IRS Unveils Major Changes in New 18-Month Plan
A stock image of a call center. The IRS shared its plans for changes to improve its services to taxpayers within the next 12 to 18 months.
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has announced major changes aimed at modernizing the federal agency’s technology and improving its employee tools to help taxpayers.
The changes, planned for the 2024 and 2025 fiscal years, will be brought in during the next 12 to 18 months. They were detailed as part of the annual update on the agency’s Strategic Operating Plan, which shows how the IRS is using resources made available by the Inflation Reduction Act to deliver changes benefiting taxpayers.
The report was released on Thursday with the addition of a 52-page document summarizing the current work underway. “You will see in these documents that we have made tremendous progress toward realizing the goals of the plan, and work continues to accelerate,” IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel says in the introduction.
“We have made fundamental changes that have improved taxpayer services, brought new fairness to compliance efforts and launched important changes to our technology,” he added. “We are making a difference to taxpayers and the nation, and the improvements at the IRS are just beginning.”
According to Werfel, the recent changes made by the IRS “are a stark contrast to the years of underfunding that deteriorated taxpayer service and tax enforcement, frustrating taxpayers, the tax community and IRS employees alike.”
While the Inflation Reduction Act has provided the agency with additional funding, the IRS is still struggling with the challenges created by years of underfunding.
The IRS plan for the coming months focuses on five key objectives:
- Improving services to help taxpayers meet their obligations.
- Quickly resolve taxpayers issues when they arise.
- Focus expanded enforcement on taxpayers with complex tax filings and high-dollar noncompliance to address the tax gap.
- Modernize the agency’s technology.
- Attract and keep a highly skilled, diverse workforce.
Improvement efforts will focus on enhancing live assistance for taxpayers, expanding online services, accelerating the digitalization of the agency’s services, simplifying notices and disrupting tax scams or schemes, among other areas of focus.
Werfel described the modernization changes underway as a “generational imperative” necessary to better serve the country and taxpayers.
But the commissioner admitted that while the agency has made significant progress recently. “We realize we need to do a lot more to make improvements and transform the IRS for the benefit of taxpayers, tax professionals and the nation,” he said. “We have an opportunity to build a 21st century tax agency to serve the American people in the manner they expect—and the level they deserve.”
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