President Donald Trump's budget plans to reduce funding for the Internal Revenue Service by $239 million, but the agency is requesting more money for customer service, the Washington Times reported.
National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson told lawmakers on Tuesday that budget cuts have hampered the agency's ability to improve customer service.
"Just 40 percent of taxpayers who called to make payment arrangements were able to get through in the most recent tax filing season—and those that did manage to connect had to wait on average more than 45 minutes," the article states.
"The combination of less funding and more work has eroded the IRS's ability to serve taxpayers," Olson said.
Republicans have been frustrated with the IRS, calling for the IRS commissioner John Koskinen to be impeached after the agency was found to be targeting conservative groups.
"Republicans have said the IRS's problems were its own fault, pointing to investigations that found the agency made the 2015 tax season more painful than it should have been by siphoning money away from customer service and toward the Obama administration’s own priorities," the article said.
"In 2013, the agency dedicated 55 percent of the user fees it collected to go to customer service. In 2015, it cut that to less than 10 percent of user fees."