 internal revenue service IRS tax news IRS expands voice bot options for faster service less wait time in response to taxpayer feedback saying hey IRS your wait time on your phone line it's ridiculous what are you gonna do about it the IRS response we hear you taxpayers and action it's been taken we've extended to brand-new automated bot responses to the phone lines what are they the first brand-new bot response says if you want answers to all tax questions just press number five after pressing number five it politely tells you please visit IRS.gov IRS.gov our IRS website and then hangs up on you freeing up the line for the next caller the second brand-new bot response says if you want to speak to a representative just press number six after pressing number six it then shames you for not wanting to interact with a bot you bot races then it tells you to stop pressing zero because we don't use that option anymore then it brings back the original options asking you please pick one which is less offensive we truly believe these changes will fix the telephone communications problems and address the feedback that we have been receiving I'm just kidding that's going to be the joking response here let's see what the IRS has to say for real assistance for eligible taxpayers in setting up or modifying payment plans now available more functions planned in 2022 to help taxpayers obtain account information voice bot video they got a link to the voice bot video here so you can check that out IR 2022-127 June 17th 2022 Washington the internal revenue service today announced expanded voice bot options to help eligible taxpayers easily verify their identity to set up or modify payment plans while avoiding long wait times so it sounds fairly mundane to me that they have added new bot options but possibly that could actually be a significant improvement and improve the situation in terms of the wait time so quote this is part of a wider effort at the IRS to help improve the experience of taxpayers in quotes that IRS Commissioner Chuck Reddick well that sounds good more bot communication well I'm sure that'll help but maybe it'll help I don't know quote we continue to look for ways to better assist taxpayers and that includes helping people avoid waiting on hold or having to make a second phone call to get what they need the expanded voice bots are another example of how technology can help the IRS provide better service to taxpayers I'm still skeptical but we'll see voice bots run on software powered by artificial intelligence which enables a caller to navigate an interactive voices response yes we've used them before they they're not always accommodating but maybe if you got a really good one if you got a really good one it can help I'm sure so the IRS had been using voice bots on numerous toll free lines since January enabling taxpayers with simple payment or notice questions to get what they need quickly and avoid waiting taxpayers can always speak with an English or Spanish speaking IRS telephone representative if needed that's great although it doesn't seem like they're always available because the wait times haven't gotten along at least especially during that covert time and the social distancing and all that kind of stuff so hopefully they're getting back online getting ready to rock and roll back in action here so eligible taxpayers who call the automated collection system the ACS and account managers toll free lines and want to discuss payment plan options can authenticate or verify their identities through a personal identification number a PIN creation process so that's kind of nice because that's one of the things that the IRS has been kind of slow about you can communicate with all other sensitive kind of communications with your bank for example fairly easily over the phone and automated services and online so you would think if it's secure enough for those things the iris can use similar kind of processes to give us the information that we're looking at and they're getting better on their websites hopefully they can get better on their automated stuff too so setting up a PIN is easy taxpayers will need their most recent IRS bill and some basic personal information to complete the process quote to date the voice boss have answered over three million calls holy moly the bots the bots have answered they've also made billions of tweets over the last couple days so bots are doing great their productivity is just amazing so as we add more functions to taxpayers to resolve their issues I anticipate many more taxpayers getting the service they need quickly and easily end quote said Doreen Gallat IRS deputy commissioner of small business slash self-employed collection and operation support that is quite the title that Darren Darren has Gallat quite the title it's like half the it's like half the article here is that title is amazing additional voice box service enhancements are planned in 2022 that will allow authenticated individuals taxpayers with established or newly created PINs to get account and return transcripts payment history current balance owed in addition to the payment lines voice bots help people who called the economic impact payment EIP toll-free line with general procedural responses to 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 credit on their 2021 tax return the IRS also remains reminds taxpayers about numerous other available self-service options but there's a link to that here that kind of tells us kind of seems to me like yeah please use the website in our bots and stop trying to stop trying to contact us like and just use the use the bot services but there's a link to that here maybe that'll be a significant improvement I'm still not exactly impressed with it personally but that maybe maybe I'm wrong I've been wrong before once or twice so there's links to a lot stuff here there'll be a link to this in the description