Experts say that the taxpayers who claim the Tax Authority to help treat their taxes may find this deposit season difficult to get someone on the phone, a problem that is expected to get worse next year with employment discounts that can largely reduce the workforce.

For this year, the data of the tax declaration processing times shows numbers that are largely in line with those in the past year. Tax Authority employees participating in2025 tax seasonThey were not allowed to accept the acquisition of the Trump administration until after the deadline for taxpayers on April 15, although thousands of test workers earlier this year.

Legal experts in tax compliance says long waiting times will increase with the ease of acquisitions and hairstyles.

Eric Santos, Executive Director of the Georgia Tax Clinic, who provides free tax law services for low -income taxpayers, says the waiting times for the tax department phone line are significantly longer than usual and the tax authority employees are flooded at work.

Santos said that the tax authority staff “inform us mainly that they have no time to consider in some cases.” “The work is spread through fewer and less people.”

A decrease in workers – which may end up to nearly half of the workforce in the entire tax department – is part ofTrump administration effortsTo reduce sizeFederal ManpowerThrough billionaireElon MuskThe Ministry of Governmental efficiency by closing the agencies, and laying almost all test employees who have not yet acquired the civil service and providing acquisitions for almost all federal employees through a “deferred resignation program”.

Earlier this month, the Labor Tax Authority began thisIt can end upUp to 20,000 employees – up to 25 % of the total workforce. Recently, nearly 7,000 workers in the Tax Authority who were deported from February by a federal judge, although it is not clear whether these workers have been summoned to work.

The numbers comparison during the first week of April 2024 and 2025, 101.4 million returns this year were addressed, compared to 101.8 million tax declarations last year. The recovered amounts increased, with 67.7 million this year, compared to 66.7 million in 2024.

But Santos and others are concerned that the 2026 deposit season can be negatively affected by the loss of thousands of tax collection workers who are expected to leave the agency through planned layoffs and acquisitions.

Santos said: “I do not see how the tax deposit season will keep pace next year,” Santos said. “I think it is a fair question to ask now.”

A Treasury spokesman, who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke to the Associated Press, said, provided that his identity was not disclosed in a statement that the tax employees’ discounts were part of the other improvements that the agency has to be more efficient and improve service.

Sakinah Tillman, Director of Columbia Provincial County University, has not seen a delay in handling the recovered amounts this year, but witnessed a delay in reaching the tax authority via the phone.

She is concerned that delaying the phone may harm customers who pass through groups trying to settle their debts.

“What happens when customers try to become compatible?” I asked. Or when people who are ready and able to pay, but they cannot get someone on the phone?

Former Tax Authority Commissioner John Koskinin AP told that even in the normal year, the Tax Authority response slows down more in the tax season he gets.

“In the next year, if they reduce 10,000 or 20,000 employees, they will return to the bad taxpayer service on the phone,” he said. “The taxpayer’s priority line will become an Axissorone.”

This story was originally shown on Fortune.com

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2025-04-14 21:03:00