The Internal Revenue Service announced today significant progress to prepare for the 2023 tax filing season as the agency passed a milestone of hiring 4,000 new customer service representatives to help answer phones and provide other services.
The customer service representatives being hired are in various stages of being onboarded. When they join the IRS, they will receive weeks of training to help serve people and improve the taxpayer experience. The training will cover a wide range of issues including technical account management issues and understanding and respecting taxpayer rights.
The goal is to add another 1,000 customer service representatives by the end of the year, bringing the total of new hires in this area to 5,000.
Many employees will be in place for the start of the 2023 tax season, and others will join as their training is completed in the following weeks. Almost all of their training will be completed by Presidents Day 2023; traditionally the period when the IRS sees the highest phone volumes. The IRS anticipates phones will be answered at a much higher level during the 2023 filing season.
IRS improvements and use of the new direct hire authority have speeded the hiring process. This year, these positions have been brought on since August; last year, it took approximately eight months to hire customer service representatives.
These assistors have been hired over the last several months and are being trained to provide help to taxpayers, including answering phone questions. This is part of a much wider IRS improvement effort tied to the Inflation Reduction Act funding approved in August.
In addition to the phone assistors, the IRS is also working to hire additional people throughout the agency, not just in taxpayer service areas but in Information Technology and compliance positions – all with a goal of improving the work the IRS does.
So, for those of you still struggling with IRS issues by way of communications, there is hope!
For additional questions or concerns, please do reach out to me anytime.