The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has updated taxpayers on its “dramatically expanded service” during the 2024 tax filing season.
Due to funding granted by the Inflation Reduction Act, the IRS says it has made a range of improvements to help taxpayers, including answering more than a million more phone calls than in the previous tax season and increasing the number of filers who are eligible to file for free. The act, introduced by the Biden administration in 2022, gave the IRS $80 billion in additional funding.
“Taxpayers continued to see major improvements from the IRS during the 2024 tax season,” said IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel. “A well-funded IRS is like night and day for taxpayers. With the help of more funding and added resources, service for taxpayers this filing season eclipsed levels seen during the past decade. This tax season meant real-world improvements for people looking for help, whether calling, visiting in-person or using IRS.gov.”
In a release issued on April 15, the deadline day for federal returns, the IRS said it answered 7,608,000 calls, up from 6,513,000 in 2023. Even with a higher density of calls, the IRS said it reduced waiting times for help on main IRS phone lines from 28 minutes in the 2022 season to three minutes in 2024.
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It also drew attention to the fact it helped more than 170,000 more taxpayers seeking in-person assistance at its offices, totaling 648,000, up from 474,000 in 2023—a 37 percent increase.
One of the biggest changes for some taxpayers this year was the launch of IRS Direct File, which allowed eligible filers in 12 pilot states to submit simple tax returns completely free of charge, directly with the IRS. Direct File “generated more than 60,000 tax returns after opening widely in mid-March,” the IRS said, compared to an estimated 19 million eligible users. This means only 0.3 percent of the pool of eligible taxpayers used the new system. Newsweek has contacted the IRS via email for comment outside of normal working hours.
Read more: IRS Tax Deadline Extensions Are Available in These States
However, the number of users opting for the preexisting free filing option rose. The IRS said its partnership with “Free File partners offering free private-sector software via IRS.gov saw growth with more than 2 million tax returns filed, an increase of 11.2 percent or more than 200,000 more Free File returns than 2023.”
“We still have much more work to do, both to finish the 2024 tax season as well as put in place continued improvements made possible by Inflation Reduction Act funding,” Werfel said. “But this filing season marks another important chapter where we’ve improved service for taxpayers, continuing an accelerating trend in the story of transforming the IRS.”
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