[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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