Marcus Morgan, Internal Revenue Service- Appeals Division

There are times when taxpayers and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) disagree. When federal taxpayers in Illinois are facing a conflict with the IRS, Marcus Morgan may help settle the dispute.

Morgan — who earned his bachelor’s degree in Administrative Management in 1998 and his MBA in 2001 from the MSU COB — is an Administrative Judge for the IRS’ Appeals Division, an independent arm of the IRS. Employees of the division work with taxpayers who are on the verge of — or may have experienced — collection action by the IRS. Actions could include filing a federal tax lien, collection by administrative levies, seizure of personal and/or real property and more.  The Appeals Division often can resolve cases without having to go to court. “I hear cases, hold conferences and make rulings much the same way that a judge would,” says Morgan, who lives in a suburb of Chicago.

Morgan says his favorite course while at MSU was MGT 667, with Dr. Pat Feltes. Morgan says the course was the most difficult because Feltes demanded the best. For the required group project, Morgan’s group chose to study Palm, then a leader in the emerging industry of personal digital assistants.  “As I think about it, this was only 12 years ago, but that industry has changed extensively since then. No one had phones with smart capabilities in those days … I balked at the idea that there would be strong demand for a phone with both e-mail and web capability. In fact, I said the market would be marginal at best. Was I wrong or what? I e-mailed Dr. Feltes when we got word she retired and we had a good laugh about that,” Morgan says.

One of his most personally rewarding experiences from his days at MSU was a service project. “Nothing in my professional career has compared to some of the things I’ve been involved in from a service standpoint,” Morgan says. While at MSU, he helped the Boys and Girls Town of Missouri (BGTM) by organizing a sock drive, SOCKS, which collected 3,000 pairs of socks in 60 days. Morgan says he was inspired when he learned kids living at the facility were only allocated seven pairs of socks annually, despite the fact they couldn’t wear shoes indoors. As a result, it didn’t take long for the kids to wear out a pair of socks. Children “were running around with duct tape on their socks. I recruited nine other student leaders and we set out on a mission to change the landscape of BGTM. It was awesome … I still get chills many years later thinking about the impact of SOCKS,” states Morgan.

Morgan continues to volunteer and offers this advice to students: “I would suggest that they must be driven and they’ve got to work harder and smarter than everybody else. I would further suggest that they keep their lives in proper perspective. While the world will judge you by how much you have, the greater testimony is in how much you give.”