Those who would know best are saying that we need to be prepared for one of the worst filing seasons on record during the first quarter of 2015. What makes one filing season worse than another?  It has to do with the level of service that the IRS can provide to taxpayers.  How fast can they answer the phone when taxpayers call?  How fast and accurately can the IRS respond to taxpayer correspondence?  How efficiently will the IRS be able to process tax returns and refunds?

The IRS had a goal of answering 80% of incoming calls last season, but only managed to answer 72%.  This filing season it is predicted that the IRS may only be able to pick up 53% of the time with a 34 minute average hold time.

The IRS Commissioner, John Koskinen has identified a few main reasons why things look so bleak:

1. The IRS doesn’t have enough money to operate the way it should.  Funding levels are lower than they have been in years.
2. The IRS has been tasked with administering new programs such as the Affordable Care Act and the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act with no additional funding from Congress.
3. Implementation of a new voluntary return preparer oversight program will also increase work load for IRS employees.
4. There are 50 or so “tax extenders” — laws that Congress needs to vote on and determine if they will be extended or not.  The uncertainty could delay the start of the 2014 tax season.

National Taxpayer Advocate, Nina Olson, has a way of stating things in the plainest terms.  She has generated some great sound bites over the years.  Here’s her take on the upcoming tax season:

The filing season is going to be the worst filing season since I’ve been the National Taxpayer Advocate {in 2001}; I’d love to be proved wrong, but I think it will rival the 1985 filing season when returns disappeared.

I think these viewpoints have been colored by a recent TIGTA report that highlights “unfavorable trends” with the Automated Collection System (ACS).  Because the IRS does not have the resources to work cases properly, they have been “punting” many of them into Currently Not Collectible status or into the “queue” where cases can sit idle for months or years.  Consider yourself fortunate if you don’t have to interact with the IRS this tax season other than to file your return and wait for a refund check.