IRS LOOKING TO BLOCK LINE JUMPING:

The IRS is preparing a pilot program to use artificial intelligence technology to weed out phone queue-jumping services.

“Just this week, there was an internal announcement — but I’ve been authorized to talk about it externally — [of] a practitioner priority hotline enhancement which is an effort to deal with robocalls into the IRS, and specifically the autodialer programs,” Timothy McCormally of the IRS Office of Professional Responsibility said October 14 at the American Bar Association Section of Taxation meeting.

The IRS plans to use an AI tool to sort out those autodialed calls and prevent line-cutting through technology, McCormally said.

If it works, tax professionals who have their own programs or use services like enQ Inc. may become frustrated, McCormally said.

“That’s going to be rolled out in a pilot sometime soon. But we’re making an effort to deal with the autodialer problem that has caused an awful lot of you to spend a lot more time on hold,” McCormally said.

An alternative solution — a callback service without the initial call — will be introduced shortly.