[Congressional Bills 117th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 7440 Introduced in House (IH)]

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117th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                H. R. 7440

To require the Secretary of the Treasury to establish a plan to improve 
  customer service and establish new modes of communication with the 
                    public, and for other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             April 7, 2022

Mrs. Bice of Oklahoma (for herself, Mr. Rogers of Alabama, Mr. Meijer, 
and Mrs. Cherfilus-McCormick) introduced the following bill; which was 
              referred to the Committee on Ways and Means

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
To require the Secretary of the Treasury to establish a plan to improve 
  customer service and establish new modes of communication with the 
                    public, and for other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``IRS Customer Service and 
Modernization Act of 2022''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS; SENSE OF CONGRESS.

    (a) Findings.--Congress finds the following:
            (1) The Internal Revenue Service is facing unprecedented 
        challenges following the outbreak of the COVID-19 and the 
        Federal response which included significant changes to the 
        Internal Revenue Code.
            (2) Since that time, the Internal Revenue Service has been 
        under tremendous strain with rapidly growing workloads and 
        significant staffing challenges.
            (3) At the beginning of the 2021 tax season, the Internal 
        Revenue Service still had approximately 11.7 million backlogged 
        returns from tax year 2020, and it took the IRS until June of 
        2021 to get through its 2019 backlog.
            (4) As of December 2021, the Internal Revenue Service still 
        had a backlog of approximately 6 million unprocessed individual 
        tax returns.
            (5) Processing delays at the Internal Revenue Service have 
        a disproportionately negative impact on low-income Americans.
            (6) In fiscal year 2021, the Internal Revenue Service 
        received approximately 282 million phone calls, of which only 
        11 percent or about 32 million were actually answered by 
        customer service representatives.
    (b) Sense of Congress.--It is the sense of Congress that the 
American people deserve an Internal Revenue Service that is responsive, 
efficient, and precise in its actions, and the Internal Revenue Service 
must develop a corrective action plan to address key deficiencies.

SEC. 3. CORRECTIVE ACTION PLAN REQUIRED TO ADDRESS KEY DEFICIENCIES.

    (a) In General.--Not later than 60 days after the date of the 
enactment of this Act, the Secretary of the Treasury shall develop a 
written corrective active plan to achieve average return of tax 
processing times that do not exceed the average of such processing 
times for returns of tax relating to the 5-year period ending on 
December 31, 2019. Such corrective active plan shall include the 
following:
            (1) Quarterly goals and benchmarks to achieve such 
        processing times not later than the beginning of the processing 
        period for returns of tax relating to taxable years ending on 
        or after December 31, 2023.
            (2) A list of technological upgrades that would improve 
        processing times of returns of tax.
            (3) A list of human resource policy changes that would 
        improve processing of returns of tax, including--
                    (A) a list of ways to increase productivity of 
                staff working remotely as the result of COVID-19, and
                    (B) a strategy to improve recruitment and 
                retention.
            (4) An estimate of the cost of maintaining and operating 
        existing taxpayer information processing technology.
            (5) An estimate of the total annual cost of protecting the 
        computer systems of the Internal Revenue Service from cyber 
        intrusion.
            (6) An analysis on how much the Internal Revenue Service 
        has paid in interest to taxpayers as a result of backlogs in 
        processing returns of tax that were submitted after March 13, 
        2020.
            (7) A plan to address backlogs in the Error Resolution 
        System to reduce the need for manual processing, including--
                    (A) rapid identification of math errors and 
                immediate notification to the taxpayer,
                    (B) improvements to processing times for taxpayer 
                correspondence, and
                    (C) an analysis of options to improve taxpayer 
                correspondence to include expanding taxpayer awareness 
                and use of online accounts to send and receive secure 
                correspondence.
            (8) An analysis of new Customer Relationship Management 
        software options to improve taxpayer inquiry tracking.
            (9) An analysis of options to improve taxpayer access to 
        in-person meetings with the Taxpayer Advocate Service and the 
        Internal Revenue Service, particularly in areas with 
        significant backlogs of requests for such meetings.
            (10) A strategy to prevent inaccurate correspondence to 
        taxpayers and tax practitioners.
    (b) Publication and Submission to Congress.--The Secretary of the 
Treasury shall publish the corrective active plan required under 
subsection (a) on the website of the Internal Revenue Service and shall 
submit such corrective active plan to the Committees on Ways and Means, 
Appropriations, and Oversight and Reform of the House of 
Representatives and to the Committees on Finance and Appropriations of 
the Senate.

SEC. 4. INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE MODERNIZATION OF COMMUNICATIONS.

    Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this 
Act, the Secretary of the Treasury shall improve communication with the 
public by--
            (1) expanding the capacity of the practitioner priority 
        service to respond to certified public accountants acting on 
        behalf of a client,
            (2) establishing a chat function on the website of the 
        Internal Revenue Service on which a taxpayer can get a quick 
        answer to a basic question that does not require the exchange 
        of personally identifiable information, and
            (3) establishing an online scheduling tool to allow 
        taxpayers to schedule virtual meetings, phone calls, and in-
        person meetings.
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