Astonishing reason only a third of callers get through to IRS revealed in bombshell report exposing agency's failings
- Outdated tech means workers are stuck on the phones even if call volume is low
- READ MORE: Inside the Social Security backlog plaguing Americans
IRS staff working during this year’s tax filing season were sitting around doing nothing for one hour each working day, DailyMail.com analysis shows.
The astonishing waste of the labor force is the fault of decades-old technology that creates a double-whammy of problems, a bombshell report reveals.
Calls are inefficiently routed to staff so they were often 'sitting around waiting for the phone to ring' during the January 29 to April 15 tax season.
Added to that, outdated systems mean employees are not able to assist taxpayers - by going through paperwork or replying to emails - while waiting to take a call.
Experts say it explains why only 31 percent of those who tried to get in touch with the agency were able to get through to speak to a human at all this year.
DailyMail.com took a deep dive into a damning new report from the National Taxpayer Advocate, a watchdog for the IRS.
Customer service workers were waiting for calls for 1.1 million hours during this year's seven week tax season, it revealed.
Latest figures show there are around 20,000 customer service employees at the IRS.
This means that this filing season each one lost an average of 55 hours, or just under seven eight-hour working days, according to DailyMail.com calculations.
And the impact of these lost hours of work is keenly felt by taxpayers.
The IRS has long been plagued with accusations of poor customer service.
Taxpayers trying to reach the agency are typically limited to phone calls or mail.
During the Covid-19 pandemic its reputation reached an all-time low - and it became notorious for being almost impossible for taxpayers to get in touch and get help.
The 1.1 million hours of time lost this filing season represents 'unproductive employee time that could have been spent processing taxpayer correspondence and amended returns,' the Taxpayer Advocate Service said.
Customer service representatives either answer phones, or they process taxpayer correspondence, but they cannot do both.
Even if call volume is low, staffers are stuck working on the phone lines.
It is understood that this is down to antiquated systems at the agency which make it difficult for employees to move back and forth between the two tasks.
Much of the IRS correspondence is still through the mail, so workers have to sift through reams of taxpayer papers.
The IRS has around 60 distinct case management systems which do not communicate with each other. Sometimes staffers have to open up as many as three or four systems to deal with a query.
To try and achieve higher telephone service levels, the IRS must staff its phone lines so there are enough workers to handle calls during peak periods, the report said.
But that means that when it is quieter, representatives are 'sitting around waiting for the phone to ring.'
It is not a new problem. During the 2023 filing season, staffers spent 1.27 million - or 34 percent - of their time waiting to answer phones.
While this year is a slight improvement on these figures, the percentage of backlogged tax correspondence which was not processed within the normal timeframe increased in 2024.
At the end of the 2024 filing season, 66 percent of the 6.8 million pieces of taxpayer correspondence were overdue, compared to 61 percent the year prior.
'Moving forward, the IRS needs to rebalance its workflow and find a way to shift employees between answering telephones and processing paper more nimbly,' the Taxpayer Advocate Service said.
IRS workers were sat around for an hour each working day, the report said
The IRS lost 55 hours of work per customer service representative this filing season due to its 'inefficient' systems, DailyMail.com analysis can reveal
This tax season only 31 percent of people successfully reached a human when they called the agency for help
The IRS has been under fire for its long wait times (Pictured: IRS commissioner Danny Werfel)
The IRS received 40 million calls during the filing season this year, which ran from January 29 to April 15.
But only 12.4 million were picked up by an IRS employee - down from the year prior.
These calls include those facing serious issues such as eviction due to tax debt.
While the agency has hired 7,000 additional customer service staff since its pandemic lows, this has done little to resolve jammed phone lines, the Taxpayer Advocate Service said.
The IRS said in a statement that it does not agree with all the methodology in the report, but that phone service had improved.
