IRS - 68 taxpayer assistance centers closing due to budget pressure

The Internal Revenue Service said on Friday that it planned to close 68 taxpayer assistance centers, nearly a fifth of its walk-in centers where people can receive help with their tax issues. IRS Commissioner Mark Everson said taxpayers increasingly look for telephone and online tax help.

“One of the greatest problems in government is, it continues to limp along and try to do everything,” he said. “What we’re trying to do is recognize where things are growing.”

The agency said it would close 68 of 400 Tax Assistance Centers sometime in the early fall in an effort to become more efficient, as an increasing number of people use the Internet and person-to-person phone services for assistance.

“We’ve been seeing change in taxpayer usage through the years,” the commissioner of the I.R.S., Mark W. Everson, said in a telephone interview on Friday. “We’ve improved our access in ways where people get the best service.”

According to the I.R.S., more than half of all returns were filed electronically this year.
While nearly 7.9 million people used the walk-in centers last year, that number has dropped 19 percent since 2002, the agency said.

Mr. Everson said that the tax center closings would save the agency about $45 million a year, with the money used to improve the agency’s electronic filing and to provide assistance on the phones.

The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents about 90 percent of the centers’ employees, criticized the I.R.S.’s decision.

“The result of this unwise plan will be not only a sharp reduction in customer service but also a decline in taxpayer compliance with the tax laws.”

The union’s president, Colleen M. Kelley, said it would most affect senior citizens and non-English speakers, who heavily rely on the walk-in centers for tax help.

As in many years, budget pressures are helping shape IRS decisions. The agency faces a 1 percent cut in funds for taxpayer services in fiscal 2006 and also needs to find the money to cover a pay raise for its 93,000 employees, higher rents and inflation. That means the IRS has to scramble to cut costs by $130 million to $150 million.

The I.R.S. said nearly 450 jobs would be affected because of the closings, though some employees would be offered early retirements and buyouts.

Representative Major R. Owens, a Democrat who represents Brooklyn, said many working families use the centers and they will be hurt the most.

“A large part of our citizens are not computer literate,” Mr. Owens said. Closing the centers, he added, “would be very damaging.”

Mr. Everson said that several factors, including people’s age and their ability to speak English, were “very much a consideration that we factored in” when determining which tax centers will close.

The closings will affect tax centers in 29 states. Seven closings will be in New York, two in Connecticut and four in New Jersey.

The IRS also is paring back hours at 26 call sites, going to a 12-hour day, covering a period when 93 percent of calls come in. Phone centers in Boston, Chicago and Houston will close, placing 183 jobs at risk, Kelley said.

The IRS has worked for almost seven years on improving taxpayer services, and the agency hopes that selected cuts in that area will give it more flexibility to continue strengthening tax enforcement and management of its “business systems modernization,” a multibillion-dollar technology project.

“I don’t think there is a pendulum swing taking place here,” Everson said in an interview. “It is more of a releveling of this. What you had before was a great effort to improve services and no effort to improve enforcement, and over time, enforcement deteriorated.”