Taxpayer Advocate
Coverage of Taxpayer Advocate in the Nexus archive.
- IRS did better than expected in tax season after slashing staff, except on the phone, watchdog says
The IRS performed better than expected in processing refunds during the 2026 tax season despite significant staff reductions but struggled with phone support, particularly for identity theft victims. The IRS reduced its workforce from 102,000 to 74,000 employees, and only 19% of calls to identity theft lines were answered, with victims waiting nearly two years for assistance.
- IRS did better than expected in tax season after slashing staff, except on the phone, watchdog says
The IRS performed better than expected in processing tax refunds during the 2026 tax season despite significant workforce reductions, but struggled with phone service and long wait times for identity theft victims. A watchdog report highlighted 59% of major account calls were answered, while compliance and identity theft lines had 34% and 19% answer rates, respectively. Over 500,000 identity theft victims face average resolution times of 20 months.