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Washington, D.C.—With the House of Representatives slated to consider this week yet another severe cut in resources for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the head of the union representing IRS employees warned against the risks to the nation’s voluntary tax system.

“Effective customer service is key to voluntary tax compliance,” said President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU). “Without it, taxpayers are not going to be able to get the help they need, and that will seriously impact not just the IRS’s ability to do its job, but the ability of the entire federal government.” The IRS collects 93 percent of all government revenue.

Since 2010, the IRS budget has been slashed by nearly $1 billion, resulting in the loss of 10,000 employees, thousands of whom work on the frontline of tax collection helping taxpayers.

The House budget for fiscal 2015 would cut IRS resources by another $340 million from the inadequate level of the current fiscal year; it also would be $1.5 billion less than sought by the administration.

Kelley called on the House to reject the proposal, and cited a litany of problems encountered by taxpayers that only will get worse with even-lower agency funding.

For example, only 61 percent of taxpayer calls were able to be answered last year, down from 74 percent in 2010. For those who did get through, hold times averaged 20 minutes for taxpayers and more than 30 minutes for tax preparers, according to the National Taxpayer Advocate.

During the tax-filing season, insufficient IRS staffing led to lengthy wait times—sometimes stretching to hours—at Taxpayer Assistance Centers across the country.

In the past two weeks, two major publications—the New York Times and the Washington Post—called for increased funding for the IRS.

In an editorial headlined “The Real Internal Revenue Scandal,” the Times said that underfunding the IRS “is bad news for building roads, keeping the air clean, protecting the nation’s security, and countless other vital government tasks.”

It took note of the White House budget proposal, calling it “not nearly enough, but at least a start in reversing a troubling trend and letting the IRS do its job of collecting the money to pay for essential government services.”

For its part, the Washington Post article—“Stop Starving the Beast of the IRS”—noted that for several years, “the IRS has been laboring under more expensive mandates, but with fewer resources.”

The Post added that “the IRS generates way more money than it spends,” pointing to a Taxpayer Advocate report that for every dollar appropriated to the IRS in fiscal 2013, the agency collected $225. “That’s a darn good return on investment,” the paper said.

On the subject of expanding responsibilities, President Kelley noted that employee training was cut more than 85 percent between 2009 and 2013.

Further, the NTEU leader said, insufficient resources will hinder the IRS from the fully effective implementation of its new Taxpayer Bill of Rights, which guarantees timely response and quality service. A recent Forbes article underscored the point, Kelley said. It was titled: “To Fix the IRS, You Have to Fund It.”

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