WASHINGTON — Customer service at the IRS hit new lows this year, just as taxpayers were grappling with a wave of identity theft and new requirements under President Barack Obama’s health law.
A report issued Wednesday by the National Taxpayer Advocate says the Internal Revenue Service has been hampered by years of budget cuts, which have diminished customer service and hobbled enforcement.
The timing of the budget cuts was bad, the report said.
The IRS blocked nearly 1.6 million suspicious tax refunds this year because of concerns about identity theft — more than double the number from a year ago. About one-third of the refunds turned out to be legitimate. But for long stretches during the tax season, fewer than 10 percent of callers could get through to an IRS help line.
“For the majority of taxpayers who filed their returns and did not require IRS assistance, the filing season was generally successful,” said the report by Nina E. Olson, the taxpayer advocate, an independent office within the agency.
“For the segment of taxpayers who required help from the IRS, the filing season was by far the worst in memory,” the report said. “To a significant degree, the IRS’s shortcomings are budget-driven.”
Overall, only 37 percent of people who called the IRS seeking to talk to a person reached one, the report said. That’s the lowest rate in the past decade, by far.
For those who got through, the average time on hold was 23 minutes.
About 50 million callers reached out to the IRS for help during the tax season. Help lines were so overloaded that the system hung up on 8.8 million callers.
The IRS calls the hang-ups “courtesy disconnects,” because the system hangs up early in the call, rather than making callers wait on hold, only to be disconnected later.
“It is important to note that the IRS must carefully balance limited resources to meet its dual mission of providing taxpayer service and enforcing the tax laws,” the IRS said. “With 75 percent of our budget being personnel, and one-third of our workforce providing taxpayer service, the continuing cuts to our budget have severely hampered our ability to provide taxpayers with the services they need and deserve.”
