IR-2022-222, December 16, 2022
WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service announced Courtney Kay-Decker as the new Deputy Chief Taxpayer Experience Officer today.
Under the leadership of Chief Taxpayer Experience Officer Ken Corbin, Kay-Decker will lead IRS efforts to improve the taxpayer experience including driving the strategy for taxpayer interactions, monitoring and prioritizing the taxpayer experience, coordinating identification of taxpayer trends and best practices, and collaborating on the implementation of Service-wide taxpayer experience improvements.
“Courtney brings a wealth of experience in tax and proven skill managing programs designed to improve the taxpayer experience,” said Ken Corbin, Chief Taxpayer Experience Officer. “Her career has ranged from practitioner to state tax administrator, volunteer tax preparer to tax law teacher. Each of these roles has helped her build deep knowledge of stakeholders in the tax ecosystem and will help her spearhead efforts to identify new strategies to improve taxpayer interactions.”
Prior to her selection, Kay-Decker served as an attorney at Lane & Waterman LLP in Davenport, Iowa, where her areas of practice included tax and administrative matters. From 2011 to 2019, she served as Director of the Iowa Department of Revenue. As director, Kay-Decker focused on improving administrative rules, guidance, and processes to simplify and reduce compliance burdens for the taxpayers of Iowa. She also served on the Board of Trustees of the Federation of Tax Administrators.
Additionally, Kay-Decker served as the first state co-chair of the Identity Theft and Tax Refund Fraud Information Sharing Analysis Center, a collaboration among the IRS, state tax agencies and industry partners who work to develop tools and protocols to detect and prevent identity theft tax refund fraud. She’s served as a Volunteer Income Tax Assistance site coordinator and as a member of the Electronic Tax Administration Advisory Committee.
Kay-Decker received her B.A. in Economics from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and holds a J.D. with distinction from the University of Iowa College of Law where she also serves as an adjunct lecturer.
The Taxpayer Experience Office, formally established earlier this year, leads the effort to improve customer service at the IRS by focusing on six key strategies identified in the President’s Executive Order on Transforming Federal Customer Experience and Service Delivery to Rebuild Trust in Government, and the Taxpayer First Act Report to CongressPDF.