 Internal Revenue Service IRS Tax News. IRS unveils voice and chatbots to assist taxpayers with simple collection questions and tasks, provide faster service, reduce wait times, but first an attempt at a joke, I apologize in advance. After getting upset with a young IRS hipster agent who was lying to me, he informed me, lying isn't even a word anymore. It's called trolling, and it's not a bad thing. Trolling is totally cool. And I was like, so wait a second. Lying is cool now? The IRS hipster agent responding quite irritated, stop using that word. Nobody uses the word lying anymore. It's trolling. And yes, it's cool. I mean, haven't you ever turned on the news channels these days? Trolling's all they do. And I was like, yeah, they do seem to lie a lot on the news. It's called trolling. More functions coming later in 2022 to help taxpayers with more complex issues. IR2022-56, March 10, 2022, Washington, the Internal Revenue Service today announced it has begun using voice and chatbots on two of its specialized tool-free telephone assistance lines and IRS.gov, enabling taxpayers with simple payment or collection notice questions to give them more information. To get what they need quickly and avoid waiting time. Taxpayers can still speak with an IRS telephone representative if needed. Yeah, good luck with that. You can try. Now, back to the text. Quote, our telephone lines continue to see unprecedented demand and the IRS continues to look for ways to help people and avoid long wait times. And quote, said IRS Commissioner Chuck Reddit. Quote, our telephone representatives remain an important part of the service we provide. But these bots can help some people avoid lengthy phone delays for something that could be resolved on the spot. This was part of a large effort to help people get the assistance they need this tax season. Quote, the IRS in recent weeks has deployed voice and chatbots in English and Spanish for phone lines that assist taxpayers with tax payment issues or understanding an IRS notice they may have received. People with general tax questions generally will not encounter these features at this time. The bots are now available to help taxpayers with how to make one-time payments. Answer to frequently asked questions. Collection notice clarification. Drive people crazy. That last one I just added. These bots are software powered by artificial intelligence AI that allow a caller to navigate an interactive voice response IVR system with their voice generally using natural language. Chatbots simulate human conversation through web-based text interaction, also using AI-powered software to respond natural language prompts. The taxpayers who request to speak with a customer service representative will be placed in queue for English or Spanish ACS telephone assistance. So they don't turn off the zero button when you start talking to the bot. You could say, hopefully, you can still say, I need to talk someone, hit the zero button, and they still let you do that, apparently, so that you can then go into the queue or the waiting line for the next month and a half. But the IRS voice and chat bots currently provide unauthenticated services, which means they cannot provide assistance with a taxpayer's protected account information. So if you've got personal information about your particular circumstance and account, then the bot isn't going to be able to go into there. That's an answer as you would expect more general types of questions. So, quote, voice and chat bots interact with taxpayers in easy to follow ways. Okay, hopefully that's the case. That's, you know, not only they got to have some good bots over there, which hopefully they paid for some good bots, but in any case, which means taxpayers don't have to wait on hold to handle simple tasks, and, quote, said Doreen Gallat, Commissioner of Small Business Self-Employed Collection at IRS.gov, later in 2022 IRS voice bots will also enable taxpayers to authenticate their identity to establish payment plans, request a transcript and obtain information about their accounts. That would be a useful bot right there if they could do that, such as payoff details. So the IRS plans to roll out more voice and chat bots later in 2022 to assist taxpayers with more complex issues. That's great that the bots have wheels and they can roll them around like that too. In addition to the payment lines, voice bots help people calling with economic impact payments, EIP toll free line providing general procedural responses for frequently asked questions. The IRS also added voice bots for the advanced child tax credit toll free line in February to provide similar assistance to callers who need help reconciling the credits on their 2021 tax return. The IRS also reminds taxpayers about the numerous other self-service options that are available. There's links to that here. There'll be a link to this in the description.