IRS Optimizing Service and Strengthening Enforcement, IR-2023-126

The IRS delivered dramatically improved service in 2023 filing season and continues to build on this progress by focusing on critical work across the agency in achieving world class service strengthening enforcement against high-income individuals who do not pay taxes owed, and modernizing core technology infrastructure to enable better service and improve data security. The IRS has has cut phone wait times significantly and has digitized 80 times more returns than in the past year with the adoption of new scanning technology. Further, it has cleared the backlog of unprocessed individual tax returns of the past year without any errors and launched two new digital tools, and enabled a new direct-deposit refund option for taxpayers with amended returns. The IRS has been focused on optimizing the means in which taxpayers are able to seamlessly interact with the agency in the ways that work best for them on the phone, in-person and online, in addition to expanding in-person service and meeting taxpayers where they are, particularly those in underserved and rural communities.

The IRS has been working to ensure hold high-income filers pay the taxes they owe. Prior to the Inflation Reduction Act, more than a decade of budget cuts prevented IRS from keeping pace with the increasingly complicated set of tools that the wealthiest taxpayers use to hide their income and evade paying their share. Further, IRS has been modernizing decades-old technology to drive the agency’s efforts to provide world class customer service and protect taxpayers’ data. For more details about the IRS Strategic Operating Plan, visit the IRS website.