Status: Open
Expected Completion Date: TBD
Quarterly Update:
1st Quarter: The Taxpayer Advocate Service (TAS) continued working on activities to adopt emerging options for digital interactions with customers to reduce burden and gain efficiencies. These include drafting a plan to test a variation on the Documentation Upload Tool (DUT) that adds the ability for Taxpayer Facing Employees (TPFE) to generate a unique code to give to customers. The team plans to implement the test in a limited number of TAS offices in time for the filing season. Also, we are developing a project related to digitized forms starting with the Form 911, Request for Taxpayer Advocate Assistance (And Application for Taxpayer Assistance order). Further, the TAS request for IRS to publish the new TAS Virtual Assistant (VA) was completed by the vendor on December 2, 2022. Additionally, TAS’ partnered with IRS’ Online Services function to present technology options to other TAS executives as part of the planning for service improvements. The functions then held a strategic planning meetings and will collaborate in the second quarter for potential adoption of interactive chat.
In the second quarter, TAS will evaluate the benefit of the possible secure, two-way communications with taxpayers capability over other options such as encrypted e-mail attachments and DUT. The digital communication project has several priorities absorbing their capacity for new work, including integration with Online Accounts, followed by integration with Enterprise Case Management, and Taxpayer Journey Mapping. Lastly, funding for the Case Status Advisor position is still pending.
2nd Quarter: TAS continued to adopt emerging options for digital interactions with customers to reduce burden and gain efficiencies through several activities during the second quarter of 2023 including evaluating options for electronic communications with taxpayers, including increased adoption of the Documentation Upload Tool (DUT) and the variant DUT for Taxpayer Facing Employees (TPFE), IRS approved funding for updates to the Systemic Advocacy Management System (SAMS) to better align SAMS workflows with large increases in submissions of concerns or recommendations for IRS process and policy issues, met with Online Accounts and TDC to identify processes for business case submission and prioritization, completed its analysis of the intake process and delivered its initial recommendations to the NTA and other TAS senior leadership, and published a Virtual Assistant (VA) on the Taxpayer Advocate website.
The VA is designed to help taxpayers apply TAS case acceptance criteria in a user-friendly series of questions. More than 8,000 customers navigated through a chat and reached a knowledge article. Additional enhancements, such as interactive chat, are pending additional analysis of the business need and opportunities and the role of live agent interactions with the chat feature remain pending TAS evaluation of the role of Intake in future telephone operations.