If You Call IRS for Help, Don’t Expect to Get a Human Being
The Internal Revenue Service has a new message for taxpayers this year: “Don’t call us. We won’t call you.”
The agency, struggling with budget cuts that have reduced the number--and experience--of people answering questions on toll-free consumer help lines, says that it is doing its best to make tax information available to consumers. But not individually over the phone.
“Due to budget and staff reductions, we can no longer give person-to-person service for technical questions,” said Richard R. Orosco, Los Angeles district director. “But we do provide recorded answers to more than 140 tax law and procedural topics.”
The agency does continue to offer its national toll-free tax-help hotline at (800) 829-1040. It would just prefer that you not call it, mainly because it’s unlikely that you’ll get an answer.
“I don’t want to say that you’ll have a hard time getting through, and if you do get through, you’ll end up on hold for two hours. We would prefer to stress the fact that we have a lot of new, automated systems to answer questions,” says an IRS spokesman. But if you call, “that’s actually what will happen.”
The agency has launched a series of automated and computerized services over the past several years, the most recent of which is the IRS home page on the World Wide Web, which opened for business Jan. 8. Cyber visitors who hit the IRS address https://www .irs.ustreas.gov can download forms, booklets and even the agency’s extensive Publication 17, which is the IRS equivalent of the Ernst & Young tax guide.
Note that if you want to search online, the tax guide is in hypertext, which means certain portions of the text are highlighted. If you click on them, you zip to the chosen topic, where more highlighted items can get you to more specific answers.
The IRS site also has answers to frequently asked questions, a library of tax regulations and tax statistics.
However, the agency’s effort to make the site attractive with plenty of pictures and graphics causes plenty of waiting for those with anything but the fastest of modem lines. If you access the site through a text-only program, the information comes up far more rapidly, even from a computer with a slower modem. True, you lose the eye appeal. But if you’re going for answers rather than entertainment, it’s quicker.
Other options for reaching the IRS this year: Tele-Tax and Tele-Form.
Tele-Tax, which can be reached by calling (800) 829-4477, provides recorded information on more than a hundred topics, from determining your filing status to getting basic facts on how to claim a casualty loss.
It can also be used to simply check on your refund, which is by far the most popular way to use it. The automated refund information line got about 54 million calls last year, contrasted with the 7 million calls for recorded filing information.
The filing information system works on the basis of three-number codes that you key into your touch-tone phone to call up a particular topic. If you don’t know the code, you have to listen to two directories: a broad topic directory and a subdirectory, which lists all the specific topics in that area. For instance, if you have a question about your itemized deductions, you would hit 500 on a touch-tone phone. That would give you a list of all the topics under that heading, and their respective numbers. For information on medical and dental expenses, you would be instructed to punch 502 on your touch-tone phone; for information on deductible taxes, you’d hit 503; mortgage points, 504 and so on.
The benefit of this system is that it’s rarely busy. The detriment is that you can’t ask a specific question and expect a specific answer. Instead, you’ll have to wade through reams of general information before the recording gets to the specific item you were looking for. And even then, the recording may provide too little detail to help.
For instance, those who request information about claiming a casualty loss will find that the amount you can claim is “the lesser of the decrease in the fair market value . . . or your adjusted basis in the property.” By prompting the machine further, you get a fairly good description of how to determine the decline in fair market value. But the explanation of adjusted basis is decidedly unhelpful. Specifically: “Adjusted basis is your cost plus or minus certain adjustments.” What more could you need to know? The adjustments, perhaps?
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On the bright side, if you are patient, the recording will eventually tell you if there is an IRS booklet that covers the topic more thoroughly, and provide the publication number. You can dial another toll-free phone line--(800) TAX-FORM--to get a copy of the booklet. By and large, the booklets are detailed and helpful.
If you have a rotary-dial phone or need more help than what the booklets and recorded information can provide, there is simply no way to get around calling the IRS’ toll-free help line--(800) 829-1040.
Since the line is likely to be busier than ever this year--and in a normal tax season you’d get a busy signal maybe four out of every five tries--you’d be wise to call often and early.
A reporter calling in late January was able to get through on the first try, and waited only about 30 minutes for a personal response. But call in March and the wait lengthens. And be warned: When you do get through, you’ll get a recording that will try to divert you into recorded help, yet again. Stand firm. Be patient. And bring a book.
