Court ruling could result in millions of dollars in IRS coronavirus tax refunds
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Not long ago, the Internal Revenue Service boasted that if a taxpayer called the agency, they could expect to be connected to a live employee within three minutes.
That may have been true until a few years ago. That’s not the case now.
In a new report to Congress, an independent national taxpayer advocacy group paints a not-so-flattering picture of the typical taxpayer experience when calling the IRS.
The average taxpayer who called the IRS during this year’s tax season spent 14 minutes on hold, the advocacy group reports. Across various IRS divisions, the average hold time was as long as 45 minutes.
Here are some more alarming statistics: Of the 48 million calls the IRS received during tax season, fewer than 10 million, or about 21%, were answered by customer service agents.
What happened to the remaining 38 million calls?
Based on my own experience with the IRS this spring, I think I have a pretty good idea.
I filed a tax return for my deceased mother. Then I waited.
My mother passed away in November. I asked her accountant to prepare her tax return. The return indicated that there was a refund deadline. We filed and waited.
About a month later, I received a letter from the IRS. It asked for several documents, one to prove that my mother was dead, and a few things to prove that I was her court-appointed representative.
I called the IRS multiple times before replying. I wanted to know if the agency would accept copies of documents instead of originals. The letter was unclear.
I called the number listed in the letter, 800-829-0922. The auto-answer told me that no one was available to answer the call due to high call volume. I was told to call back later.
It happened a few more times. So the next day, I called the IRS’ main helpline at 800-829-1040. I had to wait for 1 hour and 54 minutes. At that point I gave up.
I went ahead and mailed my response to the IRS, including the requested documents.
And I waited.
8-hour hold and “favorable disconnection”
Over the next few weeks, I called the IRS from time to time. I wanted to know if they received my documents and ask if they needed anything else.
My iPhone logs show 14 calls to different IRS numbers in May and June. Most of the calls were within a few minutes. Either the automated answerer told you to call back later, or the hold time was too long to bear.
In 1 out of 14 calls, the automated attendant offered to call me back when an agent was available. I never got a call back.
Fortunately or unfortunately, I have been put on hold several times. Phone records show hold times as 63 minutes, 85 minutes, 18 minutes, 125 minutes, and 81 minutes. I made another call or waited on hold until someone answered.
I think I contacted an IRS customer service agent three times. Everyone was polite and responsive. And everyone gave slightly different advice.
I think the first agent told me to wait a few weeks and call back because my documents hadn’t been processed yet. A few weeks later, another agent told me that my documents had not yet been processed. The employee suggested that I collect my documents, call back, fax them again (yes, the IRS still has fax machines), and have a more meaningful conversation.
A third agent told me there was no need to fax anything. The agent said it could take up to 60 days for my documents to be processed. There was no point in calling the IRS until day 61.
So I’ll wait again. I counted 60 days from the day I mailed the letter, added a week just in case, and put a reminder in my calendar to call the IRS the next day if I still didn’t hear back.
Now, going back to the National Taxpayer Advocate report, I think I have a pretty good idea of what happened to the 79% of calls from taxpayers that were not answered by a customer service agent.
Some callers got the information they needed from the auto attendant. I’m sure many more people simply hung up because they couldn’t wait on hold, couldn’t stand the automated answer, or couldn’t find anyone to answer the phone.
Earlier this year, the Taxpayer Rights Center tested the IRS phone system and placed 149 calls to eight different IRS phone lines in March and April.
Often these callers encountered a “convenient disconnect” and no one was able to pick up the phone. Excluding disconnections, callers encountered an average wait time of 30 minutes or more on 5 of 8 lines.
Nina Olson, a former national taxpayer advocate, waited five and a half hours when she called each of eight IRS offices in one day.
Is there a right time to call the IRS?
I reached out to current taxpayer advocates for tips they can pass on to other taxpayers who need to call the IRS.
Although they couldn’t talk to me about the records, the office referred me to some guidance on the report and on the IRS website.
Here are some tips for calling the IRS.
Please call us at tax time. Tax season is a busy time, but the IRS will send additional employees to answer calls in the weeks leading up to April 15. Wait times are generally shorter.
Please call later in the week. Wait times are longer on Mondays and Tuesdays.
Please call early in the day. The IRS will take calls from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. “Call as early in the morning as possible,” H&R Block instructs.
Have your accountant call. The IRS has a priority line for taxpayers. During the just concluded tax season, the average hold time for tax professionals was just 8 minutes.
