Week in Insights: Taxpayer Advocate Should Centralize Phone Lines

Across 76 different phone lines for the Taxpayer Advocate Service’s regional offices, only two were answered by a human being, and 18 went to a full voicemail inbox or had no service at all, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration said in a report last month.

Operating different lines for each office is a fragmented approach to what should be a coordinated, consolidated effort. Taxpayers may need help from a local advocate, but they don’t necessarily need to make first contact through a local number. The potential infrastructure overhead outweighs any benefits of a familiar area code.

Streamlining TAS ...