Taxpayer ‘Anxiety Index’ Should Drive IRS Help, Advocate Says

It’s official: Paying taxes can make you a stressed-out wreck.

So says the national taxpayer advocate, who is calling for the Internal Revenue Service to create a “Taxpayer Anxiety Index” to help it handle Americans frustrated by the agency’s figure-it-out-yourself approach.

Nina Olson, who is retiring after 18 years as the nation’s congressionally mandated taxpayer advocate, proposed the index as tool that would foster trust in the agency and compliance with the 2017 tax law. The more anxious a taxpayer scores on the index, she wrote in her 160-page “Objectives” report to Congress released June 20, the more he or ...