The IRS continued to improve its filing season performance in March, according to the National Conference of CPA Practitioners.
With the season heading into its last lap, the service has successfully cleared the carryover backlog for original return processing, and has met a number of other objectives, noted Stephen Mankowski, tax chair of NCCPAP:
- The average answer time and level of service have vastly improved to over an 80% level of service.
- Taxpayers are able to respond to notices online and the IRS has been receiving their responses. Online payment plans have been successful with over 11,000 agreements secured in the first month.
- New voice bots are rolling out in Collections and callback features continue to be expanded.
- The IRS has begun scanning and digitizing more forms, including Form 941, and adding returns to Error Resolution, with errors reduced and handled quickly.
"Alabama, Georgia, and California have been named as disaster states that have until October to file their returns," Mankowski added. "Form 1040-X, amended tax returns, still has a lot of inventory. The IRS is working to add assisters to process them. Even though more 1040-X forms are being electronically filed, the backlog is still an issue," he said.
Separately, the IRS has developed a strategic operating plan for the Small Business/Self-Employed Division that it will share with the Treasury in a few weeks. The plan details how the IRS will be dealing with taxpayers and practitioners on a number of issues. This includes online accounts and digital scanning to avert possibilities of backlogs and lost forms.
In addition:
- Increased audits. The recent increase in funds from the Inflation Reduction Act will focus on better ways to address issues. The enhanced data and improved compliance help the IRS to not waste funds on areas that could be handled differently.
- Continued hiring. There are 1,400 openings for examination/enforcement agents, as well as significant openings for tax compliance officers and campus commissioner's representatives.
- Installment agreements. Enhancements allow taxpayers to virtually name their price as long as it gets paid without default. This applies for amounts up to $250,000, without additional paperwork.
- Call volumes and bots. 9.2 million calls have been answered with payment plans set up since the bot program started last year. A large percentage of the payment plans are for taxpayers with balances of less than $25,000. The IRS will begin sending soft notices to engage the taxpayer. They are planning to issue 6-9 million letters that will include a phone number for voice bots, along with a QR (quick response) code that links to the IRS payments landing page. Reductions or other issues will still require a live person for now.
Other developments
Random taxpayers will be selected to participate in the IRS Taxpayer Compliance Burden Survey Program to advance the service's understanding of a taxpayer's burden in terms of time and cost regarding amending an already-filed federal income tax return. All information provided will be used for research purposes only and participation is voluntary. Only those taxpayers who are randomly selected may participate in the study, which takes about 10 to 15 minutes to complete.
The IRS matches the survey to the actual tax return in order to build a statistical model to evaluate and validate legislative changes. It factors in filing methods, forms filed, credits claimed, and other information. The service hopes that practitioners will encourage their clients to respond if they receive a survey.
The service has also been working over the past 20-plus years on various multilingual initiatives. They continually look at limited English proficiency taxpayers to identify areas of concern and focus on the five languages that amount to 85% of LEP returns. They also factor in taxpayer value, business value, and volume of notices. They initially identified 20 notices, then added 12 more. IRS Form 9000 allows the taxpayer to select an alternative media preference, as well as an accessibility hotline: 833-690-0598.
