The IRS answered less than half of all calls from taxpayers in the first six weeks of 2015, and the agency’s watchdogs said that won’t get better until they get more money to hire more staff.
But Republican lawmakers, who have targeted the tax agency for cuts over the last few years, said the IRS should find ways to save money rather than asking for a budget increase.
“What I really want to hear today from you all is how the IRS has or could change its ways,” Rep. Ander Crenshaw, Florida Republican and chair of the House Appropriations Financial Services and General Government subcommittee, said at a hearing Wednesday. “After five years of budget cuts or freezes, I would hope the IRS has turned over a new leaf, found best practices and picked top priorities.”
The president’s fiscal 2016 budget request sought a huge $2 billion leap in IRS funding, to add 3,000 more full-time employees, saying that would allow them to answer 80 percent of calls.
Rep. Jose Serrano, New York Democrat, urged the committee to take the request seriously, especially since the number of taxpayers has increased while budgets were cut.
Nina Olson, the national taxpayer advocate at the IRS, said customer service is the worst since 2001 and even though the agency could be more efficient, it still needs more money to hire people.
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“I do not see any substitute for sufficient personnel,” she said. “The only way to timely answer phones is to have enough employees.”
She said IRS employees only answered 43 percent of the customer service calls the agency received between Jan. 1 and Feb. 14. The callers who did manage to get through spent an average of 28 minutes on hold.
Last year, the IRS answered 77 percent of calls and callers were only on hold an average of 10 minutes, she said.
Mr. Crenshaw said the agency should prepare to figure out other ways to conduct its mission, saying problems at the IRS have made Congress reluctant to send more money.
“We deliberately lowered the IRS’s funding to a level to make them think twice about what they are doing and why they are doing it,” he said. “The IRS should and must focus on the most important and most egregious and the most in need.”
J. Russell George, the inspector general who monitors the IRS, said one way the department could function more efficiently is to allow people to file amendments to tax returns electronically, which would save $17 million a year in administrative costs and about $2 billion over five years in erroneous refunds that wouldn’t be issued.
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Mr. George also said the IRS should be given authority to correct errors it finds on tax forms. President Obama included that proposal in his 2016 budget, predicting a savings of nearly $300 million over the next five years.
Ms. Olson said IRS Commissioner John Koskinen is open to her suggestions, but her ideas don’t always carry through to implementation.
“This commissioner has very much an open door and does seek my advice,” she said. “I would say about half of the recommendations in our annual report to Congress, they agree with, but the devil is in details. How do we get them implemented?”
Mr. Koskinen is expected to testify to the subcommittee later this year.
• Jacqueline Klimas can be reached at jklimas@washingtontimes.com.
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