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Washington, D.C.—The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) is urging House and Senate appropriations committees to provide higher levels of funding for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) this year.

NTEU National President Tony Reardon sent letters to the leaders of both appropriations committees to remind them that IRS’ funding has been cut by almost $1.2 billion in the past five years, a 17 percent cut after adjusting for inflation. The agency also has lost 18,000 full-time and part-time employees over that five-year period.

“The lack of sufficient staffing has strained IRS’ capacity to meet its mission of providing America's taxpayers top quality service and enforcing our nation’s tax laws,” Reardon wrote. “The drastic cuts to IRS’ budget come at a time when the IRS workforce is already facing a dramatically increasing workload with staffing levels down more than 31 percent below what they were just 19 years ago.”

The recent two-year budget agreement calls for raising the sequester funding caps. Reardon asked the appropriations committees to use some of the additional money to increase funding levels for the IRS.

The impact of IRS budget cuts and the resulting staffing reductions are perhaps most evident in the drastic decline of IRS customer-service operations. The number of employees assigned to answer taxpayer phone calls went from 9,400 in 2010 to 6,900 in 2014—a 26 percent drop. According to the IRS, only 38 percent of callers were able to get through to a live IRS employee during the 2015 filing season, down from 74 percent five years ago. More than 60 percent of calls were never answered.

Since fiscal year 2010, resources for IRS taxpayer services have fallen by more than $200 million, or 8 percent. In that time, the number of individual taxpayers has increased by 9 million, or 6 percent.

“NTEU strongly believes providing quality taxpayer service is a critical component of the IRS’ efforts to help the taxpaying public understand its tax obligations while making it easier to comply with the tax system. Unfortunately, the IRS’ ability to provide excellent taxpayer service has been severely challenged,” the NTEU leader wrote.

The link between funding cuts and the IRS’ “capacity to collect revenue critical to reducing the federal deficit is clear,” Reardon wrote.

In FY 2014, on a budget of $11.2 billion, the IRS collected $3.1 trillion, roughly 93 percent of federal government receipts. Though every dollar invested in IRS enforcement programs generates about $6 in revenue, cuts in enforcement have led to a steady decline in enforcement revenue since FY 2007. In FY 2013, IRS enforcement activities brought in $53.3 billion, down almost $6 billion from the $59.2 billion of FY 2007.

NTEU, the nation’s largest independent federal-employee union, represents 150,000 employees in 31 agencies and departments.