Taxpayers involved in correspondence audits will derive numerous benefits from a new telephone system now in use by the Internal Revenue Service, according to a new study by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.
Under the old telephone system, the IRS reported finding that 70 percent of the calls to examiners were answered by voicemail, and 39 percent of these calls were not promptly returned. Moreover, 62 percent of the taxpayers were repeat callers.
The new telephone system, called the Intelligent Contact Management System, is a toll-free call routing system that the IRS’s Small Business/Self-Employed Division incorporated into its correspondence audit process to make it more responsive and less burdensome for taxpayers.
For example, improvements include replacement of a geographically based call routing system with a nationwide skill-based routing network that distributes calls to the next available IRS telephone assistor, making it easier for taxpayers to reach examiners and receive needed information on their first call.
However, the SB/SE Division is not consistently returning telephone calls to taxpayers and needs to take action to increase the likelihood of achieving the expected benefits of the new telephone system, the report stated. TIGTA identified 20 calls during which the taxpayer either requested a return call or was promised one. For 14 of those calls, there was no evidence that the call was returned.
“The benefits offered by this system represent a substantial improvement from the prior capabilities that the old toll-free call system provided to taxpayers involved in a correspondence audit,” said J. Russell George, Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. “Taxpayer service would improve further if IRS employees in the SB/SE Division would return their calls.”
5 Comments
What new phone system?
Whatever happened to the Tax Practitioner Hotline? If you call the "special" TPH number these days, you are dumped into the General Public line, and have your call answered by some ignorant child.
Absolutely true - "Hey, this is Mike with the IRS -- what can I do you for?" I swear to god - absolutely true story.
Kate Harner, EA
Posted by: KATEHARNER | September 19, 2012 8:07 PM
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A real improvement, and one very much needed would be for some continuity/ownership in the correspondence when one calls or writes in response to an IRS-issued communication.
What I am referring to is the fact that the person who currently answers the telephone is not the person one may have spoken to in an earlier call or written communication, it is the next person who is "up" at random, who might or might not be able to refer to any posting to a record of the issue that might have been discussed earlier, so essentially you are starting from scratch with your call.
It would be far better if the originator of the IRS communication would provide not only a general telephone number but his or her extension also. That way, hopefully this would ease the time and burden to clear issues with one and only one contact by the taxpayer or his or her representative.
Posted by: arta | September 19, 2012 10:29 AM
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A real improvement, and one very much needed would be for some continuity/ownership in the correspondence when one calls or writes in response to an IRS-issued communication.
What I am referring to is the fact that the person who currently answers the telephone is not the person one may have spoken to in an earlier call or written communication, it is the next person who is "up" at random, who might or might not be able to refer to any posting to a record of the issue that might have been discussed earlier, so essentially you are starting from scratch with your call.
It would be far better if the originator of the IRS communication would provide not only a general telephone number but his or her extension also. That way, hopefully this would ease the time and burden to clear issues with one and only one contact by the taxpayer or his or her representative.
Posted by: arta | September 19, 2012 10:28 AM
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I receive "up-to-date" practitioner news from the IRS daily. I haven't heard of this "New" telephone system. Speaking of which, I called the not-for-profit IRS number yesterday and was told by the automated system that my hold time was greater than 30 minutes. That means they may never pick up. My hold time averages 20+ minutes when I call the Practioner Priority Hotline. Not so "hot" if you ask me. I've complained to my state IRS liason and they agree that the IRS is in terrible shape. 99% of the notices I see are either incorrect or only partially correct. There's too many incorrect notices going out, not enough IRS bodies to handle them and the agents they have lack experience and training to resolve the issues on the first call. Does it sound like I'm a little skeptical about this new telephone system?
Posted by: timblackcpa | September 19, 2012 10:19 AM
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When did this "new" telephone system go into service?
On May 18 of this year I received a correspondence audit letter with respect to a small income item I had reported incorrectly and tax withheld which, according to the letter, was less than what I claimed. I quickly recalculated the tax on the underreported income and sent a check along with hard copies of the 1099 statements confirming the withhoolding which the IRS had failed to credit to my account.
On June 21 I received a second letter with credit for the check I sent on May 18 to cover the income underreporting, but not mentioning the not-recorded tax withheld for which I was billed additional interest and a failure to pay penalty. That letter provided a "to contact us" phone number. I called that number and selected #5 out of 8 choices hoping to get a person to ask for a clarification with respect to the tax withheld that had not been credited.
That selection asked me to input my PIN number. Not having a pin number I punched zero, hoping to either get a live person or voice mail where I could leave message. Zero gave me a terse message "You have pressed a wrong selection." I tried everything but I could find no way to reach a live person or leave a message.
With the assistance of a "live" Taxpayer Advocate person I was connected to a "live" knowledgeable person in the IRS who determined the IRS had, at the beginning, received the correct withholding information but failed to credit it to my account. So after some 3 hours total on the phone I was istructed to "reopen the case" by resubmiting everything in writing, which I did. After several weeks the withholding was properly credited, the penalty was eliminated and I received a refund check for overpaid interest.
I sure hope the new IRS telephone system is an improvement over what I esperienced. If the new system was already in service in June when I went through all of this, then the problems still persist.
Posted by: RogerC | September 19, 2012 8:17 AM
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