IRS “Taxpayer Services” nationally started the year with 42,161 employees. I think this includes many Service Center employees, as well as call center and local office representatives. 80 were probationary terminations, 2,017 took the deferred resignation offer, and IRS plans another 1,150 layoffs. So the staffing will decrease by about 8%. You think they’ll still be able to take phone calls and abate penalties in real time? I guess it depends on how many phone lines are removed.

If you can’t get help, there is always Taxpayer Advocate. They started the year with 1,970 employees. After 8 probationary terminations and 83 deferred resignations, there were 1,879 left. And now the plan is to terminate 430 of them, or 23%. Well, TAS was sometimes helpful while it lasted.