Nina Olson's advice to Congress - big help or big yawn?

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Taxpayers all over the nation should be thanking Nina Olson, our National Taxpayer Advocate, for trying to keep the IRS up to par.  Since 2001 Nina has been pushing Congress to improve their services for taxpayers.  This year in her annual report she singled out "poor telephone services" as the IRS' most serious issue:

The IRS has set a target for 2010 of answering 71% of calls (this means that 3 out of 10 people calling the IRS hotline wont get through to an actual person).  And to make matters worse, callers who do get through will have an average wait of 12 minutes. So this year, Olson offered a solution: increase IRS staff so that 85% of calls can be answered with an average wait time of five minutes.  

So, we will see if our advocate's criticisms are taken note of by Congress or if it is answered with only a big yawn.  

We encourage you to take use of the IRS website.  If you need to track your refunds we offer a refund tracker link on our website.  And if you are brave, the toll-free help line for individuals is 800-829-1040.