74 of 76 IRS Taxpayer Advocate Service Phone Numbers Go Unanswered, Finds Inspector General

Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote to increase the size and power of the IRS with $80 billion taxpayer dollars, but the agency still lacks urgency in taking care of taxpayer customer service needs.

For example, the official IRS watchdog received a tip that phone calls to the IRS’s Taxpayer Advocate Service help lines were not being answered.

So the watchdog investigated and called each of the 76 separate help line phone numbers:

56 phone numbers sent callers directly to voicemail.

16 phone numbers had voicemail boxes completely full so that taxpayers couldn’t even leave a message.
Two phone numbers were not in service.
Only two phone numbers had a live operator at the other end.

The IRS watchdog — the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration — chief of staff for inspections and evaluations Eleina Monroe appeared on the Federal News Network to share details.

A bit of background: The Taxpayer Advocate Service is a part of the IRS meant to aid taxpayers who cannot resolve their issues with the IRS.

TIGTA was alerted that the service was not answering the phone. This tip derived from a tax practitioner representing “a taxpayer who was experiencing a financial hardship that was trying to contact the TAS service for assistance.”

TIGTA’s Monroe stated that there were 76 different phone numbers for the service, and TIGTA representatives called each one.

TIGTA found:

“Two of the lines were not in service. 56 were sent directly to voicemail. We had 16 that the voicemail box was full, and 2 we were able to reach a live operator.”

Only 2 of 76 phone numbers connected TIGTA staff to an actual operator. That is an alarming 1.5% connection rate.

Another finding was that calls sent to the voicemail boxes were received with messages referencing the pandemic and office closures.

TIGTA noted, “we heard messages referencing COVID-19 pandemic related messages, and then for some of them, they were just saying that the office was closed or that they couldn’t take the call right now.“

The TIGTA representatives, including Monroe, were posing as taxpayers. This means that the IRS Taxpayer Advocate Service was crashing and burning for actual people too.

The calls that connected to full mailboxes were just disconnected with no resolution.

The Federal News Network interviewer noted, “In some instances, people were promised a call back, but that never happened. I guess that’s what happened to the person that originally tipped off other IGs that then called you that the person never did get any resolution after some months.”

TIGTA’s Monroe said:

“When they called the IRS, it was weeks and they had not heard back anything. And then additional times that they tried calling, the voice mailbox was full. So our initial review, we tested that specific line, and then that’s what helped us to expand for all 76 lines.”

It remains unexplained why the IRS’s Taxpayer Advocate Service has 76 different phone numbers.

In an October 15 report, TIGTA wrote that the IRS “has been unable to meet all demands for taxpayer services.“

To make matters worse, the report states: “certain IRS functions are generally not using the results of customer satisfaction surveys to make improvements,” which makes taxpayers question whether the IRS even cares about taxpayers.

Stay tuned to ATR’s Kamalanomics.org for updates.