Taxpayer Advocate Service ‘Drowning’ in Cases, Causing Delays

Chase Hamilton, a staff attorney at Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid, said one of his low-income clients who owes money to the IRS can barely afford to pay for groceries after the agency placed a levy on his income.

The client, who failed to file his taxes on four separate occasions while working as an independent contractor in the mid- to late-2000s, hasn’t worked since 2010 because of health issues and now relies on every cent of the government benefits he receives from programs like Social Security to get by, Hamilton said.

So when the Internal Revenue Service ...