Instead, the agency has focused on digital services and self-help, a less-costly approach that “flies in the face” of data that show taxpayers prefer human interaction, Olson wrote.

“Pushing taxpayers to digital applications only exacerbates the taxpayer anxiety.”

Rettig told a New York University tax conference on Thursday in New York that improving taxpayer service is one of his top priorities. “What we’re trying to do is get to best-in-class service equivalent to what people get when they call an online retailer,” he said.

Olson directed some of her sharpest criticism to a new component of the agency’s 2018-2022 strategic plan that established measuring how well the IRS treats taxpayers by how often they forgo a human interaction in favor of a so-called self-assistance “service channel,” like the IRS website or automated calls with lengthy menu choices.

“The taxpayer wants answers and instead gets a runaround,” she wrote. The Trump administration has requested a 5% increase in funding for enforcement and a 6.6% decrease in funding for taxpayer services.

Plan Sought

Under a “Taxpayer First Act” measure that passed Congress and is awaiting President Donald Trump’s signature, the IRS would be required to present a comprehensive customer service strategy to Congress within one year.

“The IRS should use that requirement as an opportunity to think creatively about better ways to truly put ‘taxpayers first,’” Olson said.

Olson also proposed that the IRS employ an "Economic Hardship Indicator" to use “as a factor in prioritizing and categorizing collection cases." Currently, the agency “doesn’t screen for ability to pay before it takes collection actions, thereby causing or worsening financial hardships for financially vulnerable taxpayers.”

The agency “routinely” puts delinquent taxpayers into onerous installment agreements that don’t allow them to pay their basic living expenses, she wrote. The Internal Revenue Code, she added, requires the IRS to "release any levy where a taxpayer is experiencing economic hardship" and to craft a payment plan that includes "allowable living expenses."