• by David Goetzl , June 3, 2013

The IRS needs some PR help. Duh. While that carries more urgency now, it could have been written just about any time during the agency’s lifespan, which dates back to the 1860s.

The Internal Revenue Service has an inherent image problem. Plain and simple: it takes money out of people’s pockets. Congress decides how much, but the IRS is the address on the bills. 

Now, the agency is grappling with more than being viewed as an annual annoyance. There are charges it acted with partisanship when deciding whether to grant groups linked with the Tea Party tax-exempt status. And, there’s word it spent some $50 million on employee conferences between 2010 and 2012, where there were stays in suites that retail at up to $3,500 a night.

And people wonder why it seems harder and harder to get a refund? 

Undoubtedly, more dirty laundry is likely to emerge as Congress holds hearings. Many Americans have to be shouting hallelujah and thinking their taxes will go down as Congressional leaders have hinted they might cut the IRS budget.

But even if the agency hadn’t sparked the ire of so many recently, it has long needed the appearance of harboring more humanity and approachability. If it were a Fortune 500 company, it would have fired multiple ad agencies for failure. Everyone has the pocket-protector stereotypes of individuals parsing documents looking for any excuse to launch an audit to collect just a few more bucks.

The image hasn’t been helped by portrayals such as the one offered up by 2010 film “Dinner For Schmucks,” where Steve Carell plays agent Barry Schmuck who takes pleasure in decorative art with dead mice. His boss played by Zach Galifianakis is big into “mind control.” 

So, what is the IRS to do? Reality TV.

It’s time to open the doors to a camera crew from Discovery or National Geographic Channel -- even a broadcast network during the slow summer -- and dispel myths about the place. Introduce viewers to employees who understand the concept of matching clothing; who can articulate how tax money funds the military and Social Security; who don’t appear eager to knock on the door in the middle of the night ready to question a write-off for a Goodwill donation.

Government arms have dabbled in documentary-type TV before. The Border Patrol in a Nat Geo series comes to mind. Discovery had “Secrets of the Secret Service.”

While networks may not be willing to give the IRS full editorial control, the IRS would certainly be able to manipulate how its story is told through access granted. It could likely engineer something close to an infomercial.

Maybe it could angle for an outsized focus on its arms that go after pernicious tax cheats stashing money in Zurich -- the types everyone agrees should be brought down.

Ah, but the IRS could never do it? It’s dealing with information too sensitive? That’s a copout. The Secret Service isn’t exactly giving directions to visitors at Independence Hall. Storylines wouldn’t have to call for an accountant taking viewers through a detailed breakdown of Mark Zuckerberg’s W-2. There are ways of masking confidential matters.

Would it take some courage on the IRS’s part? Sure. But one of the more secretive entities in the country has taken a leap of faith. During filming of “The Internship,” Google allowed filming on its campus, while offering up employees to appear as extras in the movie opening this week. The company even provided the director “technologically accurate details, such as the type of data that a sales team would use to convince a local pizzeria to buy its advertising tools,” according to the Wall Street Journal.

The paper said Google was permitted to read the screenplay of the comedy with Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson and the filmmakers agreed to cut a scene showing one of the self-driving Google cars wrecking. But for the most part “creative freedom” was granted.

Something says Google will come off looking pretty cool. That probably is too ambitious a goal – and, yes, not the right one – for the IRS. But a slickly produced “behind-the-scenes, meet our people” reality series could make the agency appear more approachable and less robotic. It might also bring in some money to offset some of those hotel bills Congress is angry about.