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Washington, D.C.—The 10-day delay in the start of the tax-filing season and the accompanying delay in refunds are just the beginning of serious and frustrating problems taxpayers will face this filing season as the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) continues to struggle with severe and ongoing budget cuts, the leader of the union representing IRS employees said today. The filing season begins on Friday.

“Taxpayers can expect to wait longer than ever on hold; to experience delays in responses to correspondence; and increasingly to be referred to online resources for answers they used to obtain from an IRS customer service employee,” said President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU).

She added: “The IRS budget has been cut by nearly $1 billion over the past three years and the agency has lost 8,000 employees. That has serious negative impacts on taxpayers and virtually every other federal agency.” What is more, Kelley said, “For many Americans, a delay receiving their tax refund is a serious financial setback, and overall is a blow to economic recovery.”

The results in 2013 provide a preview of what faces taxpayers this filing season, the NTEU leader said, pointing to a sharp decline in the number of phone calls the agency was able to handle. Some 20 million taxpayers were unable to get their telephone calls answered in 2013 due to a lack of IRS staffing.

Moreover, Kelley said, citing the 2013 report to Congress of the National Taxpayer Advocate, telephone wait times had increased 87 percent—to 17.6 minutes—from a decade ago, with nearly half of that occurring in the past three years; and the number of tax law questions answered plummeted by 86 percent, from 795,000 in fiscal 2004 to only 110,000 in last year’s filing season.

Ironically, President Kelley added, these declines are occurring at the same time as is significant growth in the number of individual income tax returns, from 131.4 million in fiscal 2002 to about 142 million last year. About one-third of that increase has occurred since fiscal 2010.

Sequester cuts and the government shutdown delayed the start of the tax filing season by 10 days. That delay, coupled with inadequate staffing and resources at the IRS, will have a domino effect throughout the filing season, Kelley said.

“Whether taxpayers are seeking to get help over the phone or are visiting inadequately-staffed Taxpayer Assistance Centers for in-person help, they are going to have to endure longer and more frustrating waits,” the NTEU leader said.

Even more than that, she noted that in a recent announcement, the IRS said it is going to limit live assistance for taxpayers seeking help with tax law questions—including for individual taxpayers the alternative minimum tax and casualty and theft losses, as well as such key business matters as rental income and depreciation—and direct an increasing number of taxpayers with such questions to online services.

“This is problematic for the taxpayers who need phone and in-person help the most,” Kelley said, including non-English speaking taxpayers, the elderly and low income individuals and families, and those either without Internet access or a familiarity with using online services

“Every dollar spent on the IRS is an investment in America. We need to stop slashing this key agency’s budget, and fund it at levels that match its critical responsibilities to our nation,” Kelley added. “In all of the discussions about deficit reduction, we should remember that the IRS collects 93 percent of all government revenue.”

NTEU is the nation’s largest independent federal union, representing 150,000 employees in 31 agencies and departments.