Newsletter: Cheat Sheet for Fixing the IRS

Written By Anne Meeker

It’s been a quiet week for agency news (while everyone was preparing for a shutdown?), so we’re going to take today’s newsletter to zoom in on my personal favorite area of agency operations: the Taxpayer Advocate Service.

Your office may have already received your year-end report from your Local Taxpayer Advocate with a breakdown of the kinds of IRS issues your boss’ constituents faced this year, as well as a copy of the Taxpayer Advocate’s 2023 report to Congress. If you cover IRS casework, it’s extremely worth a read. We’ll cover some top-line takeaways below.

As always, we also have a roundup of agency updates you may have missed, and the recording from last week’s webinar on Casework History (this one was really special!).

I am always here for questions, comments, suggestions, or just to chat about casework. Please feel free to reach out by replying to this email, or shoot me a note at anne@popvox.org.

Anne Meeker
Deputy Director
POPVOX Foundation

ICYMI: Casework History

Direct constituent service has been part of Congressional responsibility since the nation’s founding, but casework has looked very different through the last two hundred years. Did you know that in the 1970s, some Senators employed shared casework staff? Or that between 1905 and 1907, private bills on behalf of constituents represented 89% of laws passed by Congress? Or that casework has survived multiple attempts to remove it from Congressional duties entirely?

Check out the kickoff of the 2024 Casework Navigator webinar series with special guest Daniel Holt, Associate Historian from the Senate Historical Office:

Casework History: How Did We Get Here?

This webinar put modern casework in context, exploring how we got here, and what we can learn from previous iterations of casework to chart the future of democratic representation in America.

Watch

The Taxpayer Advocate’s 2023 Report to Congress

It’s Christmas morning for some of us when the Taxpayer Advocate Service’s annual report to Congress drops.

If you’re new here, bear with us nerding out for a moment — TAS is very cool for a few reasons:

  • TAS is there to help ensure that the IRS honors the Taxpayer Bill of Rights — a groundbreaking set of baseline [if aspirational] standards established to ensure that all taxpayers are treated fairly and equitably by the IRS.

  • TAS reports directly to Congress — it is independent from the IRS itself, although its staff are tax experts and have read-only privileges in the IRS’ systems to help troubleshoot problem cases.

  • TAS combines taxpayer-facing customer service with big-picture research and expertise on how to fix the IRS. You may have also seen TAS’s statistics on cases by Congressional district (current through 2018).

This means that the annual report to Congress is very worth a read, even just the preface from National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins. Here are a few highlights we noticed:

  • Facing a significant backlash over long phone wait times and unanswered calls, the IRS moved staff to answer phones—resulting in marked improvement in phone statistics, but decreases in other areas of performance. Moving staff to answer phones meant taking them away from other areas, including processing amended returns and handling identity theft cases.

  • Speaking of identity theft cases, the average time to resolution of self-reported ID theft cases is 19 months. The Taxpayer Advocate notes that 69% of taxpayers with resolved ID theft cases had adjusted gross incomes under 250% of the FPL, meaning that they are more likely to rely on federal tax refunds to meet living expenses.

  • The IRS made significant strides toward accessibility and digital tax filing this year. However, the Taxpayer Advocate also notes that only 10% of individual taxpayers who filed income tax returns used online accounts, meaning that the agency has a ways to go toward improving online service and encouraging its use.

  • Some recommendations will require Congressional action. In particular, these include:

    • Requiring the IRS to timely process claims for credit or refund (there is currently no requirement for the IRS to act on requests for refund timely, meaning cases can last months or years)

    • Authorizing the IRS to establish minimum competency standards for federal tax return preparers and revoke ID numbers for sanctioned preparers

    • Lifting the per-clinic cap on federal funding and reduce the required “match” for LITC programs to expand coverage to additional taxpayers.

This kind of micro- and macro-implementation-focused insight is what makes TAS an incredible model for how all agencies can partner with Congress to improve constituent service.

And for more insider TAS fun, don’t miss our previous webinar on working with federal agencies, where former Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson joined us to talk TAS, agency relationships, and more.

News You Can Use

Casework-related hearings:

Social Security adds new status report feature for claims attorneys

SSA just added a feature allowing claimant advocates to see all of the cases they’re representing in one place by status (initial vs. reconsideration).

FEMA announces comprehensive overhaul of disaster claims systems

The agency is exploring new programs to provide quick cash assistance to disaster survivors, and eliminate barriers and red tape to other programs.

A GAO report finds SBA does not have procedures to establish veteran preference

A GAO report notes that SBA is statutorily required to provide special consideration to veterans in several loan programs, but internal guidance does not establish how this should be carried out.

New Senate bill gives veterans with lost medical records new avenues for benefits

A new bill from Sen. Jon Tester [D, MT] would allow veterans whose medical records were lost or damaged between the DOD and VA to submit alternative documentation as evidence for service-connected disability.

Fed employees protest Gaza

A group of federal employees engaged in a protest by taking leave on January 16th. As a reminder, the OSC has issued guidance on how and where federal employees can express political views at work.

Anne Meeker
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