An official website of the U.S. GovtThe National Taxpayer Advocate’s Preface describes many of the challenges taxpayers faced this year and offers a Taxpayer Rights and Service Assessment measuring how the agency is doing in protecting and furthering taxpayer rights and service while driving voluntary compliance.
The IRS has made considerable progress over the last two years in improving the taxpayer experience. Although Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) funding was heavily tilted toward enforcement and allocated only four percent of IRS funding to the Taxpayer Services account and only six percent of IRS funding to the Business Systems Modernization technology account, the IRS has developed ambitious but achievable taxpayer service and technology goals that it has been working diligently to accomplish.
But continued funding is critical to enable the IRS to successfully deliver on its mission and transform how it works with taxpayers going forward. Over the past two decades, IRS funding has yo-yoed up and down, preventing the agency from developing realistic long-term plans because it could not be certain funding would remain available for implementation. That is why the multiyear funding provided by the IRA has been a game-changer for taxpayers. Though the Enforcement funding in the IRA has been controversial, Taxpayer Services funding and technology funding have received bipartisan support, as they should, and they require continued support to provide taxpayers with better service and a better overall experience.
The National Taxpayer Advocate and her TAS team stand ready to help improve taxpayer service and tax administration for the benefit of all taxpayers and to continue to serve as their safety net when the system fails, all while working to protect taxpayer rights and minimize taxpayer burden.
“With a prudent strategic plan and adequate funding, the IRS has been taking and is continuing to take major steps to improve the experience of all Americans – our taxpayers and your constituents. I strongly recommend that Congress ensure the IRS receives the funding it needs to finish the job. If it does, taxpayers who want to efficiently interact with the IRS solely online should be able to do so within the next two to three years, and taxpayers who prefer to continue to file paper returns or call the IRS will receive better service. As the IRS moves forward, it is critical that it provide financial accountability and operational transparency. Congress should insist on it.”
The Taxpayer Rights and Service Assessment has provided the IRS, Congress, and other stakeholders with a “report card” to measure how the agency is doing in protecting and furthering taxpayer rights and service while driving tax compliance. The Taxpayer First Act (TFA), passed in 2019, requires the IRS to include in its written comprehensive customer service strategy “identified metrics and benchmarks for quantitatively measuring the progress of the Internal Revenue Service in implementing such strategy.” Taxpayer customer service and taxpayer rights are inextricably linked, as evidenced by the right to quality service. The Taxpayer Rights Assessment will allow the IRS to identify areas where it must improve and measure the success of specific changes by comparing data before and after implementing the new customer service strategy. TAS looks forward to working with the IRS on the TFA implementation and future measures. (Link to Taxpayer Rights and Service Assessment)
