IRS Says Phone Wait Times, Service Rebound With Extra Cash

The IRS outperformed many of its filing season goals, sustaining momentum from last year as it rebounds from decades of underfunding, the agency said Friday.

The level of service, the IRS’s main way it evaluates whether callers seeking to speak to IRS representatives are reaching them, was at 88%, surpassing Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s goal of 85%. Last year, the IRS level of service surged to 87% after a grim 2022 at 15%.

“A well funded IRS is like night and day for taxpayers,” IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said on a press call Friday. “With the help of more funding, taxpayer service this filing season has eclipsed levels not seen during the past decade.”

Phone wait times on the IRS main helpline also dropped to an average three minutes, down from last year’s four minutes and a significant cut from the nearly 30 minutes taxpayers waited during the 2022 filing season. The IRS also answered more than 1 million more calls compared to the same period in 2023.

The shift was aided by the tens of billions in funding from the Democrats’ 2022 tax-and-climate law, also known as the Inflation Reduction Act, which gave the IRS cash it needed to rebuild and replace old technology, and focus on taxpayers dodging what they owe.

Republicans have succeeded in clawing back about $20 billion of the $80 billion originally allocated to the agency under the act. Werfel is set to testify before the Senate Finance Committee this week about the President’s 2025 budget and the 2024 filing season.

With the added funds, the IRS bolstered its filing season efforts, hired more customer service representatives and assistance center employees, improved its tech like the “Where’s My Refund” tool, and allowed taxpayers to electronically submit all correspondence and responses to notices online.

Based on this year, Werfel said the agency has the right-sized workforce to achieve customer service goals. Still, he said the agency will plan to hire, albeit at a slower pace, to make up for attrition, and in case there are tax law changes requiring more taxpayer support.

The IRS has received more than 100 million Form 1040s and expects tens of millions more to filed ahead of the April deadline, Werfel said, adding the agency is expecting 19 million taxpayers to file extensions.

Refunds, in many cases, are getting sent in just over a week and are on average $3,011, up $123 from last year. The IRS has issued more than $200 billion in refunds through early April, Werfel said.

“There should be no mistaking that we need to do more at the IRS,” Werfel said. “We still have a lot of work to do to transform this agency. That means expanding our taxpayer service improvements, adding more technology and doing more to ensure fair enforcement of our nation’s tax laws.”

The IRS also plans to update its strategic operating plan for how it’s spending the tax-and-climate law funds later this spring, Werfel said.