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USA Today/ ­- News, Seg, 16 de Abril de 2012
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)
Need help from the IRS? Prepare to wait
At 12:30 p.m. Monday, about 50 people waited for help
at the IRS center in Fort Myers, Fla. Another dozen
who couldn't find seats stood in a line that stretched
out the office suite door and into a lobby. At the walk­-in
center in East Harlem, N.Y., Belquis Castillo, 40, left in
exasperation Monday afternoon after waiting more
than an hour. Castillo needed copies of her 2010 tax
return so her son can enroll in online college courses,
but was told the computers were down.
The long waits are the result of the IRS' expanded
workload and diminished workforce, says IRS
Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson, whose 2011 annual
report identified inadequate resources as the most
serious problem facing taxpayers. In 1995, the IRS
had a staff of 114,018 to process 205 million tax
returns. In 2010, it had 90,907 people to process
nearly 236 million tax returns. For this tax filing season,
the IRS has 5,000 fewer employees than it did a year
ago.
"This is the lowest staffing level I've ever seen, and I've
been with the IRS 26 years," says David Carrone,
president of the Louisiana chapter of the National
Treasury Employees Union (NTEU). The New Orleans
Taxpayer Assistance Center has six employees, down
from 12 eight years ago, Carrone says. Sometimes, it
doesn't even have that many: Louisiana has several
one­-person walk­-in centers, and when that employee
calls in sick, someone from the New Orleans office has
to fill in. Increasing the IRS' budget has never been
politically expedient, and the Republican Party's
anti­-tax message has made the agency even more
unpopular, says Bruce Bartlett, an economist who
worked in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush
administrations.
Beating up on the IRS is never going to hurt you
politically, regardless of which party you're in, and
we're paying the price for this kind of attitude." The IRS
has sought to deal with limited resources by
encouraging electronic filing and directing taxpayers to
its website, IRS.gov. It offers an automated service for
frequently asked questions and has launched a pilot
program that uses video technology to connect
taxpayers at walk­-in centers with an IRS employee at
another location, IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman
says. "We continue to innovate, and I think we serve
the American people well, given the resources we
have," he says. Nonetheless, there are times when
taxpayers or tax preparers need to talk one­-on­-one
with the IRS, and that's becoming increasingly difficult,
says James Smith, a certified public accountant and
former chairman of the Texas Society of Certified
Public Accountants.
Get all the latest news and information on paying your
federal taxes. Smith says the hold times for his calls to
the IRS range from 30 minutes to an hour and 45
minutes. "I've had to ask my secretary to stay on hold
so I can go to the bathroom." Staff shortages have also
delayed IRS responses to letters from taxpayers
seeking to resolve issues or set up payment plans,
according to the NTEU. Some of these hold­-ups can
result in financial hardship for taxpayers, Smith says.
One of his clients waited four months to get his refund
after Smith filed an amended return. During that
period, the client almost lost his home to foreclosure,
Smith says. Why it's getting harder to get in touch with
the IRS: ???Complexity. Between 2000 and 2010,
Congress made 4,428 changes to the tax code,
including 579 in 2010 alone, according to tax publisher
CCH. Every time Congress adds a provision to the tax
code, the IRS must update its computers, which
increases its workload, Olson said in her 2011 report.
The strain on IRS resources is compounded when the
changes come late in the year, Olson said. In 2010, for
example, Congress made significant changes in the
tax code in late December, forcing the IRS to delay
processing millions of tax returns that contained
itemized deductions until mid­-February. Next year's tax
filing season could be even worse, Shulman said in
recent remarks before the National Press Club. On
Dec. 31 this year, the tax cuts adopted during the Bush
administration are scheduled to expire.
The payroll tax cut adopted by the Obama
administration is also scheduled to end. In addition, a
host of tax "extenders," including one that prevents a
broad expansion of the alternative minimum tax,
expired on Dec. 31 last year. There's broad
disagreement between Democrats and Republicans
about how to handle the expiring tax cuts, and a
resolution before the November presidential election is
unlikely, political analysts say.
A late­-year compromise could force the IRS to delay
processing of 2012 tax returns for many taxpayers,
Shulman said. If Congress waits until next year and
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