The Internal Revenue Service is looking to improve its customer service metrics as well as improve its technology offerings in the coming tax filing season.
Building on the supplemental funding from the Inflation Reduction Act, the IRS has already seen improvements to its phone service and is now looking to improve on it.
“Massive investments in customer service mean taxpayers will get the information and support they deserve,” Department of the Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said November 7, 2023, during an event at IRS headquarters.
For the 2024 tax filing season, the IRS is committed to maintaining the 85 percent level of service it achieved in the 2023 filing season on the agency’s main taxpayer help line. It also is targeting a hold time of five minutes or less while offering 95 percent call back availability when projected wait times are expected to exceed 15 minutes.
IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel, speaking at the event, also highlighted a trust target.
“This past filingseason, 84 percent of taxpayers who interacted with our phone assisters stated that this interaction increased their trust in the IRS,” Werfel said. “That’s up from 70 percent two years ago. In the coming filingseason, we want to continue to again [the Office of Management and Budget’s] trust goal of 75 percent.”
Yellen also highlighted how the “Where’s My Refund?” tool will be improved for the coming season, including incorporating “conversational voice-bot technology to help taxpayers get answers more quickly, and it will provide clearer and more detailed information so taxpayers can address barriers to processing their returns and receive their refunds quickly.”
She also said that Taxpayer Assistance Centers increase the hours of face-to-face assistance provided by more than 8,000 hours compared to what was provided in the 2023 filing season.
Yellen also stated that the IRS has met a technology goal and in the 2024 filing season, taxpayers will be able to “digitally upload all correspondence and responses to notices instead of mailing them. … The impact will be significant and far reaching. Taxpayers will save time and effort. The IRS will reduce errors and storage costs and will speed up processing time for the system as a whole.”
Additionally, there will be 20 more forms that taxpayers can electronically file in the 2024 filing season.
Yellen and Werfel also reiterated recent announcements on compliance and enforcement efforts and committed to continuing to ensure everyone is paying their fair share of taxes owed.
By Gregory Twachtman, Washington News Editor
