Americans who are hearing- and speech-impaired had an unusually difficult time getting assistance from the IRS during this year’s tax season. An audit of the IRS’s special phone line for deaf customers found that less than 9% of callers were assisted by agency personnel. Of the 350,000 dialed calls made to the special line in the 2010 filing season, only 339 got through to someone.

 

The IRS Inspector General concluded that one reason for the low rate of response was that many hearing individuals call the hearing-impaired line by mistake. There were also problems of compatibility with the tone system used by some hearing-impaired taxpayers.

 

In general, the use of the phone line for deaf citizens is declining because many are switching to video phones.

-David Wallechinsky, Noel Brinkerhoff

 

IRS Ignores Most Calls from Deaf Taxpayers (WebCPA)

Toll-Free Telephone Access Exceeded Expectations, but Access for Hearing- and Speech-impaired Taxpayers Could Be Improved (Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration) (pdf)