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Washington, D.C.—The leader of the union representing tens of thousands of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employees today attacked as “incredibly short-sighted and foolish” an apparent plan by the IRS to sharply cut back nationwide its walk-in and telephone customer service operations. The positions of roughly 700 IRS employees whose duty is to assist taxpayers would be eliminated.

President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) said the plan by the IRS to close a significant number of its Taxpayer Assistance Centers (TACs) “will result not only in reduced services to taxpayers, but will contribute to a serious decline in compliance with the nation’s tax laws.”

TACs are located in cities and towns across the United States and provide taxpayers with the opportunity to meet in person with a professional IRS employee who can answer tax questions and provide forms and other background material.

Kelley said: “I cannot conceive of a worse idea by this agency,” adding that NTEU “will strongly oppose this unwise attack on those who provide assistance to taxpayers.”

Even as the IRS is cutting back walk-in customer service operations, it is also planning to close three of its call sites in Boston, Houston, and Chicago. These are facilities that take taxpayer calls and route them to subject matter experts who can answer their questions and offer assistance.

The IRS has suggested that private tax assistance programs using volunteers can fill the void that will be created by the cutbacks. “While volunteer taxpayer assistance organizations play an extremely helpful role in assisting taxpayers to meet their tax obligations, it is foolhardy for the agency to rely on volunteers to do work that should be performed by trained and accountable federal employees,” Kelley said.

This proposed cutback in customer service also comes on the heels of an IRS plan to begin hiring private sector debt collectors to collect tax debts. NTEU strongly opposes this plan which threatens the confidential financial information of taxpayers while opening them up to the aggressive tactics of private collection agencies.

While the agency has not yet provided specific information either to NTEU or to affected employees, Kelley said “my understanding is that the agency is reviewing options that include closing either 105 TACs, affecting 528 employees, or 67 TACs, affecting 516 employees.” Either way, she said, “the plan is a significant step backward in the ability of the IRS to do its job effectively.”

The much better course, she said, would be for the administration to seek—and Congress to appropriate—sufficient funding for this critically-important agency. In its fiscal 2006 budget proposal for the IRS, the administration proposed a cut of more than $134 million in customer service operations. “NTEU is committed to doing everything possible to help the IRS get the money it needs to provide adequate services to the American public,” Kelley said.

What’s more, President Kelley said at the time the budget proposal was made public, the small increase proposed in the overall IRS budget was “insufficient to make a dent” in the current gap between taxes owed and amounts paid by taxpayers.

“This unwise cutback in customer service will only make the tax gap worse,” Kelley said, “and make it much more difficult for a wide range of taxpayers to get the assistance they need and count on from IRS employees.”

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing some 150,000 employees in 30 agencies and departments, including some 98,000 in the IRS.