87,000 New IRS Agents

​More audits? Better customer service? Everybody wants to know how the added IRS agents and increased IRS funding will affect them…

By now you’ve heard the government has plans to beef up the IRS. Hopefully that comes in the form of MUCH better response times and customer service for taxpayers. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has vowed to implement plans that will boost IRS capacity for in-person and call-in support services.

“Ramping up” includes tripling the number of taxpayers served at in-person support centers to more than 2.7 million. It is supposed to raise the proportion of callers reaching a live agent from 10-15% up to 85%, while cutting average wait times to less than 15 minutes. Lastly, it should improve technology, allowing the automation of scanning millions of paper returns and speeding up refunds, as well as allowing taxpayers the ability to receive and respond to notices online.
 
$80 billion in new funding should provide that capability. We can only hope…time will tell.
 
And of course, there’s the audit topic. While vowing better response times, Yellen also mentioned ramping up audits on top earners, specifically concentrating enforcement on the ultra-wealthy and corporations. Bills have been introduced to keep the IRS from auditing the middle class (specifically those earning under $400,000 per year).
 
In the end, folks have no worries about audits if they’re reporting accurate information and keeping good records. However, audits can still be costly due to the need to potentially hire lawyers and CPA’s to address audits, as well as the inherent cost of time.
 
The fight continues…