Service over the phone and at Taxpayer Assistance Centers and safety at TACs are  among the issues still in need of improvement by the Internal Revenue Service, according to the latest report to Congress from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

TIGTA’s “Semiannual Report to Congress” examines IRS activities from Oct. 1, 2024, to March 31, 2025, in the wake of the Inflation Reduction Act pumping some $80 billion in supplemental funding to the agency (which was cut by Congress as of last March to $37.6 billion).

Among the findings:

1. Toll-free lines. Similar to the 2023 season, expectations were for the IRS to provide an average level of service of 85%, reduce the average caller wait to five minutes or less and provide nearly all callers with the ability to take advantage of a callback option. For the 2024 season, the IRS reported an average level of service of 87.6% and an average wait time of 3.4 minutes.

TIGTA said a “limited” sampling of IRS lines showed that previous recommended corrections had not been made: “While IRS records indicated all IRS telephone lines would hear tax scam and identity theft information while on hold, TIGTA observed that some telephone lines still did not have the required tax scam information.” The IRS also had to ask for more time to implement recorded messages in Spanish.

(Read more: “IRS paints a strong picture from 2024.”)

2. TAC “experience.” TIGTA made surprise visits to 85 TACs at the start of the 2024 season, identifying unclear hours of operation, security guards impeding taxpayers’ ability to speak with IRS employees, and inconsistencies with types of assistance being provided. 

“We also found that TAC telephone lines provided only basic information regarding TAC addresses,” the inspector general’s report said. Forty of 95 facilitated self-assistance kiosks were not operable, and some had not been working for over a year.

3. Weekend fray. Most TACs are open Monday through Friday and operate by appointment only with walk-in exceptions by appointment. In 2024, the IRS offered face-to-face service without an appointment at some TACs for one Saturday a month.

TIGTA made 33 unannounced visits to TAC Saturday events and found that, “while the IRS took steps to prepare for these events, unanticipated demand created long wait times for taxpayers. Demand was partly driven by a lack of appointments during the week and in-person identity verification requirements,” the result of the IRS response to tax schemes on social media promising large refunds and where the IRS sent notifications to taxpayers requiring them to visit a TAC site for an in-person identity verification.

Many TAC locations were almost completely booked 60 days in advance for appointments, and taxpayers may have relied on Saturdays to get quicker service. The TAC in Atlanta had a line of taxpayers nearly half a mile long that had started forming at 4 a.m. A fight broke out at a TAC in Houston. 

“After we alerted the IRS of our safety concerns, they increased security in other locations,” the report reads. “The IRS also canceled 14 Saturday help events (mostly) due to lack of staffing, and sometimes with short notice.”

4. Business as not usual. The IRA designated $4.8 billion for business systems modernization, but after TIGTA sampled IRS legacy systems and requested contracts to track the agency’s spending of IRA funds on such modernization, “the IRS was unable to locate the contracts. In addition, financial controls over IRA BSM spending are ineffective.”

Among the positives in the report:

• TIGTA’s review of IRS oversight of private debt collection companies, which are contracted to collect taxes on cases involving inactive tax receivables, found that “assistors generally adhered to guidelines and provided quality service to taxpayers achieving an overall accuracy rate of 97.8% compliance.”
• As of last October, the IRS had made 234 notices available via online accounts and expected to add 20 notices by the end of December 2024, exceeding its original 90-notice goal. The agency also redesigned 141 notices of its 200-notice goal as of October 2024 and had expected to have 231 notices redesigned by last December. TIGTA found redesigned notices generally shorter, easier to read and with appropriate Quick-Response codes.

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Amid the agency’s turmoil this year, the Internal Revenue Service has some good news from 2024 regarding service and collections.

The agency helped taxpayers on 62.2 million occasions in FY24, up 3.2% over the prior fiscal year, and took in a new high in revenue, according to its latest annual Data Book detailing agency activities from Oct. 1, 2023, to last Sept. 30.

IRS toll-free customer service lines provided live telephone assistance to almost 20 million callers during the fiscal year, up some 11% from 2023. At Taxpayer Assistance Centers, the agency helped more than 2 million taxpayers in person, an increase of almost 26% over FY2023.

For the first time, revenue collected exceeded $5 trillion ($5.1 trillion), an increase of almost 9% compared to the prior fiscal year total.

The Data Book gives a fiscal year overview of the agency’s operations, including returns received, revenue collected, taxpayer services provided, tax returns examined (audits), efforts to collect unpaid taxes and other details. Among other FY24 highlights, the IRS:

• Launched more digital tools than it had during the previous 20 years. Online offerings saw more than 2 billion electronic taxpayer assistance transactions, 47% more than in FY23. The most popular features were requests for transcripts and Where’s My Refund? Overall, IRS.gov registered nearly 690 million individual visits with 1.7 billion page views.
• Processed more than 266 million returns and other forms from individuals, businesses and tax-exempt organizations; received almost 4.6 billion information returns; and issued close to $553 billion in refunds.
• Closed 505,514 tax return audits, resulting in $29 billion in recommended additional tax.

The net collections — federal taxes that have been reported or assessed but not paid and returns that have not been filed — totaled almost $77.6 billion, an increase of 13.6% compared to FY23. The agency collected more than $16 billion through installment agreements, an increase of more than 12% compared to the prior fiscal year.
The Data Book also covers statistics on Direct File, taxpayer attitude surveys about satisfaction with the IRS and “acceptable” levels of cheating on taxes, and applications for tax-exempt status, among other topics.

Total postsecondary spring enrollment grew 3.2% year-over-year, according to a report.

The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center published the latest edition of its Current Term Enrollment Estimates series, which provides final enrollment estimates for the fall and spring terms.

The report found that undergraduate enrollment grew 3.5% and reached 15.3 million students, but remains below pre-pandemic levels (378,000 less students). Graduate enrollment also increased to 7.2%, higher than in 2020 (209,000 more students).

(Read more: Undergraduate accounting enrollment rose 12%)

Community colleges saw the largest growth in enrollment (5.4%), and enrollment increased for all undergraduate credential types. Bachelor’s and associate programs grew 2.1% and 6.3%, respectively, but remain below pre-pandemic levels. 

Most ethnoracial groups saw increases in enrollment this spring, with Black and multiracial undergraduate students seeing the largest growth (10.3% and 8.5%, respectively). The number of undergraduate students in their twenties also increased. Enrollment of students between the ages of 21 and 24 grew 3.2%, and enrollment for students between 25 and 29 grew 5.9%.

For the third consecutive year, high vocational public two-years had substantial growth in enrollment, increasing 11.7% from 2023 to 2024. Enrollment at these trade-focused institutions have increased nearly 20% since pre-pandemic levels.