Nina E. Olson, who has headed up the Taxpayer Advocate’s Office since 2001, is starting to sound a bit like a broken record. In the recently issued Taxpayer Advocate Annual Report, she has voiced four primary concerns. At the top of that list—the current budgetary environment would result in more and more shortfalls within Taxpayer Services.
In addition, the spending curtailment has not only reduced the amount of staff available to field calls from the taxpaying public, but it has also reduced the amount of funding available to train those service professionals. This has been the trend for the past several years. As a result, taxpayers should expect to encounter more difficulty gaining access to IRS professionals, and those professionals may not be able to offer as much assistance. Below are some statistics that illustrate just how much pain taxpayers can expect.
In 2004—which is considered by the Taxpayer Advocate’s Office as the high-water mark for IRS service levels—the IRS answered 87% of calls from taxpayers seeking assistance. Those callers had typical hold times averaging two-and-a-half minutes. According to the report, “The IRS also responded to a wide range of tax-law questions, both on its toll-free lines and in its roughly 400 walk-in sites, prepared nearly 500,000 tax returns for taxpayers who requested help (particularly low income, elderly, and disabled taxpayers), and maintained a robust outreach and education program that touched an estimated 72 million taxpayers.”
According to the same report, 2015 service levels are expected to be as follows:
- The IRS is unlikely to answer even half of the telephone calls it receives, and levels of service may average as low as 43%.
- Taxpayers are expected to encounter average wait times of 30 minutes, and those wait times could be considerably longer during peak season.
- The IRS will answer far fewer tax-law questions than in past years. During the upcoming filing season, the IRS will answer only “basic” tax-law questions, and after tax season, the IRS will not answer any tax-law questions at all, leaving taxpayers who file later in the year to fend for themselves.
- Tax return preparation assistance has also been eliminated, leaving countless low-income, disabled and elderly taxpayers unassisted.
What does all of this mean for you? Don’t worry! Help is available. There are many tax professionals, including the nearly 50 tax professionals here at PYA, who can help you navigate the treacherous waters of the 2015 filing season. From the Affordable Care Act to the new Tangible Property Regulations and countless rules in between, the increasing complexity of our tax system can be staggering. By reaching out to a tax professional, perhaps the pain of voluntary compliance can be more bearable.
If you are stumped with tax-related questions we can help you answer, contact the experts listed below at PYA, (800) 270-9629.
