Courtney Kay-Decker and the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) Taxpayer Experience Office is being honored in Category 3: Using Innovation, Data, and Breaking Down Organizational Barriers for helping transform how the IRS designs and delivers services around taxpayer needs. As Chief Taxpayer Experience Officer, Courtney led efforts across IRS business units, Treasury, and the Taxpayer Advocate Service to identify systemic challenges, elevate taxpayer feedback, and make customer experience a core part of agency decision-making.

​

Under Courtney's leadership, the team used experience data and cross-functional collaboration to identify friction in payments, online interactions, and other critical taxpayer journeys. Their work strengthened access across digital, phone, and in-person channels while ensuring the needs of underserved communities remained central to service improvements. By connecting teams that traditionally operated independently, Courtney helped establish clearer priorities and align resources around improvements with the greatest impact on taxpayers.

​

These efforts contributed to measurable improvements at tremendous scale. In 2025, the IRS processed more than 165 million individual returns, with approximately 94% filed electronically, while maintaining an 87% level of service on its main phone lines and average wait times of about three minutes. Service enhancements saved taxpayers an estimated 4.1 million hours, while more than 2 million W-2 forms were downloaded through Individual Online Accounts through April 2025. Through data, collaboration, and taxpayer-centered leadership, Courtney and her team have helped build a more responsive, efficient, and accessible IRS service model.