Testing the IRS

Late April, I received a letter from the IRS asking me something I couldn’t understand (I believe they wanted me to pay several hundreds of dollars for an error I had made), so I turned it to my accountant, who in turned discovered that she too had messed up even more with my 2020 tax return. 

So I filed an amendment that was going to net me a sizable reimbursement by the taxing authority, in other words a rare agreeable surprise from that administration! Late May, the IRS sent me a letter asking me to verify that it was me who had initiated the amendment process, in order to get the refund (the state of Utah had already sent me its share).

For that, I had to call a certain telephone number, which I did immediately, but whenever I tried, I was told that the agents were too busy and that I should call at a later date. I persisted the best I could, go lucky a week or so ago, but was missing documents and could not complete the procedure. 

So I called again, was turned down because no one was there to take my call, on day I stayed 50 minutes on hold for nothing and finally this past Friday, after waiting 2 hours and 32 minutes I was miraculously able to interact with an agent, who asked me many more stupid questions, before telling me that all was okay and that I would receive my refund between 3 and 9 weeks from that time. 

Altogether, after checking on my phone I called more fifteen times, spent about 5 hours doing that, leaving me very dissatisfied with my Federal taxing authority. Not only they seemed grossly understaffed, but I suspect that many agents are working from home, are not at all effective at working that way, spend more time walking their dog and taking care of their kids, while we, the taxpayers suffer immensely. 

It’s also true that the IRS has been grossly understaffed for years, especially in the customer service department. And so it's not uncommon for taxpayers who call the agency, like me, to experience crazy wait times. Not so long ago, $80 billion in new funding (over 10 years) was awarded to the IRS by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) to add staff and go after tax-cheats (which would have more than paid for itself), but the recent bipartisan deal to raise the debt ceiling just clawed back $20 billion. 

Of that, $10 billion will be “repurposed” in fiscal 2024, along with another $10 billion in 2025 to be allocated toward more resources for non-defense priorities. When all is said than done, roughly $29 billion could now be spent on additional enforcement and auditing over the next 10 years as opposed to the $45 billion originally allocated, and the $25 billion boost to operations could fall as low as $16.25 billion under this scenario. 

That’s why I don’t expect a miracle any time soon with the IRS!