IRS hires 4,000 customer service workers ahead of 2023 tax season

The IRS said this week it has hired an additional 4,000 customer service representatives who are being trained to answer taxpayer questions during the 2023 tax filing season.

It’s part of the new hiring made possible when congressional Democrats gave the IRS an $80 billion boost in funding over the next decade under the Inflation Reduction Act, which President Biden signed into law in August. It is meant to help rebuild an agency that hadn’t seen additional funding in decades.

The IRS is still working out how it will spend the extra $80 billion, but has emphasized that resources will be focused on improving customer service and scrutiny of high-income earners. The newest hires are being trained in taxpayer rights and technical account management issues.

Last tax season, the IRS answered so few taxpayer phone calls that a bipartisan group of lawmakers wrote to agency officials to complain that calls were only being answered 9% of the time.

“Help is on the way”

Treasury and IRS officials have said they want to put an end to poor customer service.

“We have been unable to provide the help that IRS employees want to give and that the nation’s taxpayers deserve,” IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig said in a statement on Thursday, “but help is on the way for taxpayers.”

“As the newly hired employees are trained and move online in 2023, we will have more assistors on the phone than any time in recent history,” he added.

But IRS officials have its goal is to add another 1,000 customer service representatives by the end of the year, bringing total new hires in this area to 5,000.