Taxable Talk

Today I attempted to call the IRS Practitioner Priority Service (PPS). I had an outstanding issue I needed to resolve. I didn’t get through.

I’m used to being on hold for two hours when calling the IRS. Unfortunately, the IRS has cut staff in customer service. When I called today I reached the normal recording, but every time I attempted to obtain help for an individual not in collections (that’s one of the options when calling the PPS) all I got was, “Due to extremely high call volumes that option is not available now. Please try your call again later.” Sigh.

I imagine the regular phone numbers are just as bad. The IRS estimates that only 53% of phone calls will be answered this tax season. (Of course, given that the IRS’s accuracy in answering tax help questions isn’t particularly good, some of the missed calls may be to a taxpayer’s benefit.)

Still, I have to wonder about the IRS’s priorities. First, the IRS eliminated the ability for tax professionals to use e-services to enter Power of Attorney forms; that increased call volume. The IRS has apparently cut staff at the CAF Unit–the unit that processes the POAs that we now must fax in. It’s taking over a week for those POAs to be processed (the IRS “promised” four business days). That’s increased call volume. Adding the complexity of the new property regulations and the Affordable Care Act is making things worse for everyone.

There’s no moral here–this is more of a rant. But it’s a rant with a consequence: If tax professionals can’t get through on the phone to resolve issues, we’re forced to write letters. This causes delays in resolving matters, leading to more phone calls, more letters, and more cost to the IRS. Unless I’m missing something this is the path we’re heading down.

Tags: Practitioner.Priority.Service

This entry was posted on Monday, March 2nd, 2015 at 7:25 pm and is filed under IRS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.