New Low In IRS Service: Just 10% Of Possible ID Theft Victims Got Calls Answered
By Janet Novack
It’s certainly not news that the Internal Revenue Service, suffering from a 17% real cut in its budget over the last five years, provided abysmal phone service this past tax filing season. But in her mid-year report to Congress released this morning, National Taxpayer Advocate Nina E. Olson disclosed what still qualifies as a startling failure.
The IRS has layered on more computer screens to block fraudulent refund claims by identity thieves and as a result is holding up the processing of more legitimate tax returns too. This past filing season, it froze 1.6 million returns, twice the number as the year before, with at least a third of this year’s frozen returns from legitimate taxpayers. Taxpayers whose returns have been frozen are sent letters telling them to call a special Taxpayer Protection Program (TPP) line to confirm their identities. But this past tax season, only 17% of 2.9 million phone calls made to the TPP line got through to an IRS employee and those callers who did reach a person spent an average of 28 minutes on hold first.
Even worse, for three consecutive weeks, from Feb. 21st to March 14th, the IRS answered fewer than 10% of calls from these possible ID theft victims. In the first week of February, the average hold time was an hour. Not surprisingly, the number of TPP phone calls exceeded the number of frozen returns since callers who don’t get through to the IRS call again and again, since they want their refunds–and want to know if someone has stolen their identities. (While those receiving the TPP letters did have the option of going on line and answering certain “out-of-wallet” or “knowledge-based authentication” questions to confirm their identities, that may not be a satisfactory approach for a taxpayer fearful he or she is already the victim of identity theft.)
The problem possible identity theft victims had getting through to IRS workers was unrelated to the security breach which the IRS disclosed in May, after the end of the filing season. More than 100,000 taxpayer accounts were hacked by identity thieves through the IRS’ online “Get Transcript” service. The breach allowed thieves to get such information as taxpayers’ Social Security numbers and the birth dates of their dependent children. Olson describes the Get Transcript breach as an at least temporary setback for the IRS strategy of cutting costs by moving most customer service to human free interactions online. That’s not a strategy she approves of, writing:
“It is wishful thinking, if not foolhardy, to expect taxpayers to rely on computer-driven systems for resolution of tax problems that, if not resolved fully, could lead to devastating financial consequences. Taxpayers, and their representatives, need the ability to talk with IRS employees, explain their circumstances, and make sure that the IRS understands their position. The IRS should want to talk with these taxpayers, because each conversation provides an opportunity for it to understand the taxpayer’s facts and circumstances, recognize a situation that presents a different issue, educate the taxpayer about what is required for full compliance, and provide a full resolution to the taxpayer’s problem.”
Overall, Olson reports just 37% of taxpayers got through to customer service reps during the 2015 tax filing season lasting from January 1 to April 18, down dramatically from 71% during the 2014 filing season. The average wait time in 2015 rose to 23 minutes, from 14 minutes last year. And even the most patient callers weren’t assured of getting through, since the IRS simply disconnected 8.8 million callers this past season, up from 544,000 in 2014. (The IRS disconnects calls when its switchboard is so overloaded it can’t take any more. Incredibly, it calls these hang-ups “courtesy disconnects.”)
Olson does give the IRS credit for running a generally smooth filing season, despite budget cuts and the new processing demands created by the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. ObamaCare). “For the majority of taxpayers who filed their returns and did not require IRS assistance, the filing season was generally successful,’’ she writes. “For the segment of taxpayers who required help from the IRS, the filing season was by far the worst in memory.”
The biggest processing glitch, she notes, wasn’t the fault of the IRS but of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which issued about 800,000 erroneous Forms 1095-A, Health Insurance Marketplace Statement, to individuals who had purchased health insurance from the federal exchange. Treasury acted quickly to minimize the impact of the erroneous forms by ruling that taxpayers who had already filed returns based on the incorrect information didn’t have to file amended returns. Moreover, the IRS answered 68 percent of taxpayer telephone calls on ObamaCare issues that were routed to telephone assistors. For the IRS in 2015, that qualified as priority phone service.
The biggest processing glitch, she notes, wasn’t the fault of the IRS but of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which issued about 800,000 erroneous Forms 1095-A, Health Insurance Marketplace Statement, to individuals who had purchased health insurance from the federal exchange. Treasury acted quickly to minimize the impact of the erroneous forms by ruling that taxpayers who had already filed returns based on the incorrect information didn’t have to file amended returns. Moreover, the IRS answered 68 percent of taxpayer telephone calls on ObamaCare issues that were routed to telephone assistors. For the IRS in 2015, that qualified as priority phone service.
