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Washington, D.C.—The head of the union representing tens of thousands of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employees today called on the IRS commissioner not to ignore “two explicit directives from Congress,” and to rescind plans to close its telephone call centers in Chicago and Houston. Under the IRS plan, employees at these two locations would be off the federal payroll by March 3.

In a letter to Commissioner Mark Everson, President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) expressed amazement that the agency would ignore two recent pieces of legislation, approved by Congress and signed by President Bush, prohibiting any cuts in taxpayer customer service until the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) has studied the impact on customers.

The language in both pieces of major legislation, President Kelley said, “appears clear to me.” She added: “Congress’ intent appears equally as clear—closing of the call sites is currently prohibited.”

Kelley included with her letter the applicable portions of both the fiscal 2006 Transportation, Treasury and Housing and Urban Development Appropriations bill and the fiscal 2006 Defense Appropriations bill.

The Transportation-Treasury bill used broad language to prohibit any of its appropriated funds from being used “to reduce taxpayer services as proposed in fiscal year 2006” until the TIGTA study is complete. Congress followed that up by including language in the Defense funding bill specifying that “reduced taxpayer services” in the Transportation-Treasury bill included—but was not limited to—any reductions in telephone service.

The NTEU leader asked Everson for “a response with regards to your noncompliance in the face of this legislative language” by Jan. 31.

The IRS has been seeking for much of the past year to reduce significantly the availability of taxpayer assistance available directly from IRS employees. As part of its effort to drive taxpayers to its Internet web site, the IRS sought to close 68 of its walk-in Taxpayer Assistance Centers (TACs), but backed off in the face of a nationwide uproar led by NTEU chapters and members about the detrimental impact of the proposal.

Moreover, just in recent days, the agency dropped plans to reduce by some 20 percent the number of hours each day that taxpayers can obtain telephone tax help from the IRS. NTEU again led the successful fight against that proposal.

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing some 150,000 employees in 30 agencies and departments, including 94,000 in the IRS.