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Decades-old computer systems “paid for by the Kennedy administration” and terrible management are the reasons for poor customer service at the IRS, an insider said.
An IRS employee who has worked at the agency for more than a decade has spoken exclusively to DailyMail.com about its failings, as the agency comes under fire for long call wait times.
The employee, who worked on the customer service and IT teams, said managers pursued “vanity projects” instead of making changes that would benefit workers and taxpayers.
It comes after a bomb report In June it was revealed that inefficient use of staff meant customer service reps were often left “sitting around waiting for the phone to ring”.
At the same time, only 31 percent of those who tried to contact the agency managed to speak to a person.
Decades-old computer systems ‘paid for by the Kennedy administration’ and terrible management are reasons for poor customer service at the IRS, insider says
Customer service workers waited on hold for 1.1 million hours during this year’s seven-week tax season, according to a report by the National Taxpayer Advocate, an IRS watchdog.
The latest figures show there are about 20,000 customer service employees at the IRS.
That means each worker lost an average of 55 hours this filing season, or just under seven eight-hour work days, according to calculations by DailyMail.com.
Customer service representatives either answer the phone or process taxpayer letters, but they can’t do both. Even if call volume is low, employees are forced to work the phone lines.
But this report only scratches the surface of what is really going on at the IRS, the staffer said.
Removing the staples
The worker said inefficient use of staff means taxpayers are left waiting on the phone for hours trying to get help.
“There are customer service workers who are in charge of answering correspondence and who spend all day doing nothing but removing staples from papers,” they said.
“And management just turns a blind eye.”
DECADES-OLD SYSTEMS
“There’s a running joke that some of the older systems were paid for by the Kennedy administration,” the worker told DailyMail.com.
‘And the reality of the jokes is that I think they are very accurate.’
While many of the computers have been updated, outdated “legacy” systems remain a problem, they said.
‘For about two weeks a year, the systems are not available at all as they have to be taken offline to perform updates.
‘There is no way to update the app. Many companies can already do this. For example, when Facebook is updated, it does not have to be taken offline for two weeks, but it is done in minutes.
“But because we’re using legacy systems, we don’t have those kinds of capabilities.”
Having systems down for weeks at a time causes a real problem with customer service, they said.
“We have to bring this old technology back together because we really can’t afford to replace it, or there’s no good option to do so.”
The worker said inefficient use of staff means taxpayers have to wait hours on the phone trying to get help.
The IRS lost 55 hours of work per customer service representative this tax season due to its “inefficient” systems, a DailyMail.com analysis reveals
The IRS has been criticized for its long wait times (pictured: IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel)
Communication failure
Outdated systems also mean that accounting notes are not shared between different departments, the source said.
“Customer service in debt collections is different from customer service in forensic assessments or audits. The tools and notes that each department has access to are completely different,” they said.
If someone has been audited, he explained, and contacts a different department a year later, the customer service representative will not have the details of why they were audited the previous year.
‘Having those kinds of notes there would benefit the customer service agent, but the systems are all siloed, as are the different groups.
“We are all siloed and there is not much intercommunication between systems. It’s not like we have one system for all tax matters. We have 10 or 15 different systems, and that might be under the number of systems we have.”
This can lead to frustration for taxpayers, they said, as they assume the IRS employee has notes in front of them detailing any past communications with the agency.
Instead of prioritizing critical changes, executives are pursuing vanity projects, such as unnecessarily pushing the purchase of Apple Mac computers, they said.
“There are executives who prioritize what they think will be a big win, and ultimately it will be nothing more than a headache and something that cannot be sustained in the long term.”
People are worried that if some processes or jobs are automated, they added, they will lose their jobs.
The worker said account notes are not shared between different departments, which can lead to callers feeling frustrated and abusive.
TOXIC WORKPLACE
When employees experience abuse from taxpayers over the phone, there is no clear protocol on how to report or address it, the source said.
Callers often become frustrated, they said, especially if they expect the customer service representative to be aware of their history and previous calls to the IRS and if they have been waiting a long time to get through.
“People will call us names, yell, scream and threaten us. They will treat us like we are trash. That’s probably the hardest part,” they said.
“But unfortunately, if you hang up, you could end up being reviewed by Congress, because they could call their member of Congress, who could then start investigating you.”
Congressional offices can step in and help Americans if they face problems with federal agencies, including the IRS.
But the worker said there is no set standard among different managers on what to do if a caller is aggressive.
‘Some managers will tell you to tolerate more abuse, and others will tell you to tolerate none.’
Many workers endured the abuse, they said, for fear of losing their jobs if the complaint went further.
DailyMail.com has reached out to the IRS for comment. A representative pointed to a news story release starting in April.
He highlighted a variety of improvements that expanded service for millions of taxpayers during the 2024 tax filing season.
This included improvements in telephone service, more calls answered and faster response times.