCS should also be used to control work that is not controlled on AIMS, such as preparer/promoter penalties, Taxpayer Advocate cases, certain non-return Direct Examination Codes (referred to as Non-AIMS DET items), etc..

The AIMS Centralized Information System (A-CIS) was developed as a monitoring tool for use with the following databases:

A-CIS is comprised of four Microsoft Access programs that allow the user to connect to these database files via a file server called LMSB/SERCIS. A complete A-CIS User Guide is also available on the LMSB/SERCIS file server, as are the program files for each of the four Access programs.

SERCIS stands for South East Region Centralized Information System, which was later changed to A-CIS.

As mentioned previously, both internal and external customers rely upon our AIMS and SETTS data for various reasons. As such, all levels of management have a responsibility to maintain the databases as accurately as possible. The PSP Analysts responsibility includes the following:

Planning, Analysis and Support (PAS) provides all levels of LMSB management with various assessments of operational effectiveness. The Performance Management Team gathers data from a variety of sources (including AIMS, SETTS and ERCS) and provides various reports used to monitor the performance of LMSB.