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Washington, D.C.—The union that represents thousands of front-line Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employees thanked Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) and other House members for making a strong push to secure a much-needed funding increase for the struggling agency.

Rep. Ellison got 43 of his colleagues to sign a letter asking the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees IRS funding to set aside nearly $12.3 billion for the IRS in fiscal year (FY) 2017. NTEU has also gone to Capitol Hill to advocate for that level of funding, requested by the White House.

“The peak of tax season is upon us and taxpayers are bearing the brunt of insufficient funding. These members of Congress understand the IRS is struggling to provide assistance and deter tax-related identity theft. I ask other members of Congress to heed their call. Only additional funding can help,” NTEU National President Tony Reardon said. “This is the same case NTEU has been making for a long time—starving the IRS helps no one and hurts taxpayers and the economy.”

Calling IRS funding levels “totally inadequate and completely unacceptable,” the lawmakers’ letter says that boosting funding for the IRS would mark “an important reversal of short-sighted and damaging budget cuts” that have increased the national debt and prevented the IRS from fulfilling basic responsibilities like curbing tax fraud, providing an effective level of taxpayer services and enforcing tax laws authored by Congress.

“Without additional funding, the IRS will continue to struggle to crack down on identity theft, collect unpaid tax debts and do a good job of assisting taxpayers who need help in understanding and paying what they owe,” Reardon warned. “Our voluntary tax compliance system is at risk. And, as the IRS Commissioner has repeatedly noted, a simple 1 percent decline in the compliance rate translates into $30 billion in lost revenue for the government.”

“We should fully fund the government’s ability to collect taxes so that our country can make the investments we need to create jobs, protect our environment and provide education to our children. We should also support the federal employees at the IRS who are hardworking public servants. If Congress continues to cut resources for the Internal Revenue Service, we reduce our ability to make critical investments, increase the national debt and make it harder to prevent the crimes of terrorist financing or identity fraud,” said Rep. Ellison.

The White House’s call to give the IRS $12.28 billion in the upcoming fiscal year—an increase of about $1 billion over the current level—would allow the IRS to ramp up its customer service operations and begin rebuilding its workforce, which has been slashed by more than 15,000 full-time employees since FY2010 as the agency had to absorb $1.2 billion in budget cuts over a five-year period, according to Reardon.

Unless the IRS receives more money, taxpayers will continue to face longer wait times when they call for help and longer lines at Taxpayer Assistance Centers (TACs), Reardon said.

Correspondence backlogs will get bigger, preventing the timely processing of taxpayer mail “including letters from victims of identity theft and taxpayers seeking to resolve issues with taxes due or looking to set up payment plans,” he said.

Revenue collection will also continue to deteriorate. According to the IRS, every dollar invested in IRS enforcement programs generates about $6 in increased revenues. Yet, because of budget cuts, the agency collected less revenue through enforcement efforts last year—$54.2 billion—than in FY 2007, when it brought in $59.2 billion, Reardon said.

NTEU represents 150,000 front-line employees at the IRS and 30 other agencies and departments.