When Erin Collins sat down with Terry Lemons, former IRS Chief of Communications and Liaison, at The Tax Retreat in San Antonio on Thursday, June 4, the room got something tax professionals do not always get from Washington: a candid conversation about what is working, what is not, and what taxpayers experience when the system breaks down.

Who TAS Is and What It Does

Collins is the National Taxpayer Advocate (NTA), which means she leads the Taxpayer Advocate Service, or TAS, an independent organization within the IRS. TAS is often described as the “voice of the taxpayer” inside the agency and before Congress.

TAS serves two core functions. First, it helps individual taxpayers and businesses resolve serious problems with the IRS when the ordinary channels are not working. Second, it identifies systemic problems in tax administration and calls for changes to improve the tax system.

That second role is easy to overlook, especially for taxpayers who know TAS only as the place to call when a refund is delayed, or a collection action threatens financial hardship. But Collins made clear that the NTA’s office is not simply an emergency room for individual cases. TAS also oversees the Low Income Taxpayer Clinic grant program, supports the Taxpayer Advocacy Panel, works with Congress, and issues reports identifying the most serious problems taxpayers face.

Staffing Losses and a Strained Organization

Collins told the audience that TAS has seen a significant spike in cases coming into the office and that inventory continues to climb. At the same time, TAS has lost roughly a quarter of its case advocates. Many of those employees were retirement-eligible but had not planned to retire. When the opportunity arose amid broader federal workforce cuts, Collins said, they “raised their hands.”

The result is a strained organization trying to do high-touch work with fewer experienced people who are carrying, on average, about 250 open cases. TAS’s goal has been to maintain regular contact with taxpayers, but high caseloads make that difficult. Collins acknowledged the pressure and said TAS is working to improve response times.

Making that challenging? TAS cases are not usually simple. They often involve taxpayers who have already tried the ordinary IRS process and failed to get relief. They may be facing financial hardship. They may be stuck in an IRS system delay. They may be dealing with identity theft, refund freezes, collection problems, or correspondence that does not clearly explain what happened or what to do next.

And, as Collins noted, the IRS processes roughly 200 million tax returns each year. Controversy—when things go wrong, or taxpayers disagree with the IRS—is a small piece of that universe, but for the taxpayers caught in it, the problem is anything but small.

A recurring theme in the discussion was that TAS is made up of people who care deeply about taxpayers. Collins described her employees as having “compassion” and referred to........

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