Another tax season has come to an end, and it’s possible that the IRS is getting close to having an overwhelming number of tax returns in its waiting line.
People had even more reason to dislike the federal agency they already loathe due to delayed refunds and substandard customer service.
IRS Workforce Rebuilt
U.S. Treasury Deported reported this week that the Internal Revenue Service has rebuilt its workforce and reduced the number of unprocessed tax returns from over 12 million to approximately 2 million over the past year.
It is also easier to obtain assistance from an agent. The average wait time for a taxpayer to speak with an IRS representative has decreased to four minutes, from a soul-crushing 28 minutes last year.
They were able to hire more people to answer the phone after receiving additional funds. They rummaged through an unfathomable mess of paper tax returns. Therefore, things are improved even with a small amount of money.
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Tax Pros File Error-Free Despite Smaller Refunds
Tax pros concur. Despite the fact that some taxpayers may be dissatisfied with this year’s smaller tax refunds, the filing process has, according to experts, been error-free.
The IRS was able to hire 5,000 customer service representatives and install new online systems thanks to additional funding provided by the Inflation Reduction Act from the previous fiscal year.
As Steven Rattner, a former member of the Obama administration and current CEO of investment firm Willett Advisors, tweeted this week, some pundits have lauded these results, citing the IRS’s improvement as an example of how well government can perform when you let it work.
The budget increase for 2022 represented a negligible portion of the $80 billion the IRS anticipates receiving over the next decade.
In addition to restoring its depleted staff, the agency intends to update its telephone systems so that callers can leave messages and receive callbacks, a feature that banks, utilities, and airlines have had for years.
Gleckman said, “It has been impossible for you to leave a message for decades, but now you can.”
Moreover, Gleckman stated that despite the fact that there is a great deal of partisan debate regarding the exact percentage of phone calls that the IRS is answering one camp puts it at 87%, while another puts it in the high seventies “there is little debate that they’re better.”
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