IRS Customer Service Expected to Continue to Decline

If you had a tough time getting in touch with the IRS last year, just wait for this coming tax season.

If you had a tough time getting in touch with the IRS last year, just wait for this coming tax season.

According to a report given to Congress, wait times last year were the longest in recent times, and only a bit over 60 percent of callers were able to get through.

That left about 20 million calls unanswered.

The report cited inadequate resources as the root of the problem.

Budget cuts have further diminished the available human resources for tax filing assistance, and this year there are even fewer people on hand to answer questions.

Many services have been cut completely, like helping those with low incomes and the disabled and elderly fill out their forms.

Starting with the 2014 filing season of January to mid April they will answer “basic” tax questions only. More complex questions or during other months taxpayers will be directed to online publications or tax preparation software.

Getting responses from documents and inquiries that have been mailed in will also continue to take quite a bit longer.

At the end of their 2013 fiscal year, over half of the 8 and a half million tax payer letters were more than 45 days old.