Treasury: Funding boost helped IRS exceed targets

Hours before the IRS’ deadline for the tax filing season, the Treasury Department reported Monday that $80 billion in additional funding from the Inflation Reduction Act meant the IRS had easily exceeded new targets.

The federal tax agency’s Level of Service for phone queries hit 88%, topping the 85% target, slashed call waiting times from almost 30 minutes to three minutes saving taxpayers 1.4 million hours waiting on hold and dealt with a million more calls than in the 2023 filing season, the Treasury said in a news release.

The introduction of paperless filing and other new technology was also hailed with taxpayers availing themselves of a new and improved “Where’s My Refund” online tool 275 million times while the number of taxpayers who received face-to-face help at 70 walk-in assistance centers across the country jumped by 170,000.

“Thanks to resources from President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Actd, the IRS has built on the progress made during Filing Season 2023, delivering world class service in Filing Season 2024.

“This marks a vast improvement over 2022, when, due to a lack of resources, the IRS hit just 15% Level of Service to taxpayers and millions of refunds were delayed for months,” the Treasury said.

The IRS roundly beat the 5-minute average call-wait time target, one of the goals set by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, down from the 2022 season when call wait times were 28 minutes, and answered 17% more calls through April 6 than in Filing Season 2023.

In all, the IRS answered nearly 3 million more calls than it did during the 2022 filing season prior to receiving the new IRA resources. However, the 1.4 million hours saved in the time spent on hold was achieved by expanding the availability of a “call back” option to 97% of eligible taxpayers at the beginning of the call when projected wait times exceed 15 minutes.