An outside advisory group on the IRS has said that the agency suffers from numerous management problems due to its funding levels, which in turn are affecting its ability to collect revenue and serve taxpayers.
A report by the IRS Advisory Council, a group consisting of tax professionals, taxpayers, businesses and state tax administrators, mirrors arguments raised for years by some members of Congress, the agency itself, and the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents many IRS employees, that the budgetary restrictions are counter-productive.
“Recent funding levels at the IRS impair the ability of the agency to perform its critical mission of providing much needed services and support to taxpayers who strive to meet their tax obligations and to identify and address the non-compliance of those who are not so inclined. Our tax system, which is dependent on voluntary compliance, is increasingly at risk,” it said.
While the IRS has worked to automate its systems, much of its work remains people-intensive and “recent cutbacks and sequestration meant that most IRS personnel saw limited or no compensation raises in recent years, even without considering the effect of the furloughs in FY 2013. This fiscal environment likely hastened the departure of senior IRS personnel who were already eligible for retirement. Coupled with other personnel policy changes that constrained the IRS’s inability to fill vacancies, we are concerned there will be a significant erosion of experienced leadership at a critical time, which cannot help but adversely affect taxpayer service and tax law enforcement.”
Regarding service to taxpayers, the report noted that wait times to answer phone calls average 17 minutes and the agency had built up a backlog of more than 1 million pieces of correspondence through 2012.
The report is here: http://www.irs.gov/Tax-Professionals/2014-IRSAC-General-Report
