The Internal Revenue Service has hired 4,000 additional customer service representatives this year. The agency said this month it intends to hire another 1,000 to help answer telephones—which have been understaffed in past years—and provide other services in the upcoming filing system.
The IRS anticipates phones will be answered at a much higher level than in the last tax season.
The funding for the additional positions came in the Inflation Reduction Act funding approved in August. Most will be in place for the start of the 2023 tax season and the training for most will be completed by President’s Day.
The hiring of all these individuals took about eight months.
Representatives are in various stages of being onboarded and receive weeks of training in a wide range of issues, including technical account management issues and understanding and respecting taxpayer rights.
The IRS said the new direct hire authority, along with other improvements, speeded the hiring process.
Bob Scott has provided information to the tax and accounting community since 1991, first as technology editor of Accounting Today, and from 1997 through 2009 as editor of its sister publication, Accounting Technology. He is known throughout the industry for his depth of knowledge and for his high journalistic standards. Scott has made frequent appearances as a speaker, moderator and panelist and events serving tax and accounting professionals. He has a strong background in computer journalism as an editor with two former trade publications, Computer+Software News and MIS Week and spent several years with weekly and daily newspapers in Morris County New Jersey prior to that. A graduate of Indiana University with a degree in journalism, Bob is a native of Madison, Ind