Taxpayer Experience Improvement Act

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, firstly, I thank my friend and colleague from Arizona (Mr. Schweikert) for his leadership on the Taxpayer Experience Improvement Act, and I am proud to support him on this.

The IRS has made great strides since the pandemic to improve customer service for taxpayers, contributing to a successful filing season last year. The agency was able to process more than 165 million income tax returns and deliver refunds to 104 million taxpayers, the overwhelming majority on time and with no issues.

This is in large part thanks to the funds provided to the IRS through the Inflation Reduction Act, which reversed decades of underinvestment in the agency.

However, even during what was a relatively smooth filing season, millions of taxpayers experienced delays receiving their refunds or difficulties communicating with the IRS due to issues on the agency's side.

It is hard to overstate how disruptive delayed refunds and unresolved notices can be for taxpayers. Families structure their annual budgets around the timely arrival of the refund checks, and a lengthy delay can throw their budget into chaos, particularly if the taxpayers aren't able to find out when they can expect to receive a check.

Similarly, a notice from the IRS to the taxpayer can cause enormous confusion or anxiety, especially when an individual is unable to get in touch with the agency quickly enough to answer their questions and address unresolved issues.

While this bill wouldn't reverse the recent ill-advised staffing and funding cuts pushed by this administration that are undermining the progress we made with the IRA, it will go a long way toward alleviating the harm to taxpayers.

The provisions in this bill aim to reduce the long-term demands on the agency by increasing the level of information available to taxpayers online and facilitating plans to digitize tax returns and correspondence.

It would also require the IRS to provide personalized electronic updates to taxpayers regarding the status of their returns and refunds, which should reduce the agency's incoming call volume.

Additionally, it would push the agency to implement customer callback technology and add a real-time service dashboard to its website to display call volumes, wait times, and promote the availability of its callback services. All these add up to an improved taxpayer experience and a more efficient IRS.

I greatly appreciate Mr. Schweikert's efforts with this bill to improve the IRS, and I hope that we can build on our success here and give the agency the resources it needs to provide the stellar customer service the American people deserve.

Mr. Speaker, I strongly support this measure.

The American people deserve a first-rate customer experience when they interact with the IRS. This legislation will help the agency reach that goal.

The IRS has been under tremendous pressure to do more with less in recent years, and based on the success of last year's filing season, it has proven it can rise to the challenge.

This bill will focus the agency's efforts on providing timely information to taxpayers, speed the digitization of forms and correspondence, and implement other resource- and time-saving measures. These provisions will take some of the load off of the IRS, its limited resources, and overworked staff, all while improving the experience for the taxpayers.

I greatly appreciate the bipartisan support for this bill and the leadership of tireless and annoying Congressman Schweikert. I hope that the success of this initiative will lead to more bipartisanship on tax administration going forward, and I look forward to working with my colleagues across the aisle to further improve the IRS.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote for the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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