National Taxpayer Advocate Erin M. Collins appeared live on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal call-in program on Tuesday, February 13. National Taxpayer Advocate Collins discussed her 2023 Annual Report to Congress, including some of the most serious problems facing taxpayers. She also addressed challenges facing the IRS, the improvements the IRS has made since the pandemic, and answered viewer questions about the tax filing season and other hot button tax topics.

Washington Journal is a forum for leading public policy makers to discuss key events and legislation and take questions from the public in a town hall format. Collins kicked off the program by explaining that the Taxpayer Advocate Service is the “safety net” for taxpayer when all else fails and shared some good news for taxpayers about this year’s tax filing season.

“What we are looking at currently, is that this filing season will be a bit more smooth,” said National Taxpayer Advocate Erin M. Collins. “We are seeing electronic returns that are being filed and paid promptly. Things are looking good. I have my fingers crossed.”

On the other hand, Collins also discussed the ongoing struggles facing identity theft victims who are still waiting many months to get their refunds. She explains, “the challenge the IRS had was in order to get caught up, the IRS was borrowing from Peter to pay Paul. They were moving resources around to prioritize the filing of tax returns. They moved people who helped folks who were victims of identity theft and moved them to do other work. As a result, those returns took about an average of 19 months in order for the folks to properly identify themselves and get those refunds, which I think we all agree is not a reasonable period of time.”

During the hour-long program Collins also fielded a variety of tax-related topics including:

• The Employee Retention Credit;
• IRS Document Upload Tool;
• IRS funding;
• IRS hiring, training, and recruiting;
• Simplifying the tax code to make it easier for taxpayers to file;
• The Volunteer Income Tax Assistance/Tax Counseling for the Elderly programs;
• Identity theft: What information does the IRS need to authenticate your identity;
• Importance of Identity Protection PINs; and
• Math Error Notices.

You can watch a replay of the entire Q&A or read a transcript online at the C-SPAN Washington Journal website: www.c-span.org

Please visit www.taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov to get more information about the Taxpayer Advocate Service (TAS) and to access helpful resources such as our Get Help pages and TAS Tax Tips. You can also keep up to date with the latest TAS news, and important tax-related issues by subscribing to the National Taxpayer Advocate’s Blog.