A spokesman for the Internal Revenue Service says that the agency saves U.S. taxpayers money by maintaining a personnel recruiting presence in Second Life.

This news comes by way of CollegeRecruiter.com, which acknowledges that the IRS is one of its clients. The site has posted a short interview with Frank Stipe, Virtual Worlds & Social Networking Project Manager for the IRS. Stipe explains the IRS's Second Life connection:

In 2008, the IRS project team established a presence in the Second Life virtual world... The team has created the IRS Careers Island and constructed a sky platform with an IRS Careers Center and an IRS Education Center... [these features have] been opened to the general population in Second Life since February 2009...

 

In the physical world, we could spend hundreds of thousands, if not millions, on sponsoring a race car that displays our brand in a field of thirty or more other cars. In the SL virtual world, we have spent a few thousand dollars to build complete entertainment and communications venue that includes a race course...

We are now entering the relationship building phase where we are reaching out to universities that operate virtual campuses in Second Life to market directly to their students...