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Washington, D.C.—The decision by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to suspend plans to close 68 of its Taxpayer Assistance Centers (TACs) around the country is a “huge victory” for American taxpayers, the leader of the union representing tens of thousands of IRS employees said today.

President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), who has been leading the fight to keep the TACs open, said the IRS decision to abandon the plan “serves well the very large number of taxpayers who will continue to have available the in-person assistance of IRS employees” as they seek to meet their tax obligations.

“This decision reverses a plan that clearly would have been counter-productive,” Kelley said.

The union president credited NTEU members and chapters around the nation for saving the TACs. Hundreds of NTEU members participated in rallies and press conferences—often attended by local and federal elected officials—which educated the public on the severe impact the loss of a TAC would have on a city, town or even a region.

IRS TACs provided a wide range of services to more than 7.7 million taxpayers last year, including not only answering their tax questions, but helping with the preparation of tax returns and providing assistance on such other vital matters as immigration issues.

The IRS said earlier this summer it planned to close, by Nov. 1, 68 of its TACs as part of a substantial cutback by the agency in customer service, including the closing of as many as six telephone help centers and a reduction of 15 hours a week in the time available to taxpayers to obtain phone help with their tax questions and problems.

The cutbacks are all part of an IRS effort to shift funds to enforcement and move taxpayers to the Internet for the help they need. However, President Kelley and NTEU members and chapter leaders across the country emphasized that a great many taxpayers not only prefer the face-to-face help they can get at a TAC, they rely on such help to comply with the tax laws.

Among the groups of taxpayers who would have been most seriously hurt by the TAC closings are the elderly, lower-income taxpayers, those with language barriers and those who have limited or no access to the Internet.

The potential problems with the plan to close the TACs resonated with members of Congress, as well, many of whom questioned the loss of customer service help for their constituents. In addition, the IRS plan was criticized by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), the National Taxpayer Advocate and the public-private IRS Oversight Board.

Both the full House of Representatives and the Senate Appropriations Committee approved in their respective versions of the fiscal 2006 Treasury-Transportation Appropriations bill language that would have prevented the TAC closings until TIGTA could study and report on their impact. NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing some 150,000 employees in 30 agencies and departments, including about 94,000 in the IRS.