High School

As seen in Reality Check "How Good is Good Enough?" if 99.9% were good enough, how many decisions would the IRS lose each year?

Answer :

If 99.9% were considered good enough, the IRS would still lose approximately 10,000 decisions each year.

In "How Good is Good Enough?" the article discusses the implications of different levels of accuracy. If 99.9% were deemed satisfactory, it implies a tolerance for error of 0.1%. Applying this to the IRS, which handles millions of decisions annually, even a 0.1% error rate would result in a significant number of losses.

Considering the IRS makes millions of decisions each year, a 0.1% error rate equates to approximately 10,000 incorrect decisions annually. This highlights the importance of striving for higher accuracy levels, especially in critical decision-making processes like those undertaken by government agencies.

Thus, while 99.9% might seem like an acceptable level of accuracy in some contexts, it's evident that for institutions like the IRS, even a small margin of error could lead to substantial repercussions, emphasizing the need for rigorous standards and processes to minimize mistakes and ensure fair and effective decision-making.