IRS Slammed For Poor Taxpayer Support

by Mike Godfrey, Tax-News.com, Washington

04 January 2002

The General Accounting Office in the United States has slammed the country's tax authorities for their patchy taxpayer support service.

Although the Internal Revenue Service has been making efforts over the past year to be viewed as more 'user friendly', and its online offerings seem to be coming on well, the GAO found that the telephone support service, relied upon by taxpayers without access to the internet, has offered fairly consistent poor service.

According to the GAO, taxpayers calling the IRS to request assistance with their tax returns will wait an average of four minutes, receive incorrect information regarding tax law around 25% of the time, and inaccurate information about their own account approximately 12% of the time.

'The IRS has continued to struggle to provide accessible and accurate telephone assistance, observed James White, director of tax issues at the General Accounting Office. IRS Commissioner, Charles Rossotti, recently admitted that 'better testing, documentation and analytical activities' were necessary to improve the agency's performance.

Meanwhile, in the run-up to tax filing season, there have been renewed calls for Congress to simplify the US tax code, and to repeal the alternative minimum tax, which it is estimated causes millions of taxpayer filing errors due to its complexity.

'For many US taxpayers, tax filing season brings stress, anxiety and frustration,' taxpayer advocate, Nina E. Olson, explained to the Associated Press. 'We shouldn't be making people tie themselves up like pretzels so they can comply with tax law.'

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