IRS Phone Service Levels: Improvement in 2016?

As most tax professionals are aware, getting through to the IRS on the telephone last year was often a fool's errand.  The IRS answered less than 40% of calls and those who did get through had a significant wait before the call was answered.  Those who did not get through often waited two hours before getting the "courtesy disconnect."

 

How is the IRS doing this year with more budget money from Congress?   Better, according to IRS Commissioner John Koskinen

 

Koskinen testified before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government this week that the IRS has used $178 million of the increase in budgeted funds to improve the level of service on the phones and answered 3 million more phone calls this year than it did by the same time last year.

 

Koskinen's testimony was supported by Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russell George, who testified the IRS is forecasting a 65 percent level of service for FY 2016, which compares with 38 percent the previous year. 

 

With full funding Koskinen said the IRS might get to 70 percent of phone calls being answered for the year.  "Our goal would be go back to where we were in the mid-2000s, where our level of service was 80 percent and the waiting time was less than three minutes," Koskinen said.