taxpayer assistance centers need upgrade

even if they get an appointment, taxpayers are limited to one issue.

by 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 research

taxpayer assistance centers were a great idea that have somehow managed to stumble into quasi-dysfunctionality.

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ideally, taxpayers should be able to show up at a tac with their papers and count on good advice and assistance. they should even be able to have their paper returns scanned and filed electronically.

but no. inevitably, this, too, got screwed up.

still understaffed

some of the blame goes to our little pal, the coronavirus. like offices across the country, tacs got shut down or stripped to a skeletal crew.

but now most of them have reopened. last year, 358 were operating. this year, it’s up to 361. some even offer expanded hours and services through the taxpayer experience day and community assistance visits.

unfortunately, many of the centers are still understaffed, some with only a single technical employee. the irs has a two-year plan (yes, two years!) to expand staffing to reasonable levels.

and even if a tac has adequate staff, getting an appointment isn’t easy. you can’t just walk right in, sit right down. you need to make an appointment.

in a more advanced nation, making an appointment wouldn’t be too hard. you make a quick phone call. or you go online and sign up at a website.

but this is america. you can make an appointment on the irs’ web service delivery (websd) site, yes, but first you have to call and talk with an assistor, or go to a tac and make an appointment to come back some other time.

good luck

good luck with the phone call. last year, out of 10,779,159 calls to the nation’s single tac appointment line, 9,592,307 failed to get through to an entity with a pulse. of the 1,186,852 who got through, 686,123 got an appointment. (the others either got their problem resolved on the phone or couldn’t settle on an appointment date.)

assuming you get through, good luck with websd. appointments on websd are limited to taxpayers with a single issue from a short list of eligible issues. two issues? too bad.

one of the main reasons so few taxpayers use websd – besides the requisite and impossible phone call and a one-issue limit – is that few even know about it.

another reason for scarce use is that websd doesn’t offer much in the way of service. one big service not offered would be identity verification activities associated with the taxpayer protection program (tpp). currently, those activities have to be done in either of two ways:

• in person at a tac, which, of course, requires an appointment, which requires a phone call, or
• a phone call to a dedicated irs line, which requires someone to answer the phone, which happens rarely.

taxpayers who manage get into a tac to deliver a tax return are not able to take advantage of e-filing. tacs do not have the capability to scan a return. they have to ship the paper to an irs office, where it begins a kafkaesque odyssey that may take a year to complete. along the way, it

1. increases the irs’s backlog,
2. may have an error inserted during manual transcription,
3. occupies the time of various employees,
4. causes delays for other returns,
5. increases taxpayer dissatisfaction and therefore
6. discourages voluntary compliance.

taxpayers got a bit more service in 2022, when irs field assistance opened some offices on the second saturday of each month from february through august.

that’s right – one day a month for seven months. sometimes it seems the irs doesn’t even want to collect taxes.

america’s national taxpayer advocate, erin m. collins, is cognizant of all the above, and she has bluntly told congress what the problems are and what needs to be done.

says she:

1. fully staff all tac offices and offer extended or saturday hours in high-volume locations.
2. automate the tac appointment process.
3. expand websd services to include tpp verification and other high-demand tac services.
4. implement a process similar to the irs’s acceptance agents program (which allows third parties to issue taxpayer identification numbers) for tpp identity verification.
5. explore ways for tacs to digitize documents and returns on site.

posted on march 6, 2023