Overview
Tax Operation Report is a practitioner-led effort to collect and analyze real-world IRS call experience data.
The goal is to provide additional visibility into IRS phone accessibility from the perspective of the practitioners who rely on these lines every day.
Data Collection
Call data is submitted by tax practitioners through Tax Operation Report.
Each submission may include:
- Date and time of call
- IRS line called
- Whether the caller reached the hold queue
- Reported hold time
- Whether callback was offered
- Call outcome (actual hold time & disconnects)
Current Data Limitations
The dataset is currently in an early growth stage. A significant portion of submissions have been contributed by the project creator, with additional submissions from practitioners across the tax community. As participation grows, the goal is to develop a broader practitioner-generated view of IRS phone accessibility.
Call Score Computation
The call is made up of more than just reported hold time. It factors in other elements that contribute to practitioner experience such as whether a callback was offered, or whether the call was ultimately dropped.
The score is ranked on a scale of 1 – 100 with “1” representing the best call experience and “100” representing the worst call experience (i.e. courtesy disconnect). Each factor is weighted to create the composite score.
Example: A practitioner calls the PPS Business line and is quoted a hold time of 30-60 minutes, is offered a callback, the callback is late by 15 minutes, and the call ultimately disconnects. The score adds/subtracts points for each factor as weighted by their importance:
- Hold Time (weighted at 70%): +31.5 points
- Callback (weighted at 5%): -0.5 points
- Hold Exceeded Reported Hold Time (weighted at 10%): +10 points
- Disconnecton (weighted at 15%): +15 points
Total Score: 56/100
Importance of Practitioner Data
IRS phone access is experienced differently by the tax practitioners who rely on PPS day in and day out. Tax Operation Report aims to make those experiences measurable.
Every tax practitioner has a story about calling the IRS. Tax Operation report turns those individual experiences into shared insight for the tax community. If you recently called the IRS, please share your experience to help build a clearer picture of IRS phone accessibility.