Applying behavioral science to optimize service design and communications
Through human-centered design and behavioral insights, PCG modernized IRS notices to help taxpayers better understand required actions. The initiative improved compliance behaviors while driving measurable operational efficiency gains.
Notices and letters constitute one of the IRS’s primary channels for communicating with taxpayers and facilitating tax-compliant actions. However, many taxpayers do not respond appropriately due to uncertainty about message meaning, implications, or required next steps. When taxpayers subsequently contact the agency for clarification, the interaction creates burden on both taxpayer time and agency resources.
One of the high-impact strategic initiatives enabled by the Inflation Reduction Act was accelerated modernization of taxpayer communications. The objective: improve clarity, usability, and engagement so that taxpayers better understand their obligations and can access eligible benefits without requiring direct agency assistance.
Solution
Through the Simple Notice Initiative, Pacific Consulting Group supported comprehensive redesign of IRS notices to improve taxpayer comprehension, usability, and engagement. The effort focused on simplifying content, modernizing design, and encouraging digital self-service capabilities.
Key enhancements included:
Clear, action-oriented headlines immediately communicating notice purpose
Shorter, scannable primary content with detailed explanations relocated to IRS.gov
Simplified scenarios reducing confusion and enabling better outcome tracking
Modern typography, increased font sizes, and improved use of white space
Embedded QR codes linking directly to relevant online resources
Flagship example: Notice 5071C Redesign
Notice 5071C requests taxpayers verify their identity to prevent fraudulent return processing. The original seven-page notice was redesigned to two pages with:
Clearer instructions on verification requirements
Visual cues highlighting critical information
Streamlined path to online verification
Results
The redesigned notice produced measurable improvements in taxpayer behavior and operational efficiency:
By clarifying next steps and promoting digital self-service, the redesign generated time savings for both taxpayers and agency personnel, with substantial cost reduction potential. The initiative also strengthened public trust by improving accessibility to legitimate, verifiable notices through digital channels.
Program expansion
Building on this success, the IRS has redesigned more than 100 notices and is progressing toward digitizing 90% of all individual taxpayer notice volume.
Operational Constraints Addressed
This engagement operated within significant constraints:
Jill Long serves as Director of Business Operations at Pacific Consulting Group, leading core business operations and administrative functions to ensure organizational effectiveness, financial integrity, and compliance. She brings more than 25 years of experience as an accounting and finance professional across financial services and professional services industries.
In her role, Ms. Long oversees office operations and administrative processes supporting Pacific Consulting Group’s consultants and leadership team, focusing on strengthening internal controls, improving cross-functional coordination, and enabling efficient project delivery. Throughout her career in roles including Office Manager, Accounting Specialist, and Financial Analyst, she has successfully implemented cost-saving initiatives and process improvements enhancing collaboration and operational performance.
Education: Bachelor of Science in Accounting, University of Kansas; Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, University of Kansas
Holly Bird serves as Director of Business Development and Support at Pacific Consulting Group. She brings seven years of experience in business development and contracting across public and private sectors, having directed proposal teams and managed processes for securing new business and transitioning from contract award to project implementation.
Ms. Bird’s expertise includes identifying opportunities, developing strategic partnerships, and leading contract negotiations. In her current role, she coordinates capture of new business from initial opportunity identification through project startup and provides executive leadership with business intelligence. She operates in a collaborative environment with staff, consultants, and partner firms to meet project delivery objectives, support growth targets, and maintain staffing requirements.
Education: Bachelor of Arts, Kent State University
Jane Fitzgerald serves as Research Project Manager on Pacific Consulting Group’s Insights team, bringing more than ten years of experience as a marketing researcher across government, healthcare, and education sectors. Since 2013, she has led rigorous quantitative and qualitative research programs focused on attitudinal and behavioral insights, message testing, and communications research supporting data-informed decision-making.
At Pacific Consulting Group, Ms. Fitzgerald designs and manages end-to-end research studies, overseeing primary data collection and delivering actionable insights for clients including the Internal Revenue Service, National Gallery of Art, City of San Jose Environmental Services Department, and Aquarion Water Company. She is a RIVA-trained qualitative moderator with extensive experience engaging diverse audiences ranging from museum visitors and utility customers to healthcare executives and public-sector leaders. Her work is grounded in methodological rigor; seven of her research studies have been published in peer-reviewed journals.
