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Washington, D.C.—Less than a week before the tax-filing deadline of midnight, April 17, taxpayers around the country are getting a vivid picture of the serious impact on them of sharp reductions in the budget of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the leader of the union representing IRS employees said today.

“Taxpayers seeking help by phone are waiting on hold for as long an hour, and every day there are very long lines of people waiting at Taxpayer Assistance Centers around the country,” said President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU).

“These wait times and delays, as well as other serious issues impacting taxpayers, are the results of an IRS that has been starved of the resources it needs, and finds itself striving to perform its increasingly-complex mission with thousands fewer employees,” the NTEU leader said.

The IRS budget for fiscal 2012 is $330 million less than fiscal 2010; overall, the cuts have resulted in a decline in IRS staffing of some 5,000 employees. One result of these cuts is a reduction in the number of daily hours telephone assistance is available to taxpayers, falling from 15 to 12.

President Kelley added: “Most taxpayers want to comply with their tax obligations, but many need help to do so,” noting a long list of taxpayer frustrations caused by inadequate IRS staffing. These include delays in completing a phone call to the agency, lengthy delays in IRS responses to letters seeking to resolve tax issues; further delays not only to individual taxpayers but to small business owners trying to set up payment plans; and difficulties in taxpayers getting answers to their questions about deductions and credits in a complex tax code, among other issues.

In response to these kinds of problems, the White House has proposed fiscal 2013 funding for the IRS of $12.76 billion, up nearly $945 million from the current fiscal year.

More than $400 million of the increase would go toward enforcement efforts which, together with customer service, play a critical role in the agency’s ability to generate the revenue needed to fund the nation’s federal government and provide an array of services to the public.

President Kelley emphasized that the IRS collects some 93 percent of all federal revenues. “Clearly, adequately funding the IRS is an investment for our nation, not a cost,” the NTEU leader said.

However, the long-term trend has been discouraging, Kelley said, noting that in 1995 the IRS had a staff of 112,024 to administer the tax laws and process 205 million tax returns. Today, she said, the IRS staff is about 91,000 and must process more than 236 million much more complex tax returns.

President Kelley is not alone in this view. In her most recent annual report to Congress, National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson called inadequate IRS funding the most serious problem facing taxpayers. Meanwhile, IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman has used recent congressional testimony to warn of the negative impacts of inadequate agency staffing, from both short- and long-term perspectives, on taxpayers and the IRS’s ability to perform its mission.

In testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee in March, Commissioner Shulman acknowledged that continuing budget cuts are forcing the IRS to conduct fewer examinations and engage in fewer collection activities. The agency head expressed concern this convergence of circumstances could lead compliant taxpayers to believe they can cheat the tax system.

Some members of Congress have expressed serious concerns, as well. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a member of the Ways and Means Committee, noted that a 20 percent cut in telephone assistors was made in the face of a 34 percent increase in phone traffic seeking tax help. Clearly, he said, the cuts have harmed taxpayers.

“For taxpayers with questions, there is simply no substitute for knowledgeable and experienced employees,” President Kelley said.

NTEU is the nation’s largest independent union of federal workers, representing 150,000 employees in 31 agencies and departments.