Tax pros give mixed reviews to wait times, service on PPS line

Tax professionals are giving mixed reviews to the wait times and quality of service for the IRS’s Practitioner Priority Service (PPS) line, especially since the Service ended its pilot program to thwart line-jumping companies at the end of March.

At the start of 2023, when the IRS had initiated the pilot program, the shorter wait time for an answer was “very refreshing,” one tax attorney and CPA said. An employee benefits attorney described the situation then as a “blissful period.”

But that has changed in the past few months, said Alina Solodchikova, J.D., LL.M., principal and leader of the tax controversy practice in Washington National Tax at RSM US LLP. She said that wait times, which were 5-10 minutes in January and February, are now at least an hour, which distracts from the workflow.

“You would think that if you have two hours before a meeting, and you call the IRS, that you will be done within this two-hour time frame, but it’s not always the case,” said Solodchikova, a member of the AICPA Tax Policy & Advocacy Committee and a former attorney at the IRS. “Frequently, when we have to attend a meeting, we have to hang up and call back again … so we juggle. It impacts every tax practitioner who is trying to get a hold of the IRS.”

Said Anna Pomykala, who works in the employee benefits group at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP in New York City: “This blissful period of the hotline asking for a voice ID to make sure a human and not a robot is calling reduced wait times to a handful of minutes. But that ended, at least for now.”

Her wait times are now generally over an hour and often approach two hours, even when a recording says that the anticipated wait time is 30 to 60 minutes, she said.

Wait times on all IRS customer service lines have frustrated both tax practitioners and taxpayers since at least the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some tax professionals began using line-jumping services that held their place in the queue until the IRS answered. To thwart this, the Service began a pilot program that tax professionals said required them to answer a question to prove they were human before being placed in the queue.

Good news soon followed. Kenneth Corbin, the taxpayer experience officer for the IRS and its Wage and Investment Division commissioner, said in January that the IRS was answering the PPS line in under 10 minutes. He credited the hiring of 5,000 customer service representatives (CSRs) and the blocking of line-jumping services with the improved wait times.

And National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins, in her Review of the 2023 Filing Season, shared in June, reported that the average speed of answer was three minutes for the 2023 filing season, compared to 24 minutes in 2022.

But the IRS ended the pilot program that blocked line-jumping services on March 31, a spokesman said. The Service is “considering how best to apply what we learned from that initiative,” he said. As of the end of June, the average wait time on the PPS line was 19 minutes — closer to the 24 minutes that the NTA reported for 2022 than the three minutes reported for 2023.  

Shauna Collins, an enrolled agent with an accounting practice in Philadelphia, said that her recent wait times have been “amazing. It’s wonderful that the timing has been three to 10 minutes at the most.”

Her wait times are so short that she canceled her contract with a line-jumping service, she said.

Attorney Steve Klitzner, whose practice specializes in resolving disputes with the IRS, said he and his staff recently have gotten through to the PPS line in a couple of minutes.”During tax season, they were really good,” he said. “After tax season, wait times went back up. But currently, things are good again, and they’re answering quickly.”

But CSRs have provided conflicting advice in some cases, Collins said. For example, one CSR told her that she could no longer fax a Form 2848, Power of Attorney and Declaration of Representative, and that she had to submit it online. When Collins called again with a follow-up question, the next CSR said she could fax the form.

“It seems that all IRS representatives do not receive the same training,” she said. “If all practitioners have to upload 2848s, all IRS representatives should know that across the board. If practitioners need to fax the documents, the representative should be aware of that as well.”

Solodchikova agreed. “More assisters are having technical difficulties and can’t access the information we’re asking them for or locate transcripts,” she said. “Maybe this is due to new hires, and maybe they’re not yet trained properly.”

In a survey conducted June 5-June 23, 2023, by the JofA and The Tax Adviser, AICPA members who indicated they have a professional interest in taxation said they found no clear improvement in the quality of assistance, and the majority said wait times were worse or the same.

Of the 1,266 AICPA members who said they had called the PPS line, over 40% said their wait time was better than in previous years. But a combined total of 58% said it was worse (almost 31%) or it was about the same (28%). Of the 99% of respondents who had prior-year calls to compare quality of assistance to, 55.6% rated it about the same; 23.5% said it was worse, and just 20% said it was better.

“Most of my calls to the IRS these days are to follow up on multiple letters that have gone unanswered, often on matters that arose over a year ago,” said Pomykala, who expressed a desire to speak with an appeals officer directly. “If you’re in collections, there is a direct number to call, and revenue officers typically will return a call in a matter of days. But if you are trying to get penalties abated, for example, then you’re out of luck.”

Both she and Solodchikova questioned the functionality of the IRS callback system, where callers leave a contact number and the IRS returns the call. Sometimes they get that option and sometimes they do not.

The recording might say that the IRS will call back in 60 minutes, but it can be longer, or you are placed on hold again when you get the return call, Solodchikova said. “And being forced to work with the IRS hold music in the background can be challenging,” said Pomykala. 

A report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) posted in July explained why some callers get a callback option and others do not: Callers with estimated wait times of over 60 minutes are not eligible for callback consideration. This threshold was set during a pilot program because of concerns that some callers may be unfairly disconnected if their phone lines are not configured for callbacks, TIGTA said.

The threshold was set as a starting point and not based on data, TIGTA said, adding that it “places an unnecessary burden on callers with the longest wait times.”

Meanwhile, tax professionals read press coverage of recent improvements to IRS customer service touting average wait times of three minutes, Pomykala said. “That’s over, at least for the Practitioner Hotline, making it more difficult for us to help our clients in a timely and efficient way. We’re hopeful that shorter wait times are forthcoming.”

— To comment on this article or to suggest an idea for another article, contact Martha Waggoner at Martha.Waggoner@aicpa-cima.com.