The work of U.S. state revenue departments (DORs) is vital for these governments’ fiscal sustainability—the collection of tax receipts and efficient flow of these funds into state treasuries is a foundation for state government operations. On the other hand, state revenue departments do not have constituents that support their work in the same sense that public health departments, or even corrections departments, have. That is, the “reluctant clients” (i.e., taxpayers) of revenue departments are only concerned with the performance of the department if it affects their own tax payments. Ironically, tax departments that operate efficiently and generate high collection rates provide taxpayers the benefit of bringing in the greatest amount of revenue quickly to fund public services. Mission statements, a requirement of most, if not all state agencies in the U.S., direct organizations to conduct legally prescribed and expected work and can orient employees to the organizational culture. In this research, we examine the mission statements in the 50 U.S. state government revenue departments to determine 1) the content, clarity and focus of these statements, and 2) the relationship, if any, of mission statement characteristics to agency performance. In addition to collecting and coding the characteristics of mission statements, we search for evidence of innovative strategies and processes these departments may engage to meet their missions. We collect data about agency resources, including fiscal, human and technological ones and have a planned survey of state government revenue department directors. Our dependent variable accesses revenue collections as a proxy for DOR performance. Our goal is to flesh out a model of state DOR performance, dependent upon measures of mission characteristics, innovations engaged and resources provided.