Education: Bachelor of Arts, Hamilton College; Master of Public Health, Brown University
Preston Trimble is a Senior Manager of Analytics with more than seven years of experience designing and delivering data-driven analytical and reporting solutions across public and private sectors. His expertise spans large-scale data engineering, predictive analytics, and the development of decision-ready visualizations, with a focus on healthcare and public organization operational data.
Prior to consulting, Mr. Trimble worked in healthcare analytics, where he played a key role in developing a self-service data mining tool designed to identify patterns in healthcare claims data. This work sharpened his ability to translate complex data into actionable insights and laid the foundation for his broader career in analytics engineering and data strategy.
Mr. Trimble currently serves as Project Manager and Data Specialist for the IRS Research, Applied Analytics, and Statistics (RAAS) Customer Experience (CX) Analytics initiative. In this role, he coordinates across multiple analytics and engineering workstreams to ensure deliverables meet RAAS leadership standards for quality, analytical rigor, and timeliness.
Education: Bachelor of Science in Mathematics, University of Colorado Denver; Master of Science in Applied Mathematics (in progress), Johns Hopkins University
Jeremy Wiedemeier serves as Director of Engineering, leading design and delivery of scalable, data-driven software solutions supporting complex analytics and research initiatives. He brings more than six years of experience spanning software development, data analysis, and applied research.
Prior to consulting, Mr. Wiedemeier developed applications and data-driven tools supporting research in nanoscale microscopy. Over the past two years, he has focused on architecting, developing, and deploying web applications for data-intensive programs within the IRS Office of Research, Applied Analytics, and Statistics (RAAS), leading multiple applications across the full software development lifecycle.
Mr. Wiedemeier has contributed significantly to expanding ASR’s web-based enterprise tax analytics platform, RevHub, including developing a module enabling state tax auditors to generate dynamic notices. For the IRS, he led development of a full-stack web application enabling fraud analysts to efficiently retrieve and visualize tax preparer activity, leveraging modern frameworks including React and Java Spring within microservices architecture.
Education: Bachelor of Arts in Physics and Philosophy, University of Utah
Brock Ramos serves as Vice President providing senior leadership for Data Engineering and Science operations, including strategic direction for team management, resource allocation, and business development. Leveraging eighteen years of prior experience, Mr. Ramos’s recent engagements focus on delivering solutions for the Internal Revenue Service.
Current major initiatives include managing projects to improve notice development processes using advanced software platforms and developing analytics capabilities to identify operational inefficiencies in the notice development workflow. Additionally, Mr. Ramos oversees deployment of analytics strengthening online authentication and bolstering identity protection efforts at the IRS.
Mr. Ramos’s expertise is grounded in key roles at IRS Research, Applied Analytics, and Statistics (RAAS), where he established and managed cross-functional teams dedicated to rapidly identifying and mitigating emerging identity theft schemes and led teams focused on detecting first-party fraud within tax return filings.
Education: Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, Texas A&M University; Master of Public Service and Administration, Texas A&M University
Jake Brooks serves as Vice President in Pacific Consulting Group’s federal analytics practice. Mr. Brooks brings more than ten years of experience implementing large-scale data integration and machine learning projects in both financial services and government sectors, including extensive work with the Internal Revenue Service. He has established and led programs exceeding 50 personnel covering machine learning engineering and MLOps, Kubernetes platform architecture, large-scale graph analytics, and product management for full-stack applications. Recent work has focused on designing enterprise platforms enabling broad spectrum machine learning applications.
Mr. Brooks possesses specialized expertise in Title 31/Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) domain, including assessment of non-bank financial institutions’ transaction monitoring and compliance programs, and utilization of BSA filing data to identify emerging risk patterns.
Education: Bachelor of Arts in Slavic Languages, Indiana University
Lauren Szczerbinski serves as Vice President with more than fourteen years of experience leading advanced data analysis, econometric modeling, and business intelligence initiatives across the public sector. For nine years, she has maintained a key leadership role supporting the IRS Research, Applied Analytics, and Statistics (RAAS) organization and multiple Business Operating Divisions, contributing to improved compliance outcomes through strategic consulting, custom analytics application development, and data-driven decision support.
