It is hard to say which is worse: that it’s difficult to reach someone at the Internal Revenue Service when you need assistance filling out tax forms, or that the information the IRS gives you may be incorrect.
The IRS recently estimated that 30 percent of Americans who call the agency’s “help line” this tax season will never actually get to talk to a human being. They’ll get no “help.”
In fact, it says that that failure rate of 30 percent is its service “goal.” (Talk about setting low expectations!) Callers will wait on average 12 minutes before someone actually picks up at the IRS, the agency estimated — though of course by that time, many will have given up.
Ironically, those who never get through may very well be the lucky ones.
When put to the test by the Treasury Department, IRS workers failed to give correct information about 43 percent of the time. And they’re supposed to be the experts!