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Dial, redial, repeat

Posted on Apr. 15, 2022

We welcome back guest blogger Barbara Heggie. Barb is the supervising attorney for the Low-Income Taxpayer Project of 603 Legal Aid in Concord, New Hampshire.  Her clinic serves taxpayers through the Granite State and is the only LITC in the state.  Today, she describes a recent experience in trying to assist a client.  Her effort reminds us of the difficulties facing taxpayers and practitioners trying to reach the IRS in the first place and trying to reach the “right” part of the IRS.  We recently discussed one of the impediments to reaching the IRS in our post on fee based calling which pushes human callers to the back of the line. Keith

Most people think of the autonomic nervous system as confined to such unconscious bodily processes as breathing, digestion, and heart rate. But most of you reading this have probably added another to the list – (re)dialing the IRS. Pandemic-related staffing shortages, antediluvial technology, and a private robocalling industry have teamed up to render uncertain the once-inviolable privilege of being placed on hold for an hour. Instead, any attempt to reach the IRS by phone, even via the Practitioner Priority Service (PPS), will likely end with this now-familiar recording: “We are sorry, but due to extremely high call volume in the topic you requested, we are unable to handle your call at this time.” A new callback option can spare us the slow torture of short-looped, wondrously-insipid hold music, but it can’t spare us the agony of trying to get there.

Dial, redial, repeat.

This is all the more agonizing when we realize that a few well-placed, taxpayer-centric changes at the IRS could make this time suck a complete non-necessity. The National Taxpayer Advocate (NTA), Erin Collins, has written here and here about the robocalling problem and the low levels of telephone service at the IRS. And see here for several seemingly doable suggestions regarding economic hardship and collection processes by former NTA Nina Olson in her 2018 Annual Report to Congress.

Last week, I called PPS for a disabled domestic violence survivor subsisting solely on $1,020/month in Social Security Disability Insurance payments. She has a joint tax liability with her estranged husband, and she’s terrified he’ll get to her through the IRS. Each new collections notice sent her to the phone, anxious to explain her circumstances and request some sort of forbearance. But she couldn’t get past the “extremely high call volume.”

She came to me for help, and we decided I would start by asking the IRS to (1) record her balance-due accounts currently not collectible, due to financial hardship, and (2) place a domestic violence marker on all her accounts to prevent the IRS from releasing any of her contact information to an unauthorized person, including her husband. Conceivably, each of these requests could be made in writing, but much harm could come to this client while waiting for the IRS to process such submissions. A call to the IRS was required.

After dialing PPS sixteen times, each attempt involving a must-listen to various recorded messages, I made it onto the queue. Huzzah! I readily agreed to the callback option and got connected to a customer service representative (CSR) a half an hour later, just as promised. He placed a Victim of Domestic Violence (VODV) marker on my client’s accounts but said he could not record her balances uncollectible. I was surprised, given that I had chosen the menu option for “individual accounts already in collections, ACS.” Moreover, for balances at my client’s level, the Internal Revenue Manual requires no Collection Information Statement (CIS) if the only source of income is Social Security. But there had been a change in procedures, the CSR explained, and he offered to transfer me to the “real” Automated Collection System (ACS), where someone could do as I had requested.

Rather than have him transfer me, however, I decided to call PPS again – not because I thought a different CSR would give me a better answer, but because this one wasn’t able to send me the transcripts I wanted due to some equipment failure he was experiencing, and I wasn’t sure an ACS CSR would have the authority to do this. I hadn’t been able to retrieve the transcripts myself from the IRS Transcript Delivery Service (TDS) because . . . I don’t know. The CSR affirmed I had been listed on the accounts as an authorized representative for several days, but TDS said otherwise and refused to give up the transcripts. (This doesn’t appear to be an isolated incident; recently, many others in the Low-Income Taxpayer Clinic community have reported the same problem.)

Thus, I called PPS again.

Dial, redial, redial,

redial, redial, redial,

redial, redial, redial,

redial, redial, redial.

Just twelve times! The second PPS CSR got me the transcripts but said the same thing as the first one; the CNC request can only be handled by ACS personnel, no matter the circumstances. (A week later, TDS is still denying me access to these accounts.)

The CSR offered to transfer me to ACS, and this time I agreed. After a few minutes, another CSR picked up the line, and I made my simple pitch: please record my client’s balance-due accounts as uncollectible because her only income is Social Security and she’s experiencing financial hardship. This CSR, #3 of the day, said he couldn’t see any debt under my client’s SSN – and, therefore, couldn’t help me. I stressed it was a joint liability, with my client listed as the secondary on the account. The CSR responded that this explained the problem and asked if I had any other questions. Telling him that the previous two CSRs of the day hadn’t had any such problem left him unfazed. When he suggested transferring me to “Collections,” I agreed, not bothering to ask where I had been the whole time.

The beauty of a unit-to-unit transfer is that you bypass the hold queue and go straight to a CSR picking up your line. At least, that’s how it used to be. This time, it took over two hours – the longest hold time I’ve ever encountered. Luckily, however, CSR #4 of the day was able to both see and do. I made my pitch for uncollectible status and explained the client’s income stream. The CSR verified the Social Security income, found no other sources, and granted the request for uncollectible status. As expected, she didn’t require a CIS. And by then, it was bedtime.

Fans of the Python-esque film Brazil may find some commonalities.

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