If there’s one bright spot in the nation’s employment picture for those of us whose skills don’t include installing solar panels, it’s got to be the opportunities available with that cutting-edge public service organization, the IRS.

The Obama administration has called for a $400 million increase in funding for the agency in fiscal year 2010. The White House hopes the 8 percent boost will help the IRS raise an extra $17 billion in taxes through ramped up enforcement.

Much of the funding will go to support international enforcement, IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman explained in remarks to the OECD this week. The government wants to ensure that corporate taxpayers “do not use the complexities of international capital markets to push tax planning beyond acceptable bounds.”

“For too many years, the IRS was in the position of not having the resources to go toe-to-toe with taxpayers operating in the international markets,” Shulman noted (the full transcript is available here). “They had deep pockets and could hire a cadre of legal and tax experts. Some observers said we were outmanned and outgunned. To meet this challenge, we must keep existing personnel current in emerging techniques and hire top examiners, lawyers, economists, special agents, and financial specialists who can unravel the sophisticated and complex world of international tax issues.”

Sounds like a promising opportunity for corporate tax pros who might be interested in switching to the government sector, especially those with skills in the four main areas of focus outlined by the Commissioner: transfer pricing, financial instruments, hybrid structures, and withholding taxes.

And if you happen to have some IT skills, that’s certainly another area where the IRS could use a little help. A couple of weeks ago, the Treasury released a report detailing the reasons why an IRS initiative to install a new Web-based portal environment flopped in 2008 after two years of work. The project “did not have a viable, agreed-upon, enterprise-level portal business strategy,” the report finds. In addition, the organization charged with developing the project “was experiencing budget challenges, and the Chief Information Officer decided not to fund the project any longer because it would require a significant expenditure on equipment.”

The price tag for the botched project? A mere $19.5 million.

So how about it, all you corporate tax practitioners? Any takers? For the IRS’s hiring pitch (“It’s a great time to join the agency!”), complete with a photo of happy smiling IRS guy, click here. ###