Ms. Szczerbinski’s expertise encompasses analytical solution design, applied research methodology, and translation of complex analytical findings into actionable recommendations for senior stakeholders. Previously, she served as lead analyst on a mixed-methods research engagement supporting economic and social impact analysis for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).
Ms. Szczerbinski maintains active IRS MBI clearance and active NTIA Public Trust clearance. She is a Certified ScrumMaster® through the Scrum Alliance.
Education: Bachelor of Arts in Economics, Boston University; Master of Arts in Economics, Boston University
Jeremy Howard serves as Vice President with more than 20 years of experience leading design and delivery of customized data management, analytics, and reporting solutions for complex public-sector programs. He has managed analytical consulting engagements and technology implementations involving large-scale data integration, predictive analytics, machine learning, and data visualization, with specialized expertise in tax analytics and tax administration.
In supporting the Internal Revenue Service, Mr. Howard has led strategic initiatives focused on identity theft mitigation and customer experience improvement, including development of an enterprise customer experience application leveraging predictive analytics, natural language processing, and graph database technologies.
Prior to joining Pacific Consulting Group, Mr. Howard led ASR’s State and Local business practice, developing analytical solutions for public-sector clients nationwide. In that capacity, he directed a flagship engagement with the Maryland Office of the Comptroller, deploying geospatial analytics and machine learning models to combat tax fraud, increase compliance, and improve taxpayer experience.
Education: Bachelor of Arts in Economics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Yvonne Nomizu serves as Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Pacific Consulting Group. She brings forty years of experience in customer experience strategy, service operations, new product development, and process redesign across financial services, technology, consumer goods, and hospitality sectors, with specialized expertise in marketing research and operational consulting.
At Pacific Consulting Group, Ms. Nomizu provides executive oversight for research programs and leads service design initiatives for government and corporate clients. Her work focuses on linking research objectives to organizational goals, designing methodologically rigorous studies, and translating analytical findings into implementable operational improvements.
Since 2002, Ms. Nomizu has directed research and improvement initiatives for the Internal Revenue Service. She has provided decision support to senior leadership at the Federal Reserve Board, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Social Security Administration, Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, General Services Administration, and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Corporate engagements include California Water Service, Microsoft Corporation, San Francisco Friends School, National Association of Water Companies, and Pacific Gas & Electric Company.
Ms. Nomizu understands the operational and political realities of government service delivery, having supported federal executives in balancing resource constraints with service improvement mandates and reporting requirements to oversight bodies.
Education: Bachelor of Arts, Harvard University; Master of Business Administration, Stanford Graduate School of Business
Michael Stavrianos serves as Vice President and senior program leader with more than 25 years of experience directing large-scale modernization, compliance, and analytics initiatives for the Internal Revenue Service. As a business process strategist, he has served as contractor lead on numerous high-visibility programs across IRS Research, Applied Analytics, and Statistics (RAAS), Small Business/Self-Employed (SB/SE), and Wage and Investment (W&I) divisions.
His engagements include leadership roles on the Private Debt Collection program, redesign of IRS collection notices, and development of fraud detection algorithms for the Return Review Program (RRP). His expertise encompasses business process engineering, requirements management, analytics strategy, and executive stakeholder engagement.
From 2022 to 2025, Mr. Stavrianos managed the Tax and Revenue practice at Voyatek, overseeing a portfolio exceeding $200 million and serving as Program Manager for the IRS Data Analytics and Innovation Support (DAIS) Blanket Purchase Agreement—among the largest federal data science initiatives.
Throughout his career, Mr. Stavrianos has led cross-functional teams in designing and implementing enterprise solutions including business rules engines, large-scale analytics platforms, and case automation tools. He has delivered briefings to multiple IRS Commissioners and understands the operational complexities of managing programs affecting thousands of employees and millions of customer interactions.
Education: Bachelor of Arts in Statistics and Spanish, Washington University in St. Louis; Master of Public Policy, Georgetown University
