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The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) recently issued a report finding that TAS’s local office telephone lines were not giving taxpayers the opportunity to speak with TAS representatives or leave messages. Fortunately, this problem was limited in scope because most calls are placed to our national toll-free number, and we immediately took corrective actions to address TIGTA’s findings.
But the audit highlighted a larger issue: Although TAS ultimately serves most taxpayers well, we are not starting to work cases and we are not returning telephone calls as quickly as we would like. Part of my job is to highlight areas where the IRS is not meeting expectations, so it’s only fair that I be transparent in acknowledging where TAS is falling short. In this blog, I will explain some of the challenges we are facing and describe actions we are taking to improve the level of service we provide to taxpayers, from immediate steps to those we’re planning to implement over the next year and beyond.
That is why I met this week with leaders across the TAS organization to refocus our efforts on delivering exceptional service to each taxpayer we serve. With this opportunity, our leaders are tasked with taking this message back to each office and sharing it with employees, so we do better for those who come to TAS for help. It is time for us to get back to basics and that is what we are working to do.
First, the good news. TAS resolves the significant majority of taxpayer problems satisfactorily. We survey tens of thousands of customers every year about their experiences with TAS, and in fiscal year (FY) 2023, 81 percent reported they were satisfied overall, versus just 15 percent who said they were dissatisfied. This represents a modest improvement over FY 2022 results, and it suggests that TAS is generally doing its job well.
Having said that, I regularly speak to groups of practitioners and hear more complaints than I would like of unreturned phone calls, delays in providing updates, and delays in resolving cases. In a nutshell, TAS faces three core challenges in case advocacy:
With very limited exceptions, TAS accepts all cases that meet our case-acceptance criteria. We are not going to tell a taxpayer potentially facing eviction if TAS can’t help get a levy released, “Sorry, we’ve hit our quota for the year.” That means we can’t staff to handle a pre-determined number of cases and shut our doors for the year once we reach that number.
In each of FYs 2022 and 2023, we received around 220,000 cases. This year, we are on track to receive almost 260,000 cases – an increase of about 18 percent.
To provide context, consider that each fully functioning TAS case advocate typically holds an active inventory of well over 100 cases at any given time. Some case advocates now have active inventories closer to 140 cases, and at some points, they have carried inventories above 150. Every case is different, so numbers by themselves don’t tell the full story of workload. But balancing the needs of over 100 taxpayers at a time is challenging under any circumstance.
Our case advocates are doing their best to advocate for you. But when we experience a year like this in which case receipts have jumped by 18 percent, something must give. Since we don’t turn away taxpayers who are eligible for our assistance, the tradeoff is that we’re taking longer to assign new cases to be worked, longer to return telephone calls, and sometimes longer to resolve cases even after we’ve begun to work them.
Some good news and a positive challenge TAS faces is that we are hiring a lot of new case advocates. Recognizing our staffing limitations, Congress provided TAS with additional funding this year, and I am extremely grateful for that. But it takes months, even years, to train newly hired case advocates, because they work cases that involve a wide range of procedural and technical issues, including returns processing, identity theft, audits, collection matters, and Appeals.
About 30 percent of our case advocates have less than one year of experience, and about 50 percent have less than two years of experience. That means nearly one-third of our case advocate workforce is still receiving training and working limited caseloads or have no caseloads yet, and half are likely to require extra support for complex cases. TAS has never had a year when so many case advocates were new. To compound the challenges, we have to temporarily reassign experienced case advocates to provide training and supervision for the new hires, further straining our resources to work current cases.
Bottom line: We don’t have the case advocate capacity to handle our caseloads as quickly as we would like.
A third challenge we face in efficiently working cases is the limited functionality of our current case management system, which is known as the Taxpayer Advocate Management Information System (TAMIS). TAMIS is more than 20 years old and lacks functionality common in more modern case management systems. As a result, case advocates spend extra time doing work that could be partly or fully automated.
My leadership team and I have been taking a hard look at these challenges, and we are taking the following steps to address them.
Casework is a labor-intensive process, so our top priority is hiring and training more case advocates. To assist taxpayers both effectively and timely, more cases require more case advocates. With the additional funding Congress has provided, we are working to bring more case advocates onboard quickly to improve our responsiveness. Again, I am grateful Congress has given us additional funds to better serve individuals and businesses.
Relatedly, we are taking a hard look at our training processes. As I mentioned earlier, case advocates must ultimately be trained on a wide variety of subjects, and it can take several years to develop an experienced case advocate. As I also mentioned, the more hiring TAS does in a year, the more our productivity is likely to drop in the short term, as experienced case advocates are reassigned from working cases to training and supervising the new hires.
We are actively studying and reimagining how we deliver and develop training, with an eye toward training new hires on the highest volume issues first. That way, they can begin to work those cases more quickly, while continuing to receive comprehensive training that will enable them to become effective all-around advocates over time. True advocacy is not just about checking a box and fixing a problem. Our case advocates and systemic advocates should be looking at issues holistically to determine the underlying causes and fix them as well.
We are developing a new customer relationship management system, named “Phoenix,” that we plan to deploy next year. In designing and building the system, we are relying on input from case advocates who use TAMIS to help us identify areas where technology can automate tasks and otherwise improve efficiencies. The improvements in efficiency will be significant because we will be better able to understand, see, and prioritize work across our workforce from both an employee and a management perspective.
The new system also will have the flexibility for continuous improvement. Similar to the IRS’ Where’s My Refund? app or online account, one long-term goal is to allow taxpayers, tax professionals, and congressional staff to communicate with TAS and obtain case updates through a What’s the Status of my TAS Case? portal or online account. We know our taxpayers want more secure digital communication options and faster service. We envision providing more real-time information and updates using system capabilities, while also allowing our case advocates to spend more of their time on case resolution. The data security concerns of allowing direct access to a portal are significant, so this functionality is probably several years away. But we are actively planning toward that goal to improve the taxpayer experience while we advocate on their behalf.
We are working on temporary changes to our case processing procedures designed to place greater emphasis on economic burden cases while still allowing us to accept and resolve cases that meet TAS’s systemic burden criteria. In the short run, case processing is a zero-sum game – faster processing of economic burden cases likely will mean slower processing of systemic burden cases. We are also looking at ways to serve taxpayers more efficiently. We recognize that any changes to our processes involve tradeoffs, and we will be analyzing the results and adjusting as needed.
TAS assists hundreds of thousands of taxpayers each year who are experiencing economic hardships or whose cases have fallen through the bureaucratic cracks of the IRS. We are mindful at all times that behind each case is an individual, a family, or a business experiencing a problem with the IRS that needs our help to resolve it. I am proud of our team and their genuine passion to assist those in need.
Although most cases are favorably resolved and customer satisfaction is relatively high, we recognize cases are taking longer to resolve and phone calls are not always returned. We will continue to strive to do better. There is an old adage that long-term gain requires short-term pain. While we hope to disprove the adage, it will take time to train our new hires, and it will take time to train our existing case advocates on a new case management system. If our case levels remain at high levels, we are likely to face more challenges over the next year, but I believe the benefits of more trained case advocates and a new customer relationship management system will begin to become apparent by the end of next year.
My commitment is to continue to be transparent about our progress as we work toward becoming a more effective and responsive organization, and I ask for your understanding and patience as our case advocates work to resolve your issues with the IRS.
The views expressed in this blog are solely those of the National Taxpayer Advocate. The National Taxpayer Advocate presents an independent taxpayer perspective that does not necessarily reflect the position of the IRS, the Treasury Department, or the Office of Management and Budget.