TAS Has a Four-Week Delay in Initial Response Time

By Kathy Ploch, CPA-Houston

In a joint meeting last week with TXCPA, the IRS and other professional organizations, Local Taxpayer Advocate-Dallas Bill Roberts and Local Taxpayer Advocate-Houston Gina Smith stated that due to their workload, it is taking up to four weeks for TAS to return phone calls or to reply to initial contacts. This is unprecedented for the TAS office to have such a long delay.

The TAS website:

The Taxpayer Advocate Service is currently experiencing a high volume of assistance requests due to tax return processing delays. As a result, you may experience lengthy wait times while trying to connect with an advocate or while waiting for a return call. We ask for your patience as it may take up to four weeks before we will be able to return your call or reply to your request. We apologize for these delays and are taking steps to reduce hold and response times to better serve you.

TAS has always provided prompt service to taxpayers whose problems are causing financial difficulty. Please be understanding as their offices work through the backlog.

Comments

[Patty Wyatt]

Thank you, Melissa. That is good news to hear and consistent with most observations about Taxpayer Advocate Service. We are passing it along to ensure that tax professionals and taxpayers remains patient as TAS works through the backlog, as well.

[Melissa Fisher]

This is correct based on my experience. However, once contacted the TAS did everything they said they would do and contacted us again on the day promised to follow up. I was very grateful for their assistance after a year of getting no progress from the IRS. Highly recommend TAS.