Law Students Support Sen. Bob Menendez in Calling for IRS Customer Service Reforms - Rutgers Newark

Rutgers Law School students described the impact of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) backlogs on the low-income clients they represent during a press conference called yesterday by U.S. Senator Bob Menendez to demand more support for taxpayers.

The third-year students work in the school’s Federal Tax Law Clinic in Newark, directed by professor Sandy Freund, and represent pro bono clients, many of whom never received the tax returns or tax credits they’re owed and encounter a host of other issues. Since the pandemic, problems have dramatically worsened. Some have audits that remain unresolved for years, according to the students.

Student Terence Brennan said some of his clients have gone nearly a year without returns they normally rely on to help support their families. “They’re often the people who can least afford these delays,’’ said Brennan. “This means putting food on the table or not.’’

Menendez (D-NJ) held the conference to call for a reduction in the massive IRS backlog of more than 13 million unprocessed returns – a figure that has “increased exponentially” during the pandemic, he said – and improve customer service.

“Today the American people need more help, not more headaches,’’ said Menendez, a Rutgers Law School alumnus. “We must have an IRS that works.”

He rattled off the frustrating statistics, citing information from the National Taxpayer Advocate.
“As January 28, the IRS has 23.7 million items to process manually, including 17.9 million unprocessed returns and 5.8 million pieces of mail,’’ said Menenedez.

Over the past five months, he has led six letters to the IRS addressing a range of customer service issues, including expanding overtime options for IRS staff, halting automatic notices to taxpayers, expediting the processing of amended returns, and delaying the collections process. Rep. Donald Payne Jr. also spoke at the press conference to support measures advocated by Menendez.

The law school students who spoke at yesterday’s press conference agreed that more needed to be done.

Because of understaffing and unprocessed claims, especially during the COVID-19 crisis, the IRS, which has long been hard to reach via phone, answered only a fraction of calls dialed in, according to Menendez’s team.

Law student Nicole Del Mauro said the greatest obstacle to helping her clients has been the near impossibility of getting an IRS representative on the phone. It has interfered with the students getting power of attorney, a requirement because they have not yet passed the bar.

Sometimes, they’ve had to advise clients to take the most expedient option rather than the best. “What’s fastest isn’t always the best legal strategy,’’ Del Mauro said.

source: https://www.newark.rutgers.edu/news/law-students-support-sen-bob-menendez-calling-irs-customer-service-reforms

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