Home Media Center News Releases

Washington, D.C.—The leader of the union representing tens of thousands of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employees today described as “a positive step” action by a House subcommittee that would require the IRS to wait for an independent report before moving ahead to close any of its Taxpayer Assistance Centers (TACs). The IRS has said it wants to close 68 TACs across the country by Sept. 30.

President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) expressed her support for inclusion in its markup by the House Transportation-Treasury Appropriations Subcommittee of language that would prevent the closing of any TAC until the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) reports on the impact to taxpayers of such a move. In congressional testimony, TIGTA has raised serious questions about the methodology used in the IRS TAC-closing plan.

Kelley praised Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Joseph Knollenberg (R-MI) for including the language in the legislation considered today by the subcommittee and said his action “reflects the bipartisan concerns among many members of Congress about this ill-advised IRS plan.”

NTEU is strongly opposed not only to the plan to close the TACs—depriving many taxpayers of the face-to-face service and help they need to comply with an increasingly-complex tax code—but with agency plans to close telephone call sites in Boston, Chicago and Houston and cut, by 15 hours a week, the amount of time telephone help centers are open to assist taxpayers. More than 7.7 million taxpayers used IRS TACs around the nation last year.

A key thrust of the argument against the IRS plan to cut back customer service operations is the adverse impact on both taxpayer compliance with the tax laws and the effect on segments of the population that increasingly rely on such services, including the elderly, those without access to the Internet and those for whom English is not their primary language.

“These closings and cutbacks are a bad idea that will backfire,” President Kelley said, in calling on the House to accept the Knollenberg bill and Congress to approve it.

Along with TIGTA and NTEU, IRS National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson has criticized the agency’s plan, as has the IRS Oversight Board and a large, bipartisan and growing number of members of Congress.

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