IRS commissioner says he wants taxpayers to have options for this filing season

NPR’s Ari Shapiro speaks with Danny Werfel, commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, about this year’s tax filing season and the future of the IRS.

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

The last time we spoke with Danny Werfel, he had recently gotten a new job and $80 billion added to his budget. He’s commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS was shrinking even as the U.S. population was growing. So the new money was part of a rebuilding project. Well, just in time for tax season, IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel is here to update us on how the project’s going. Good to have you back.

DANNY WERFEL: Great to be here, Ari.

SHAPIRO: Some of the money you got has gone to hiring people who are going to help taxpayers filing. Can you measure the difference that that has made so far?

WERFEL: We can. I mean, we’ve hired – with the new money under the Inflation Reduction Act, we’ve hired more than 5,000 new customer service representatives. That means that we are now at a point where our call centers are fully staffed, our walk-in centers around the country are fully staffed. These same people that are both answering the phones and meeting with taxpayers, they also process paper returns that come in. So we’re able to manage our paper inventory so much better.

SHAPIRO: It’s interesting that you mention paper inventory because I’ve been shocked to see images of millions of pieces of paper that the IRS is using to manage filings, even in this day and age. And the technology that there is in some cases dates back to the 1960s and ’70s. Have there been upgrades to that as well?

WERFEL: Absolutely. Look, I’ve seen the same pictures. It’s a call to action for us. When we see paper returns filling hallways and cafeterias as it was prior to the Inflation Reduction Act, we knew we had to end that. And there’s two ways to do that. First, hiring enough people to review all of it. If it’s coming in in paper, it still needs to be reviewed. And…