Agents Of Change Is the IRS shedding its image as the agency entrepreneurs love to hate?

Almost two years have passed since the IRS promised to providekinder, gentler service. Now, with several changes in place,entrepreneurs can expect to deal with a friendlier tax agency thisfiling season. But a good deal of restructuring still needs to bedone before the IRS is transformed into a taxpayer serviceagency, say experts who closely follow the agency's dailyoperations.

The IRS is still busy reorganizing and nursing its wounds, saysDon Alexander, an attorney with Washington, DC, law firm Akin,Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld LLP and IRS commissioner during theFord, Nixon and Carter administrations. The agency took a beatingduring Senate Finance Committee hearings in 1997, when varioustaxpayer abuses were uncovered. Since then, the IRS has committeditself to a major self-improvement program.